Simple Sunday: Emerson

“The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fall in Colorado 2012 {photo by Carrie Caverly}

Simple Sunday: Thoreau

“Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.  With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor.  The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward.”

— from “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau

Simple Sunday: Geese

“Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher ‘standard of living’ is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important that television.”

– Aldo Leopold

 

Simple Sunday

“Anything else you’re interested in is not going to happen if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water.  Don’t sit this one out.  Do something.”

– Carl Sagan

Simple Sunday

“When every possible need is satisfied before we even have a chance to perceive and respond to it, creativity and resourcefulness can’t flourish.  We become victims of the great disease of technological society — meaninglessness. … Besides damaging the human spirit, unquestioning dependence on machines is bad for the human body.  Henry Fairlie, essayist for the Washington Post, analyzes it like this:

Simple Sunday

“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” 

     ~William Morris

Simple Sunday

“To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter… to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird’s nest or a wildflower in spring – these are some of the rewards of the simple life.” 

      ~John Burroughs

Simple Sunday

“The amount of electricity you use is directly proportionate to the long-term damage your lifestyle inflicts upon your ecology.  Cultivate an outdoor life, rich in experience rather than gadgetry.  Go outside and garden.  Go for a walk.  Stretch.  Sing.  Play an instrument.  Write poetry.  Tell jokes.  Talk to your neighbors.  Daydream.  Hang out with dogs and cats.  Watch birds, go swimming.  Take a nap.  Cook.  Read.  Play with children.  Dance.  Make.  Love.”

— H.C. Flores, Food not Lawns

Simple Sunday

 

“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