Quotes from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life

Joshua Fields Millburn ·  119 pages

Rating: (3.7K votes)


“You needn't settle for a mediocre life just because the people around you did.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life


“Success = Happiness + Constant Improvement”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life


“We weren’t downsizing, we were uprising.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life


“Unless you contribute beyond yourself, your life will feel perpetually self-serving. It’s okay to operate in your own self-interest, but doing so exclusively creates an empty existence. A life without contribution is a life without meaning. The truth is that giving is living. We only feel truly alive when we are growing as individuals and contributing beyond ourselves. That’s what a real life is all about.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life


“The people who are rebelling meaningfully  don't buy a lot of stuff. —David Foster Wallace”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life



“We only have a finite amount of time on this earth. It can be spent accumulating monetary wealth, or it can be spent in a meaningful way—the latter of which doesn’t necessarily preclude someone from the former, but the relentless pursuit of riches doesn’t lead to a meaningful life.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life


“Real happiness, however, comes from who we are—from who we’ve become. Real happiness comes from within. Likewise, discontentment is also a result of who we’ve become.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life


“Honesty is a gift we can give others. It is also a source of power and an engine of simplicity,” Dr. Sam Harris wrote in his book, Lying. He continued by stating, “Knowing that we will attempt to tell the truth, whatever the circumstances, leaves us with little to prepare for. We can simply be ourselves.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life


“Five Values that allow us to live a meaningful life: 1. Health 2. Relationships 3. Passions 4. Growth 5. Contribution”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life


“We feel safe around authentic people, as if we could reveal to them our deepest, darkest secrets, as if we could trust them with anything. And when we get to know these people on a deeper level—when we establish a connection with them—it’s refreshing to discover they are who we thought they were, that beneath the surface they are authentically themselves.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life



“None of us is perfect, but we all have the capacity to be authentic, to remove the pretense and the facade from our repertoire and just be authentically ourselves, not the people we think we’re supposed to be.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life


“So you’re left scratching your noggin, wondering how to convert them to your singularly valid viewpoint, which can be mind-numbingly frustrating. Don’t worry, though, you needn’t get on the same page right way; you need only understand you both have your reasons for being on separate pages.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life


“Are we constantly improving our fitness?  Are we happy with our progress?”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life


“THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS GOOD DEBT. Some”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life


“Careers are dangerous because people invest so much of themselves into their careers that they establish an identity and a social status based upon where they work and what they do for a living.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life



“We are not our stuff.  We are more than our possessions. Our memories are within us, not our things. Our stuff weighs on us mentally and emotionally. Old photographs can be scanned. You can take pictures of items you want to remember. Items that are sentimental for us can be useful to others. Letting go is freeing.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life


“The best juicer we’ve found is the Omega J8004 Masticating Juicer.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life


“To have the tallest building in town, you must tear down everyone else's.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life


“Unless you contribute beyond yourself, your life will feel perpetually self-serving. It’s”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life


“When we appreciate others for who they are, not who we want them to be, then, and only then, will we understand.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, quote from Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life



About the author

Joshua Fields Millburn
Born place: Dayton, The United States
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Did having a dog make you less political?”
― John Irving, quote from Last Night in Twisted River


“The man who is striving to solve a problem defined by existing knowledge and technique is not, however, just looking around. He knows what he wants to achieve, and he designs his instruments and directs his thoughts accordingly. Unanticipated novelty, the new discovery, can emerge only to the extent that his anticipations about nature and his instruments prove wrong. . . . There is no other effective way in which discoveries might be generated.”
― Thomas S. Kuhn, quote from The Structure of Scientific Revolutions


“What’s not so great is that all this technology is destroying our social skills. Not only have we given up on writing letters to each other, we barely even talk to each other. People have become so accustomed to texting that they’re actually startled when the phone rings. It’s like we suddenly all have Batphones. If it rings, there must be danger.

Now we answer, “What happened? Is someone tied up in the old sawmill?”

“No, it’s Becky. I just called to say hi.”

“Well you scared me half to death. You can’t just pick up the phone and try to talk to me like that. Don’t the tips of your fingers work?”
― Ellen DeGeneres, quote from Seriously... I'm Kidding


“There’s no words to explain how big it was, what Cold and I had, or how much it hurts when something that big in your life is swept away, or how empty that place is that he once filled, or how impossible it is to find something to fill it.”
― Kristen Ashley, quote from For You


“Everything that gave her pleasure was small and depressed him.”
― Flannery O'Connor, quote from Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories


Interesting books

A Storm of Swords
(557.1K)
A Storm of Swords
by George R.R. Martin
The Other Boleyn Girl
(411.5K)
The Other Boleyn Gir...
by Philippa Gregory
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
(336.7K)
Extremely Loud and I...
by Jonathan Safran Foer
Last Sacrifice
(231.1K)
Last Sacrifice
by Richelle Mead
Fallen
(427.8K)
Fallen
by Lauren Kate
His Dark Materials
(106.7K)
His Dark Materials
by Philip Pullman

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.