The Quote Garden ™

 I dig old books. ™

 Est. 1998

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Do other people, I wonder, find the same keen pleasure that I do in periodically undertaking a pilgrimage all over the house to wage a war of extermination upon its accumulations of rubbish? ~Chiffon, "The Woman of To-Day," To-Day, 1898


Winter can stand a little cluttering — then what a relief when we unclutter for Summer! ~“Special rooms and their personalities,” House & Garden's Complete Guide to Interior Decoration, Richardson Wright, editor, 1942


Most of us are inclined to keep too many old and useless things in our houses and in our minds as well. Good housekeepers have an excellent custom of going from attic to cellar, at least once a year, and clearing out every closet and drawer. Some shake out and dust each article packed away in box or trunk, only to replace it and repeat the process year after year. How much better to give away the discarded clothing, the bric-a-brac or picture for which we no longer care. The Salvation Army always stands ready to relieve us of superfluous effects. ~Emily Tolman, "Seasonable Suggestions," 1907


If you didn't have so much stuff, you wouldn't need a house. You could just walk around all the time. A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. ~George Carlin, "A Place for Your Stuff," Brain Droppings, 1997, georgecarlin.com


A clean desk to-night makes a good beginning to-morrow. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1906, George Horace Lorimer, editor


There is hardly a place where, in the course of a year, some things are not purchased and never used, and where spring cleaning does not unearth them. Spring is the time when the good homeowner puts all doubtful things into the trash barrel. ~E. F. White, "Spring Soda Fountain Thoughts," 1908  [Or donated or yard-saled, of course! Text a little altered. —tg]


We must get rid of some of the old things, with introduction of the new — as so we must exhale as well as inhale. ~Emily Tolman, "Seasonable Suggestions," 1907  [modified —tg]


It is a law working in all nature, through plant, insect, animal, and man, that in order to have and enjoy the new, we must first rid ourselves of the old. If the tree held stingily on to last year's fruit and leaves, and refused to drop them, would not the vents for next year's fruit and leaves be choked up? ~“Sunday Readings, Selected by Bishop Vincent,” The Chautauquan, 1895


The enormous power which this habit of hoarding has given him, perhaps leads man to overestimate his other talents. ~Gilbert Newton Lewis, The Anatomy of Science, 1926


Having too many things about us is a certain confusion to the intellect. ~Oscar C. McCullouch, "The Piety of the Intellect," sermon, Plymouth Congregational Church, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1890


For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?... ~Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931), The Prophet


"The fact is, wife, I've too much clothing!... the accumulation of years," said Warmheart. And he is not the only warm heart that has felt dissatisfied with having too much when others have been in want and not had enough. ~“The Visitor: A Picture for the Season,” The Latter-Day Saints' Millennial Star, 1860  [a little altered —tg]


Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing? ~William Shakespeare, As You Like It, c.1599  [IV, 1, Rosalind]


Too much of a good thing is still too much. ~L. D. C., The Urologic and Cutaneous Review, 1938


Most men appear never to have considered what a house is... It is possible to invent a house still more convenient and luxurious than we have, which yet all would admit that man could not afford to pay for. Shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes to be content with less? Shall the respectable citizen thus gravely teach, by precept and example, the necessity of the young man's providing a certain number of superfluous glow-shoes, and umbrellas, and empty guest chambers for empty guests, before he dies? Why should not our furniture be... simple...?... At present our houses are cluttered and defiled with it... I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and I threw them out the window in disgust. How, then, could I have a furnished house? I would rather sit in the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass, unless where man has broken ground. ~Henry David Thoreau


Life is short and Death is continually advancing apace; what need is there then, of providing so much for so short a Journey? Why will you load your self with so many Riches, when the less you have the more free you will be, and the better able to Walk? and when you shall come to your Journies end, you will find no worse Entertainment for being Poor, than those that shall come hither Richer fraught. But you will be less troubled for what you leave, and will have the less to answer for. ~Rev. Luis De Granada (1504–1588), Provincial of the Order of S. Dominick, in the Province of Portugal, "Remedies against Covetousness," The Sinners Guide, translated from the Spanish, 1702


Our incurable instinct to acquire... ~Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961), diary, 1950, translated from the Swedish by Leif Sjöberg and W. H. Auden, Markings, 1964


The chief purpose of the garage build in the split-level house is to store the junk that formerly cluttered up the attic. ~20,000 Quips & Quotes, Evan Esar, 1968


..."Madison Avenue," that mythical advertising copy writer who is supposed to persuade us to wallow in cosmetics and tail-fin cars. We have more Things in our garages and kitchens and cellars than Louis Quatorze had in the whole of Versailles. We are drowning in Things... We are lost in a sluggish, sun-oiled sleep beneath a beach umbrella, dreaming of More and More. ~Archibald MacLeish, in LIFE, "Eloquent Guides to America's National Purpose," 1960  [a little altered —tg]


Clutter smothers. Simplicity breathes. ~Terri Guillemets, "More room, more thought," 2005


With the reduction of possessions to a minimum, there automatically comes a simplification in our manner of living. ~Cid Ricketts Sumner, "Simplification," A View from the Hill, 1957


A way up in the mountain region of the West is a little animal called a Pack-rat. This rat obtains its name on account of its mania for carrying off to its hole any odd or striking object that may fall in its way. Each pack-rat's home is in the middle of a vast accumulation of useless odds and ends. None of the objects, of course, are of the slightest use to the animal. Simply it likes them. The collector enjoys his possessions but worries his little life out night and day lest some other rat will steal from his pile. The larger the pile the more pleasure and the more worry he finds in it. Finally he becomes so bewildered by terror for himself and anxiety for his museum that he, perhaps, perishes with them. While the common, sordid rats of the neighborhood, with no property but the fur on their backs, and with no ideas beyond the getting of a living, escape without difficulty. ~Ernest E. S. Thompson, "The Pack-Rat," The Quartier Latin, 1896   [a little altered —tg]


Stuff, more stuff, and even more stuff —
modern life says hey be a bigger stuffer
we stash, we store, expand and puffer
acquiring, collecting more stuff every day
sorting, organizing our stuffed lives away.
~Terri Guillemets, "Stuffed," 2013


Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. ~William Morris, lecture, 1880


Of course we all have a great many things in our homes that are a sort of accidental accumulation that we cannot throw away, nor do not wish to, but we may at least be very careful to make a wise selection when we place anything new in the house... We all have things about our houses that we have become so accustomed to that we do not know whether they are good or bad... Of course I am telling you no new thing when I say that we are inclined to have too many things. If we turn again to our classic standards it would be hard to imagine the accumulation of inharmonious objects from one of our rooms in the place of a few simple ones that adorned a classic interior. ~Alice Helm French, "Art in the Home and the School," in Primary Education, 1898  [Context note: This is actually about decor rather than clutter, per se, but it just describes so well our modern American clutteritis I had to use it here. —tg]


Eliminate physical clutter. More importantly, eliminate spiritual clutter. ~Terri Guillemets, "Simple–minded," 1993


Once you've whittled down to spiritual essentials, the physical decluttering comes naturally. ~Terri Guillemets, "Unhoard," 2002


If you are fortunate enough to have room for it, a SOMEDAY pile is a good idea too. You need a place where the boys in your family can pile their old lawn-mower motors, bicycle wheels, scraps of lumber — the various parts that will, perhaps, "someday" make a go-cart, a chariot or a space ship. Such a junk collection can be as important as the decluttered part of the house, but it must be confined or it will grow when you are not looking at it. ~Alice Skelsey, The Working Mother's Guide to Her Home, Her Family, and Herself, 1970


I am never five minutes into stripping the clutter from my life before I start running into the clutter that is my life. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com, 2011


Freedom is hiding under the clutter. ~Terri Guillemets, "At home," 2005


Keep a thing seven years and it's bound to come in handy. ~Proverb


Keep a thing seven years, and then if thou hast no use on't throw't away. ~Thomas Killigrew, The Parson's Wedding, c.1640


The old saying is, my dearie, keep a thing seven years, and you'll find an use for it; but I say, keep it three times seven... and you'll find an use for it... ~Joanna H. Mathews, Rosalie's Pet, 1876


The real cost of keeping things is the amount of thought you put in their keeping. If you will keep an old bedstead or bureau, or anything else you never have any use for, and pick it about with you at every house-moving, and put study and calculation as to the place it shall occupy, and worry then because it takes room which you need for everyday purposes, you are putting from time to time force enough on a (to you) useless article which, if properly directed, would buy a hundred new bureaus. In this way does this, the blind desire of mere keeping and hoarding, keep many people poor, and even makes paupers. ~“Sunday Readings, Selected by Bishop Vincent,” The Chautauquan, 1895


Garbage clutters the house that has no dream. ~Mike Dolan, @HawaiianLife, tweet, 2012


Having too many things is a burden to the mind, an insult to the earth, and an obstacle to our spiritual well-being. ~Terri Guillemets, "At home," 2005


As with the advent of spring cleaning we clear out of our houses the things no longer useful to us, why not at the same time relieve our minds of worthless rubbish? ~Emily Tolman, "Seasonable Suggestions," 1907


Don't let house or garden climb on your back and stick there. And unclutter your mind from any idea that you have to do a thousand things before other people do them. ~American Home, 1945


Sometimes clean feels empty. A bit of clutter and dirt gladdens the heart and affirms a life in progress. ~Terri Guillemets, "Moving out, moving in, moving on," 2011


I will not make a scrapbasket of my mind. ~Anonymous, c.1907


The fullest use of time does not mean that we should live our lives under forced draft, make sweatshops of our minds, or keep our nerves taut. The real purpose of learning to employ every minute properly is to unclutter our hours, deliver us of feverish activity, and earn us true leisure. Often it is not the things we do but the things we don't get done that weary us. ~Robert R. Updegraff, "Time for Everything," in The Rotarian, 1942


The emotional weight of clutter crushes our souls and our lives. ~Terri Guillemets


I have found that the temple of the undistracted mind must be housed in an uncluttered environment. A basement or garret is invaluable, but they, too, must be uncluttered, even though they hold many essential things used only occasionally... ~American Home, 1945


Replace clutter with freedom. ~Terri Guillemets, "At home," 2005


The waste of life occasioned by trying to do too many things at once is appalling. ~Orison Marden  [Multitasking and being too busy are time clutter! —tg]


In a garden of clutter, nothing would grow
There would be no butterflies, only clutterflies
And heaps of disarray, every which way
No nourishment anywhere, not anything pruned
Just lots of useless stuff, everywhere strewn
~Terri Guillemets

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published 2004 Dec 31
revised 2005, 2011, 2016, 2019
last saved 2025 Jan 7
www.quotegarden.com/clutter-declutter.html