Nikos Kazantzakis Quotes

People say, 'Well everybody needs a cellphone.' Well, what does 'need' mean? Do you need an iPad? How about a computer? A printer?

We must not think of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can't do without.

I don't buy much. Almost buy nothing. I buy what I need, do it the easiest way possible.

I can do without a television or a telephone, I think.

I've learned that you don't need a lot in life. If it can't fit into a suitcase, you don't really need it.

I have a few toys. But I live very simply.

What do you actually need? Food, clothing and shelter. Everything else is entertainment.

Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.

Be satisfied with needs instead of wants.

We shall have to practise to lead our life on the basis of our needs, not under the influence of our greed.

What a lot of things there are a man can do without.

Thanks be to blessed Nature that she has made what is necessary easy to obtain, and what is not easy unnecessary.

The less I needed, the better I felt.

With respect to physical existence, one needs little, and to the degree that one needs less, the more perfect one is.

Buddha says: Life should be simple, not complex. Life should be based on needs, not on desires. Needs are perfectly okay: you need food, you need clothes, you need a shelter, you need love, you need relationship. Perfectly good, nothing wrong in it. Needs can be fulfilled; desires are basically unfulfillable. Desires create complexity. They create complexity because they can never be fulfilled. You go on and on working hard for them, and they remain unfulfilled, and you remain empty.

It is only luxury and avarice that make poverty grievous to us; for it is a very small matter that does our business, and when we have provided against cold, hunger, and thirst, all the rest is but vanity and excess.

I'm not the poorest president. The poorest is the one who needs a lot to live.

In my life, what I want and what I need are exactly the same. Anything in excess of needs is burdensome to me. You couldn't give me anything I don't need. I am penniless, but have difficulty remaining so. Several of my well meaning, well-to-do friends have offered me large sums of money, which I of course refused.

Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very foundation of refinement.

I'm in a state of my life when the essential is very important to me. I don't like long songs with complicated arrangements and breaks anymore.

A small room is enough; a small quantity of food is enough; a few clothes are enough; one lover, a very ordinary man

What we really need is to realize how little we really need.

From innumerable complexities we must grow to simplicity; we must become simple in our inward life and in our outward needs.

The natural wants are few, and easily gratified: it is only those which are artificial that perplex us by their multiplicity.

Before buying anything, it is well to ask if one could do without it.