A Simpler Life: A guide to greater serenity, ease and clarity

monasticism points to a moving ideal: the possibility of uniting simplicity with dignity.

we don’t keep trying

It’s not that it’s impossible to be stimulated in the great urban core – rather it is possible to be inspired anywhere. At root, inspiration is the discovery of the greater meaning of something that seems, initially, unimpressive.

Earlier epochs didn’t emphasise simplicity because there was no need to; a life with few possessions and plain food, early nights and plenty of time in the fresh air was available to everyone. But for us, simplicity plays the role that splendour once did for the aristocrats at Versailles or that rugged individualism did for the urban 20th-century a

Being straightforward on dates is a mechanism for two people to fast-forward time – and to spare themselves agony. We should know that a polished surface can’t be a true picture of who anyone actually is. Only once our mutual complexities have been outlined should we believe that we are safe in the presence of a fellow mature and pleasingly direct

Kindness

a general theory of how taste is shaped.

Le Corbusier was also inspired by another feature of monasticism: the emphasis on communal life.

People are more interesting