We mustn’t compare our inner reality with the deceptive façades of those around us.

requiring for their proper accomplishment our poised and well-rested minds.

It’s not that we don’t each have such reasons

What drives us to accumulate is a psychological necessity, not a material one.

we can remain in touch with so much of what made them pleasurable simply through the art of evocation.

Our preoccupation with money feels highly respectable, but its true cause is poignant and unexpected: we keep wanting more money because we haven’t yet identified a passion that matters enough to us that it replaces money-making in our minds.

The more we understand what reading is for us, the more we can enjoy intimate relationships with just a few important works. Our libraries can be simple. Instead of always broaching new material, we can spend time rereading, paying attention to the reinforcement of what we already know but tend so often to forget.

A genuinely simpler approach involves daring to be a bit more complex from the start.

the emphasis would also be on retiring – as early as possible – from a host of supposedly necessary demands that, on closer inspection, are entirely unsuited to who and what we are.