Love People. Use Things. The Opposite Never Works.

 

Today’s blog is inspired by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, two people who have reshaped their lives and minimized the clutter surrounding them.  Millburn and Nicodemus are the stars of Minimalism, a documentary about living with less.  In Minimalism, these best friends go on a journey to spread the word about the minimalist lifestyle.

On the surface, Minimalism is about stuff – the stuff that clutters our living rooms and the stuff that clutters our lives.  However, at the heart of the documentary is a story of life struggles, a long-lasting friendship, and a way of life that inspired both men to alter their careers and their destinies.

The documentary ends with a quote that speaks to ordering our lives by letting go of the stuff and letting in the love of the people around us.  (Click here to see the trailer.)

Love people. Use things. The opposite never works.

~ Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus (The Minimalists)

Celebrate true friendship, family, and the journey of ordering your life.

Inspired?  Read more quotes about friends and family (and not about stuff).

Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down. ~ Oprah Winfrey

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

If you truly want to be respected by people you love, you must prove to them that you can survive without them. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

Wisdom comes not from reason but from love. ~ André Gide

A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down. ~ Arnold H. Glasow

A child without a mother is like a pier without a boat. ~ Bangladeshi Saying

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. ~ Voltaire

Love people. Use things. The opposite never works. ~ Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus (The Minimalists)

The family is our refuge and our springboard; nourished on it, we can advance to new horizons. In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future. ~ Alex Haley

Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher. ~ Oprah Winfrey

A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take. ~ Cardinal Gaspard Mermillod

I also believe that there is no greater good in all the world than motherhood. The influence of a mother in the lives of her children is beyond calculation. ~ James E. Faust

To the world you are a mother, but to your family you are the world. ~ Anonymous

True friends are like diamonds — bright, beautiful, valuable, and always in style. ~  Nicole Richie

Friendship is delicate as a glass, once broken it can be fixed but there will always be cracks. ~ Waqar Ahmed

The typical expression of opening friendship would be something like, “What? You too? I thought I was the only one.” ~ C.S. Lewis

A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are. ~ Bernard Meltzer

Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget. ~ Bernard Meltzer

A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked. ~ Bernard Meltzer

Silences make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts. ~ Margaret Lee Runbeck

The friend walks in when others walk out. He is like a sunbeam, binds like a chain and guides like a vision. ~ Reverend C. R. Durrant

A friend who understands your tears is much more valuable than a lot of friends who only know your smile. ~ Anonymous

Friends are those rare people who ask how we are, and then wait to hear the answer. ~ Ed Cunningham

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit. ~ Aristotle

I don’t need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better. ~ Plutarch

No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow. ~ Alice Walker

I still miss those I loved who are no longer with me but I find I am grateful for having loved them. The gratitude has finally conquered the loss. ~ Rita Mae Brown 

It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. ~ J.K. Rowling

I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don’t believe I deserved my friends. ~ Walt Whitman

Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn’t seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

A friend can tell you things you don’t want to tell yourself. ~ Frances Ward Weller

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept. ~ Samuel Butler

When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are. ~ Donald Miller

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. ~ Marcel Proust

Fate chooses your relations, you choose your friends. ~ Jacques Delille

We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives. ~ John F. Kennedy

The language of friendship is not words, but meanings. It is an intelligence above language. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

One friend with whom you have a lot in common is better than three with whom you struggle to find things to talk about. ~ Mindy Kaling

Having somewhere to go is home. Having someone to love is family. And having both is a blessing. ~ Anonymous

A man travels the world over in search of what he needs, and returns home to find it. ~ George A. Moore

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. ~ Frederick Douglass

This is my family. I found it all on my own. It’s little, and broken, but still good. Yeah. Still good. ~ Stitch (Lilo & Stitch)

A true Friendship is as wise as it is tender. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Family and friends are hidden treasures, seek them and enjoy their riches. ~ Wanda Hope Carters

The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. ~ attributed to Theodore Hesburgh

A father is neither an anchor to hold us back nor a sail to take us there, but a guiding light whose love shows us the way. ~ Anonymous

A great man is one who leaves others at a loss after he is gone. ~ Paul Valery

My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. ~ Clarence Budington Kelland

We are not our brother’s keeper we are our brother and we are our sister. We must look past complexion and see community. ~ Maya Angelou

He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service. ~ Henry David Thoreau

They say marriages are made in Heaven. But so is thunder and lightning. ~ Clint Eastwood

The quickest way for a parent to get a child’s attention is to sit down and look comfortable. ~ Lane Olinghouse

Having children is like living in a frat house – nobody sleeps, everything’s broken, and there’s a lot of throwing up. ~ Ray Romano

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. ~ Jane Howard

I hate when new parents ask who the baby looks like! It was born 15 minutes ago. It looks like a potato. ~ attributed to Kevin Hart

Love is blind; friendship tries not to notice. ~ Otto von Bismarck

Friends are people who know you really well and like you anyway. ~ attributed to Greg Tamblyn

Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty. ~ Anonymous

Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs. ~ Maya Angelou

...Friend...They will meet without any outcry, and part without loud sorrow. ~ Henry David Thoreau

 

 

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