The Simple Life

The Inspiring and Timeless Bestseller Offering A Conscious Alternative to Consumer Culture.

“Joy is not in things, it is in us, and I hold to the belief that the causes of our present unrest, of this contagious discontent spreading everywhere, are in us at least as much as in exterior conditions.”

“If there are people at once rich and content, be assured that they are content because they know how to be so, not because they are rich.”

"The spirit of simplicity is a great magician. It softens asperities, bridges chasms, draws together hands and hearts. The forms which it takes in the world are infinite in number; but never does it seem to us more admirable than when it shows itself across the fatal barriers of position, interest, or prejudice, overcoming the greatest obstacles, permitting those whom everything seems to separate to understand one another, esteem one another, love one another. This is the true social cement, that goes into the building of a people."

CONTENTS

I. OUR COMPLEX LIFE

II. THE ESSENCE OF SIMPLICITY

III. SIMPLICITY OF THOUGHT

IV. SIMPLICITY OF SPEECH

V. SIMPLE DUTY

VI. SIMPLE NEEDS

VII. SIMPLE PLEASURES

VIII. THE MERCENARY SPIRIT AND SIMPLICITY

IX. NOTORIETY AND THE INGLORIOUS GOOD

X. THE WORLD AND THE LIFE OF THE HOME

XI. SIMPLE BEAUTY

XII. PRIDE AND SIMPLICITY IN THE INTERCOURSE OF MEN

XIII. THE EDUCATION FOR SIMPLICITY

XIV. CONCLUSION