Audrey Hepburn Quotes

The very longing for contentment that ought to drive us to simplicity of life and labors of love contents itself instead with the broken cisterns of prosperity and comfort.

We were all brought up to want things and maybe the world isn't big enough for all that wanting. I don't know. I don't know anything

I am totally unattached to material items.

I'm not an overly material person. Sure, I like certain comforts in life. But buying a lot of 'things' doesn't produce happiness for me.

Individually, people are finding that a simpler lifestyle provides greater satisfaction than relentless pursuit of materialism.

Other people have more than they need, I alone seem wanting.

I have no use for eight houses, 88 cars and 500 suits. I can't eat but one steak at a time. I don't want but one woman. It's silly to have as one's sole object in life just making money, accumulating wealth.

That man has the fewest wants who is the least anxious for wealth.

I sometimes think that the size of our happiness is inversely proportional to the size of our house.

Men live best upon a little; Nature has given to all the privilege of being happy, if they but knew how to use their gifts.

I do not live happily or comfortably With the cleverness of our times. The talk is all about computers, The news is all about bombs and blood. This morning, in the fresh field, I came upon a hidden nest. It held four warm, speckled eggs. I touched them. Then went away softly, Having felt something more wonderful Than all the electricity of New York City.

Half of the confusion in the world comes from not knowing how little we need.

Poor is the man who desires a lot

We complain and complain, but we have lived and seen the blossom -apple, pear, cherry, plum, almond blossom - in the sun; and the best among us cannot pretend they deserve - or could contrive - anything better.

The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is not mortification, a penance. It is joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. But we are perfectly happy.

I used to think that having many material things would increase one's stock of happiness. I found that to be completely untrue. The trappings don't make the man at all.

The more wants a man has, the less freedom.

Man needs so little... yet he begins wanting so much.

Guys, just remember, if you get lucky, if you make a lot of money, if you get out and buy a lot of stuff--it's gonna break. You got your biggest, fanciest mansion in the world. It has air conditioning. It's got a pool. Just think of all the pumps that are going to go out. Or go to a yacht basin any place in the world. Nobody is smiling, and I'll tell you why. Something broke that morning. The generator's out; the microwave oven doesn't work . . . Things just don't mean happiness.

The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less.

The question becomes not just how to accumulate more, but how to covet less.

Nature is content with little; grace with less; but lust with nothing.

Contentment consist not in adding more fuel, but in taking away some fire.

Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man's happiness really lies in contentment.

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.