#sufficiency

The essential cultural discrimination is not between having and not having or haves and have-nots, but between the superfluous and the indispensable. Wisdom, it seems to me, is always poised upon the knowledge of minimums; it might be thought to be the art of minimums. Granting the frailty, and no doubt the impermanence, of modern technology as a human contrivance, the man who can keep a fire in a stove or on a hearth is not only more durable, but wiser, closer to the meaning of fire, than the man who can only work a thermostat. ↗

— Wendell Berry

#simplicity #art

The concept of loneliness and exile and self-sufficiency continually bucks me up. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#concept #continually #exile #loneliness #me

It’s probably not just by chance that I’m alone. It would be very hard for a man to live with me, unless he’s terribly strong. And if he’s stronger than I, I’m the one who can’t live with him. … I’m neither smart nor stupid, but I don’t think I’m a run-of-the-mill person. I’ve been in business without being a businesswoman, I’ve loved without being a woman made only for love. The two men I’ve loved, I think, will remember me, on earth or in heaven, because men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness. I’ve done my best, in regard to people and to life, without precepts, but with a taste for justice. ↗

— Coco Chanel

#bachelorhood #empowerment #freedom #independence #individuality

And partly, the worst thing you could do in my family was need something from someone. So physical strength represented an avenue of self-sufficiency to me. ↗

— Alison Bechdel

#could #family #me #need #partly

The consuming desire of most human beings is deliberately to plant their whole life in the hands of some other person. I would describe this method of searching for happiness as immature. Development of character consists solely in moving toward self-sufficiency. ↗

— Quentin Crisp

#character #consists #consuming #deliberately #describe

Our forbears worked hard this difficult land, and their reward was the freedom and independence of self-sufficiency. ↗

— James H. Douglas

#freedom #hard #independence #land #our

If you are apostles at all, you are apostles, not of men, nor by man. Your sufficiency is of God. ↗

— Joseph Barber Lightfoot

#god #man #men #nor #sufficiency

The sufficiency of merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient. ↗

— Francis Quarles

#merit #sufficiency #sufficient

Self-sufficiency is the enemy of salvation. If you are self-sufficient, you have no need of God. If you have no need of God, you do not seek Him. If you do not seek Him, you will not find Him. ↗

— William Nicholson

#god #salvation #self-sufficiency #salvation

The business of procuring the necessities of life has been shifted from the wood lot, the garden, the kitchen and the family to the factory and the large-scale enterprise. In our case, we moved our center back to the land. ↗

— Helen Nearing

#self-sufficiency #business