99 Powerful Minimalist Quotes for Inspiration

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This list of the best and most impactful minimalist quotes will inspire you on your minimalism journey!

Do you want to become a minimalist but are still skeptical that this is the right choice for you, and you face a blockage to get started?

Or are you in the middle of your journey, but you feel mentally or physically cluttered and find it hard to stick to your plan?

By now, you might already know what minimalism means and what the benefits of a minimalist lifestyle are, but maybe you need an extra pinch of inspiration for your journey.

Here I’ve got some powerful minimalist quotes for you that will boost your motivation and help you pare down with ease.

The impact of motivational quotes

Your journey to minimalism is defined by your own set of values and beliefs, but when you feel lost or need inspiration, quotes are an insightful way to connect with others who have already paved their paths.

The list was supposed to stay small, but as I found more and more philosophers, authors, writers, famous figures, and influencers with great wisdom and experience in minimalism, it grew into a quite comprehensive list with tons of strong simplicity quotes.

Let these short quotes speak to your heart as they carry powerful messages that can influence you for the rest of your life.

99 best minimalism quotes that will inspire you

“You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.”
– Vernon Howard
“Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.”
– Isaac Newton
“In order to seek one’s own direction, one must simplify the mechanics of ordinary, everyday life.”
– Plato
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
– Leonardo da Vinci
“Simple pleasures are the last healthy refuge in a complex world.”
– Oscar Wilde
“Minimalism isn’t about owning less than you need. It’s about owning exactly what you need.”
– Joshua Becker
“Minimalists search for happiness not through things, but through life itself; thus, it’s up to you to determine what is necessary and what is superfluous to your life.”
– Joshua Fields Millburn
“Minimalism is built around the idea that there’s nothing that you’re lacking.”
– Fumio Sasaki
“The more you have, the more you are occupied. The less you have, the more free you are.”
– Mother Teresa
“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
“Minimalism isn’t about removing things you love. It’s about removing the things that distract you from the things you love.”
– Joshua Becker
“If our lives are burdened with clutter, we’re giving the best of ourselves away to the things that matter least.”
– Erica Layne
“Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves.”
– Edwin Way Teale
“There are more things to gain from eliminating excess than you might imagine: time, space, freedom, and energy, for example.”
– Fumio Sasaki
“Collect moments, not things.” – Paulo Coelho
“Want to know how to make yourself instantly unhappy? Compare yourself with someone else.”
– Fumio Sasaki
“Minimalism is a tool we use to live a meaningful life. There are no rules. Rather, minimalism is simply about stripping away the unnecessary things in your life so you can focus on what’s important” – Joshua Fields Millburn, Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life
“Clutter is not just the stuff on your floor – it’s anything that stands between you and the life you want to be living.”
– Peter Walsh
“Digital minimalism definitively does not reject the innovations of the internet age, but instead rejects the way so many people currently engage with these tools.”
– Cal Newport
“Keep only those things that speak to your heart. Then take the plunge and discard all the rest.”
– Marie Kondō
“Contentment comes not so much from great wealth as from few wants.”
– Epictetus
“I make myself rich by making my wants few.”
– Henry David Thoreau
“Purposefully owning less begins to take us out of the unwinnable game of comparison.”
– Joshua Becker
“We all know that possessions do not equal happiness. It’s just that we’ve been told this lie for so long that we start to believe it, our hearts start to buy into it, and it begins to affect the way we live our lives.”
– Joshua Fields Millburn
A minimalist realizes that acquiring stuff doesn’t make us happy. That earning more and having more are meaningless. That filling your life with busy-ness and freneticism isn’t desirable, but something to be avoided. A minimalist values quality, not quantity, in all forms.”
– Leo Babauta
“Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.”
– Will Rogers
“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”
– Seneca
“Now, before I spend money I ask myself one question: Is this worth my freedom? Like: Is this coffee worth two dollars of my freedom? Is this shirt worth thirty dollars of my freedom? Is this car worth thirty thousand dollars of my freedom? In other words, am I going to get more value from the thing I’m about to purchase, or am I going to get more value from my freedom?” – Joshua Fields Millburn
“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.”
– Socrates
“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.”
– Leo Babauta
“I’ve learned that minimalism is not about what you own, it’s about why you own it.”
– Brian Gardner
“The best present is presence. You see, the people I care about mean much more to me than a new pair of shoes or a shiny new gadget or even a certified pre-owned luxury car with a huge bow on top. And yet, many of us attempt to give material items to make up for the time we don’t spend with the people we love.” – The Minimalists
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
– Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“Taking time for ourselves, especially when we’re overwhelmed and don’t want to, helps declutter the mind. Everyone has twenty minutes a day to clear their mental clutter.”
– Joshua Fields Millburn
“Owning less is better than organizing more.” – Joshua Becker
“Remember, your memories are not stored in the object; the memories are in you.” – Joshua Becker
“I finally figured it out. Instead of working so hard to make ends meet, work on having fewer ends.” – Courtney Carver
“Minimalism is just the beginning. It’s a tool. Once you’ve gone ahead and minimized, it’s time to find out what those important things are.”
– Fumio Sasaki
“A great principle of minimalism is using the minimum amount of resources, which accords perfectly with our present-day need for sustainability.”
– Dr. Prem Jagyasi
“Our excessive possessions are not making us happy. Even worse, they are taking us away from the things that do. Once we let go of the things that don’t matter, we are free to pursue all the things that really do matter.”
– Joshua Becker
“Minimizing forces us to confront our stuff, and our stuff forces us to confront ourselves.”
– Joshua Becker
“Holding on to things from the past is the same as clinging to an image of yourself in the past. If you’re the least bit interested in changing anything about yourself, I suggest you be brave and start letting things go.”
– Fumio Sasaki
“If one’s life is simple, contentment has to come. Simplicity is extremely important for happiness. Having few desires, feeling satisfied with what you have, is very vital: satisfaction with just enough food, clothing, and shelter to protect yourself from the elements.”
– The Dalai Lama
“I’ve found that the less stuff I own, the less my stuff owns me.” – Nathan W. Morris
“You don’t need more space. You need less stuff.”
– Joshua Becker
“Minimalism is a repeated, daily choice to be intentional about what you allow into your life—and this is so much more important than a one-off decluttering binge.”
– Jennifer – SimplyFiercely.com
“There are two ways to be rich: One is by acquiring much, and the other is by desiring little.”
– Jackie French Koller
“Ultimately, minimalism is the thing that gets us past the things so we can focus on life’s most important things—which actually aren’t things at all.”
– Joshua Fields Millburn
“Picture your dream home. I bet it’s not filled with clutter.”
– Joshua Becker
“Minimalism is asking why before you buy.”
– Francine Jay
“If you need nice things to impress your friends, you have the wrong friends.”
– Joshua Becker
“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.”
– Courtney Carver
“Minimalism is the constant art of editing your life.”
– Danny Dover
“Truthfully, though, most organizing is nothing more than well-planned hoarding.”
– Joshua Fields Millburn
“If we want more healing and peace in the world, let us each start with our homes, our relationships, our mindsets, and ourselves.”
– Lisa J. Shultz
“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
– William Morris
“Minimalism is really about reassessment of priorities, so you can remove unnecessary things from your life; get rid of things like possessions, activities, and relationships that do not improve or bring value to your life.”
– Jane Andrews
“Minimalism means not trying to improve perfection.”
– Bryant McGill
“The first step in crafting the life you want is to get rid of everything you don’t.”
– Joshua Becker
“The numerous choices you have around yourself are often superficial; they don’t matter. The art lies in doing more with less. Minimal requirements, more work.”
– Vishal Ostwal
“I am a minimalist. I like saying the most with the least.”
– Bob Newhart
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.”
– E.F. Schumacher
“This is the beautiful secret of minimalism: It may seem like it’s about stuff, but once you’ve cut through the clutter and adopted a new frame of mind, you learn that it’s barely about ‘the stuff’ at all.”
– Erica Layne
“Purity and simplicity are the two wings with which man soars above the earth and all temporary nature.”
– Thomas Kempis
“Minimalism is a tool to eliminate life’s excess, focus on the essentials, and find happiness, fulfillment, and freedom.” – Joshua Fields Millburn
“Simplicity is the glory of expression.”
– Walt Whitman
“I have my own definition of minimalism, which is that which is created with a minimum of means.”
– La Monte Young
“Minimalism looks different for everyone because it’s about finding what is essential to you.”
– Joshua Fields Millburn
“Minimalism is not the lack of something. It is simply the perfect amount of something.”
– Najahyia Chinchilla
“The question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life.”
– Marie Kondō
“The simplest things are often the truest.”
– Richard Bach
“Your home is living space, not storage space.”
– Francine Jay
“I Would Rather Have Extra Space And Extra Time Than Extra Stuff.”
– Francine Jay
“It is always the simple that produces the marvelous.”
– Amelia Barr
“It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.”
– Bertrand Russell
“Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.” – Charles Dudley Warner
“We’re living our life depending on the space we’ve got rather than creating our space to fit our lives.”
– Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus
“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.”
– Marie Kondō
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
– Hans Hofmann
“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.”
– Fumio Sasaki
“Edit your life frequently and ruthlessly. It’s your masterpiece after all.”
– Nathan W. Morris
“More was never the answer. The answer, it turned out, was always less.”
– Cait Flanders
“I’m a big believer in minimalism. Not materialist minimalism, although that’s part of it, but time and energy minimalism. The body is given only so much energy a day.”
– James Altucher
“Keep only those things that speak to your heart. Then take the plunge and discard all the rest. By doing this, you can reset your life and embark on a new lifestyle.”
– Marie Kondō
“Living with only the bare essentials has not only provided superficial benefits such as the pleasure of a tidy room or the simple ease of cleaning, it has also led to a more fundamental shift. It’s given me a chance to think about what it really means to be happy.” – Fumio Sasaki
“To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one’s own in the midst of abundance.” – Buddha
“Reduce what you have. Decrease what you want.”
– Jonathan Star
“For Me, A Calm House Equals A Calm Heart Equals A Calm Life.” – Erica Layne
“Let the people in your life find their own way, just as you are finding yours. If you want others to see the joy in less, live joyfully with less.” – Courtney Carver
You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.” – Vernon Howard
“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.” – Henry David Thoreau
“That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
– Steve Jobs
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
– Confucious
“It’s better to have extra time on your hands and extra money in your pocket than extra stuff in your closet.”
– Joshua Becker
“If one had taken what is necessary to cover one’s needs and had left the rest to those who are in need, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, no one would be in need.”
– Saint Basil
“Minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of anything that distracts us from it.” – Joshua Becker
“In the rush of today’s world, and with more than half of us now living in cities, the majority of people are less and less connected with the spectacle of nature.”– Louise Leakey
“The more we gave up, the more we gained.”
– Courtney Ellis
“Fill your life with lots of experiences, not lots of things. Have incredible stories to tell, not incredible clutter in your closets.”
– MarcAndAngel

Ray Arya

Ray is a frugal minimalist who loves to travel and live in his self-converted camper van. He writes about the benefits of downsizing, decluttering, saving money, building wealth, and the freedom that results from the power of less. Minimalray.com is for everyone who seeks a meaningful life and is committed to contentment.