120 Minimalist Quotes to Simply Live Your Best Life in 2023
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Prepare to connect with these 120 minimalist quotes on a spiritual level!
If you are looking for quotes about minimalism from the minimalist documentary Less is Now, Marie Kondo quotes, or aesthetic minimalist quotes to put on your journal or vision board then you will love these simple quotes about minimalism.
120 Best Minimalist Quotes
Slowly browse these minimalist quotes, reading them carefully and intentionally, and see which ones resonate with your personal beliefs and goals.
- “Enough is a decision, not an amount.” ~Alison Faulkner
- “The average American spends 55 minutes a day looking for things they cannot find.” ~ Newsweek
- “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “Inexpensive is not a good reason to buy something, & expensive is not a good reason to keep something.” ~ Peter Walsh
- “You can’t reach for anything new if your hands are still full of yesterday’s junk.” ~ Louise Smith
- “Edit your life frequently and ruthlessly. It’s your masterpiece after all.” ~ Nathan Morris
- “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.” ~ Will Rogers
- “Less is more.” ~ Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe
READ MORE: Less is More: 21 Reasons to Make It Your Mantra for Life
- “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.” ~ The White Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland
- “Minimalism is not the lack of something. It is simply the perfect amount of something.” ~ Najahyia Chinchilla
- “For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
- “The more I threw away, the more I found.” ~ Don DeLillo
- “More was never the answer. The answer, it turned out, was always less.” ~ Cait Flanders
- “Decluttering is my favorite form of self-care.” ~ Melissa Russel
- “It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.” ~ Bertrand Russel
- “The more you own the more it owns you.” ~ Henry Rollins
- “Look around. All that clutter used to be money. All that money used to be time.”
- “External clutter is internal clutter on display.” ~ Katy Wells
- “Minimalism means not trying to improve perfection.” ~ Bryant McGill
- “Value is not indicated by volume.” ~ Unknown
- “Get rid of clutter and you may just find it was blocking the door you’ve been looking for.” ~ Katrina Mayer
- “One can furnish a room very luxuriously by taking out furniture rather than putting it in.” ~ Francis Jourdain
- “People are not disturbed by things, but by the views they take of them.” ~ Epictetus
- “What is yours will find you.” ~ Imam Ali
- “Just because something made you happy in the past doesn’t mean you have to keep it forever.” ~ Melva Green
- “Happiness is not having what you want. It is wanting what you have.” ~ Rabbi Hyman Schachtel
- “If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more?” ~ Roy T. Bennett
- “The more you have, the more you are occupied. The less you have, the more free you are.” ~ Mother Teresa
- “We were a society dying of too much choice.” ~ Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
- “You buy stuff with your time, not just your money.” ~ Allie Casazza
- “Too often people will overcomplicate the process of decluttering their belongings because it’s easier to create a complex organization system than to actually let things go.” ~ Mia Danielle
- “There is no “right time”. There is just time and what you choose to do with it.” ~ naramdil
- “If you don’t love or use it, it’s clutter.” ~ Unknown
- “People sacrifice too much life to get more stuff.” ~ James Wallman
- “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” ~ Leonardo Da Vinci
READ MORE: 70 Simple Living Quotes to Embrace the Joy of a Simple Life
- “Buy less, choose well, make it last.” ~ Vivienne Westwood
- “Your home should be the antidote to stress, not the cause of it.” ~ Peter Walsh
- “We need much less than we think.” ~ Maya Angelou
- “If you’re brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello.” ~ Paulo Coelho
- “Clutter is the enemy of clarity.” ~ Julia Cameron
- “Collect moments, not objects.” ~ Unknown
- “Focus on having the life you want, not wanting the life you had.” ~ Marissa Zen
- “One can with but moderate possessions do what one ought.” ~ Aristotle
- “Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
- “It is not daily increase but daily decrease; hack away the unessential.” ~ Bruce Lee
- “I am a minimalist. I like saying the most with the least.” ~ Bob Newheart
- “It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich according to what he is, not according to what he has.” ~ Henry Ward Beecher
- “How much does he lack himself, he who must have many things?” ~ Sen no Rikyū
- “Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” ~ Lao Tzu
- “Some things cost way more when we keep them.” ~ Neeraj Agnihotri
RELATED POST: 15 Minimalist Shopping Tips to Save Money & Be Mindful
10 Marie Kondo Quotes
Japanese tidying guru Marie Kondo isn’t technically a minimalist, but her gentle philosophies about decluttering and sparking joy definitely resonate with minimalists!
Here are the best quotes from Marie Kondo, famous for her KonMari method of decluttering and vertical folding technique.
Want to know more? Check out these Marie Kondo books below or browse these related posts:
- FREE 5-Page Complete KonMari Checklist
- KonMari Clothing Declutter
- KonMari Book Declutter
- KonMari Paper Declutter
- KonMari Kitchen Declutter
- KonMari Toy Declutter
- “Have gratitude for the things you’re discarding. By giving gratitude, you’re giving closure to the relationship with that object, and by doing so, it becomes a lot easier to let go.”
- “Tidy a little a day and you’ll be tidying forever.”
- “I have yet to see a house that lacked sufficient storage. The real problem is that we have far more than we need or want.”
- “We should be choosing what we want to keep, not what we want to get rid of.”
- “The best way to choose what to keep and what to throw away is to take each item in one’s hand and ask: ‘Does this spark joy?’ If it does, keep it. If not, dispose of it. This is not only the simplest but also the most accurate yardstick by which to judge.”
- “The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past.”
- “People cannot change their habits without first changing their way of thinking.”
- “Visible mess helps distract us from the true source of the disorder.”
- “There’s no need to finish reading books that you only got halfway through. Their purpose was to be read halfway.”
- “I recommend you dispose of anything that does not fall into one of three categories: currently in use, needed for a limited period of time, or must be kept indefinitely.”
BE INSPIRED: 101 Marie Kondo Quotes & Sayings to Spark Joy in Your Life
10 Quotes from The Minimalists
Ryan Nicodemus and Joshua Fields Millburn are two of the earliest minimalism bloggers and have had not one, but TWO documentaries detailing their minimalist journey.
Want to know more?
Here are more books and videos from The Minimalists.
- “The point is that minimalism is a tool to help you achieve freedom. Freedom from fear, freedom from worry, freedom from overwhelm, freedom from guilt, freedom from depression, freedom from enslavement. Freedom. Real freedom.”
- Minimalism looks different for everyone because it’s about finding what is essential to you.
- “Minimalism is a tool to eliminate life’s excess, focus on the essentials, and find happiness, fulfillment, and freedom.”
- “Truthfully, though, most organizing is nothing more than well-planned hoarding.”
- “Ultimately most of us come to believe there’s more value in a paycheck—and all the stuff that paycheck can buy us—than there is in life itself.”
- “You can’t change the people around you, but you can change the people around you.”
- “Love people, use things. The opposite doesn’t work.”
- “Adding value to someone else’s life is one of the most important things you can do with your life, and it has nothing to do with money.”
- “It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”
- “People often avoid the truth for fear of destroying the illusions they’ve built.”
10 Joshua Becker Quotes on Becoming Minimalist & Minimalism
Joshua Becker is a well-known and respected pillar of the minimalism community. He has written several practical books on the topic of minimalism, including how to become a minimalist with a family!
Want to know more about Joshua Becker? Check out the books below.
- “Minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of anything that distracts us from it.”
- “Owning less is better than wanting more.”
- “Stop trying to impress others with your stuff and start trying to impress them with your life.”
- “The first step in crafting the life you want is to get rid of everything you don’t.”
- “Don’t just declutter, de-own.”
- “If you are not content today, there is nothing you can buy tomorrow to change that.”
- “Your life is far too valuable to be wasted on the life that everyone else is choosing.”
- “Be who you are, not who you wished to be.”
- “Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day. 1.1 billion people have inadequate access to clean water and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation. Let those facts sink in for just a moment… and slowly allow gratitude and a desire to become part of the solution find a place in your heart.”
- “Kids who don’t learn boundaries become adults who don’t set them.”
10 Fumio Sasaki quotes
Fumio Sasaki is a famous Japanese minimalism practitioner known for his extreme minimalist lifestyle.
Want to know more about Fumio Sasaki and New Japanese Minimalism? Check out the books below.
- “Minimalism is built around the idea that there’s nothing that you’re lacking.”
- “Want to know how to make yourself instantly unhappy? Compare yourself with someone else.”
- “If it’s not a “hell, yes!” it’s a “no.”
- “When given too many choices, people tend to worry that there’s something better out there than what they decided on.”
- “It seems to me that this fear of regret is what prevents us from saying goodbye.”
- “The more you like your possessions, the more knowledgeable you’ll become on the brands and their backgrounds. There is a sense of wonder to things that we truly value.”
- “To me, DIY means minimizing dependency on what others make for me.”
- “If you ask me what minimalism is really about, I would say that it’s the altering of values – enter the small doors of minimalism and come out on the other side with big ideas.”
- “It’s not as though you feel satisfied after collecting a certain amount of stuff. Instead, you keep thinking about what you’re missing.”
- “There are more things to gain from eliminating excess than you might imagine: time, space, freedom, and energy, for example.”
10 Courtney Carver Quotes
Courtney Carver, who blogs at Be More with Less spent most of her life sick, stressed out, and under-inspired. After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2006 she decided to make some big changes.
She created her blog as well as Project 333, a minimalist capsule wardrobe challenge. She has also written multiple books, such as the ones listed below.
- “I finally figured it out. Instead of working so hard to make ends meet, work on having fewer ends.”
- “Getting rid of everything that doesn’t matter allows you to remember who you are. Simplicity doesn’t change who you are, it brings you back to who you are.”
- “You won’t look back and remember the time you didn’t complete your to-do list, but you may look back and remember the beautiful life you lived.”
- “We dismiss opportunities every day by telling ourselves we can’t do it. We give in to fear. It’s good to think things through, but trust yourself to try new things too.”
- “I refuse to live in fear of not having enough.”
- “When we focus more on fitting it all in instead of making time f6or what counts, we lose sight of how to create a meaningful life.”
- “The people who get upset about you setting boundaries are the ones who were benefiting from you having none.”
- “If organizing your stuff worked, you’d be organized by now.”
- “Your stuff does not have the power to change your life. Nothing you buy will make you a better person. Only you can do that. Start to think about what really matters to you. If you aren’t sure at first, don’t worry. Sometimes you have to get rid of the things that don’t matter to let the things that do rise to the surface.”
- “Start to think about what really matters to you. If you aren’t sure at first, don’t worry. Sometimes you have to get rid of the things that don’t matter to let the things that do rise to the surface.”
10 Leo Babauta Quotes
Leo Babauta lives with his wife and children (six in total) in California and blogs at Zen Habits. He has written many books on simple living and minimalism.
- “Instead of focusing on how much you can accomplish, focus on how much you can absolutely love what you’re doing.”
- “The life you have left is a gift. Cherish it. Enjoy it now, to the fullest. Do what matters, now. Instead of focusing on how much you can accomplish, focus on how much you can absolutely love what you’re doing.”
- “Be a curator of your life. Slowly cut things out until you’re left only with what you love, with what’s necessary, with what makes you happy.”
- “Sometimes hard stuff needs to be done in order to make the stuff you love possible”
- “Clutter is a manifestation of a) holding onto the past and b) fear of what might happen in the future.”
- “Happiness isn’t in the future, it’s not somewhere else. It’s available right inside us, right now, all the time.”
- “Pause. Breathe. Let all of that fade.”
- “Failure is simply an indicator that something in our method needs to be changed.”
- “Doing a huge number of things doesn’t mean you’re getting anything meaningful done.”
- “At the end of the day, the questions we ask of ourselves determine the type of people that we will become.”
READ MORE: 101 Positive Thinking Quotes for Good Thoughts & Vibes
10 Francine Jay Quotes
Francine Jay, also known as Miss Minimalist, has helped hundreds of thousands of people declutter their homes through her blog and books, which have been translated into twenty languages.
- “My goal is no longer to get more done, but rather to have less to do.”
- “We are not what we own; we are what we do, what we think, and who we love.”
- “The problem: we put more value on our stuff than on our space”
- “Your home is living space, not storage space.”
- “He who knows he has enough is rich.”
- “At some point, I realized that I wasn’t organizing my life; I was organizing my clutter.”
- “Remember, your stuff is not a record of your life – you are.”
- “Happiness is wanting what we have.”
- “Anything you use often, and which truly adds value to your life, is a welcome part of a minimalist household”
- “If a certain item is really that special, display it proudly in the house; it’s not proving anything to anyone stashed away in the basement.”
I hope that you enjoyed these minimalist quotes and sayings!
Remember, it’s never too late to get started living minimally and there are plenty of experts who would love to help you find your way.
You can also sign up to take the FREE 30-Day Minimalism Challenge to get started uncluttering your entire life.
On that note, I am going to leave you with one final quote, from Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu:
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
– LAO TZU
I also handpicked my top ten favorite minimalist quotes of all time from this list and compiled them in this zen YouTube video — enjoy!
READ MORE:
- 10 Benefits of Minimalism (That Experts SWEAR Are True!)
- Top 20 Be Yourself Quotes to Embrace the Skin You Are In!
- 10 Fantasy Self Items to Declutter RIGHT NOW!