Precept and Practice – OCTOBER 27 – The Simple Life

In order to teach men how to be satisfied, it is necessary fully to understand the art and joy of humble life,  – this, at present, of all arts or sciences being the one most needing study.   Humble life, –  that is to say, proposing to itself no future exaltation, but only a sweet continuance;  not excluding the idea of foresight, but wholly of fore-sorrow, and taking no troublous thought for coming days;  so, also, not excluding the idea of providence, or pro-vision, but wholly of accumulation;-  the life of domestic affection and domestic peace, full of sensitiveness to all elements of costless and kind pleasure;-  therefore, chiefly to the loveliness of the natural world.

Ruskin

To do with as few things as we can, and, as far as we can, to see to it that these things are the work of freemen and not of slaves;  these two seem to me to be the main duties to be fulfilled by those who wish to live a life at once free and refined, serviceable to others, and pleasant to themselves. 

William Morris

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From the Introduction to Precept and Practice

The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.

The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;-  with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;-  with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.

CONSTANCE  M. WHISHAW