Clutter Quotes

“Out of clutter, find simplicity.”
― Albert Einstein

“Don't own so much clutter that you will be relieved to see your house catch fire.”
― Wendell Berry, Farming: A Hand Book

“Clutter is my natural habitat.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Scorpio Races

“Let us not keep on walking on the broken glass of despair with bleeding words of grief but transcend the viscous discomforts of life and clear out the mountains of clutter in our mind. ("Halt in flight")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Let us not be afraid of “saying” what we are “seeing” without censoring anything, or looking away and playing hide and seek. By naming things well, we avoid clutter in our mind and torment in the world. ("Man without Qualities" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“It's interesting to see that people had so much clutter even thousands of years ago. The only way to get rid of it all was to bury it, and then some archaeologist went and dug it all up.”
― Karl Pilkington, An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington

“The point is, you need to distinguish between what honestly moves you and what the world is telling you should melt your heart. If something doesn’t reach you on a personal level, let it go. It’s hard enough dealing with everything that does.”
― Judi Culbertson, The Clutter Cure: Three Steps to Letting Go of Stuff, Organizing Your Space, & Creating the Home of Your Dreams

“...that once were urgent and necessary for an orderly world and now were buried away, gathering dust and of no use to anyone.”
― Patricia A. McKillip, Alphabet of Thorn

“The room was not impressively large, even by Manhattan apartment-house standards, but its accumulated furnishings might have lent a snug appearance to a banquet hall in Valhalla.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“We are much more likely to be drawn to a messy bookstore than a neat one because the mess signifies vitality. We are not drawn to a bookstore because of tasteful, Finnish shelves in gunmetal gray mesh, each one displaying three carefully chosen, color-coordinated covers. Clutter -- orderly clutter, if possible -- is what we expect. Like a city. It's not quite a city unless there's more than enough.”
― Lewis Buzbee, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, a History

“I like working among ‘creative clutter’. It gives me a sense of activity and achievement.”
― Fennel Hudson, A Meaningful Life - Fennel's Journal - No. 1

“Neatness makes me feel like I have to be on my best behavior. Clutter is my natural habitat.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Scorpio Races

“Some of those are small things that we keep around, hoping to find something redemptive to do with them. Other times, we keep our mistakes around in order to remind ourselves of what seems like a horrible, irreparable mistake.”
― Kathi Lipp, Clutter Free: Quick and Easy Steps to Simplifying Your Space

“Clear the clutter to clear your mind.”
― Dr. Lucas D. Shallua

“The less stuff you have, the less clutter you have, the less stressed you are.”
― Maxime Lagacé

“Physical clutter can be a way to hide what you don't want to face -- unfulfilled dreams, broken promises, or painful experiences from the past. Be gentle with yourself when you de-clutter. As you handle each item, quietly say a prayer, let it go, then move on. Trust that if you need the item, it will come back to you in another form at the proper time.”
― Eleanor Brownn, The Other Serenity Prayer: Meditations on Self-Kindness

“What is causing you to put things down "for now"? Are you feeling too rushed in your everyday life? Is there never a chance to reset?
As you go through the process of clearing out your clutter, you will see that things become easier to put away when there is a home for them and that home is easier to access.
When you are tempted to put something down, ask yourself, "Will I really have more time to deal with this later? Will I know where to find this later when I'm looking for it?"
Be kind to your future self and put it away now. Next week you will thank me.”
― Kathi Lipp, Clutter Free: Quick and Easy Steps to Simplifying Your Space

“Owning less creates an opportunity to live more.”
― Joshua Becker, The Minimalist Home: A Room-by-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life

“Clutter attracts clutter. If you drop the mail on the kitchen counter, someone else is going to find it natural to leave his keys there. A dresser with receipts is also going to collect coins. A purse dropped in the entry is soon going to be joined by shoes and gloves. An empty soda can on the end table usually winds up with a few candy wrappers next to it.”
― Joshua Becker, The Minimalist Home: A Room-by-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life

“Why do I have to be prepared for every possibility?...

It's just fear.

Fear that I won't have enough. Fear that I will be stuck without something and not know what to do.”
― Kathi Lipp, Clutter Free: Quick and Easy Steps to Simplifying Your Space

“The stuff you buy simply clutter your house and your calendar.”
― Maxime Lagacé

“..."It almost feels like energy is able to move more freely in this space with fewer things cluttering the area.”
― Joshua Becker, The Minimalist Home: A Room-by-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life

“Never in history have human beings had so much stuff inside their houses. One estimate puts the number of items inside the average American home at three hundred thousand.”
― Joshua Becker, The Minimalist Home: A Room-by-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life

“A cramped garage is difficult to maneuver our way through. Many of us are adept at the Garage Shimmy, a dance step whereby we squeeze out of our car door and then sidestep the stuff in our garage to get to the entrance to our home. If we're skilled enough at this balletic wiggling, we might keep our clothes from getting smudged by brushing against the side of a dirty car.”
― Joshua Becker, The Minimalist Home: A Room-by-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life

“He didn't say, Uncluttered

is the privilege of the rich these days.
Or: In
a world of built-in obsolescence, saved

means saddled with.”
― Linda Gregerson, The Woman Who Died In Her Sleep

“If you have not used it in the last year, it probably belongs in the trash!”
― Steven Magee

“His gaze dropped to the studio bed: still half-unmade. On the undisturbed half, nearest the wall, there stretched out a long, colorful scatter of magazines, science-fiction paperbacks, a few hardcover detective novels still in their wrappers, a few bright napkins taken home from restaurants, and a half-dozen of those shiny little golden Guides and Knowledge Through Color books—his recreational reading as opposed to his working materials and references arranged on the coffee table beside the bed. They'd been his chief—almost his sole—companions during the three years he'd laid sodden there stupidly goggling at the TV across the room; but always fingering them and stupefiedly studying their bright, easy pages from time to time. Only a month ago it had suddenly occurred to him that their gay casual scatter added up to a slender, carefree woman lying beside him on top of the covers—that was why he never put them on the floor; why he contented himself with half the bed; why he unconsciously arranged them in a female form with long, long legs. They were a "scholar's mistress," he decided, on the analogy of "Dutch wife," that long, slender bolster sleepers clutch to soak up sweat in tropical countries—a very secret playmate, a dashing but studious call girl, a slim, incestuous sister, eternal comrade of his writing work.”
― Fritz Leiber, Dark Ladies: Conjure Wife/Our Lady of Darkness

“His gaze dropped to the studio bed: still half-unmade. On the undisturbed half, nearest the wall, there stretched out a long, colorful scatter of magazines, science-fiction paperbacks, a few hardcover detective novels still in their wrappers, a few bright napkins taken home from restaurants, and a half-dozen of those shiny little Golden Guides and Knowledge Through Color books—his recreational reading as opposed to his working materials and references arranged on the coffee table beside the bed. They'd been his chief—almost his sole—companions during the three years he'd laid sodden there stupidly goggling at the TV across the room; but always fingering them and stupefiedly studying their bright, easy pages from time to time. Only a month ago it had suddenly occurred to him that their gay casual scatter added up to a slender, carefree woman lying beside him on top of the covers—that was why he never put them on the floor; why he contented himself with half the bed; why he unconsciously arranged them in a female form with long, long legs. They were a "scholar's mistress," he decided, on the analogy of "Dutch wife," that long, slender bolster sleepers clutch to soak up sweat in tropical countries—a very secret playmate, a dashing but studious call girl, a slim, incestuous sister, eternal comrade of his writing work.”
― Fritz Leiber, Dark Ladies: Conjure Wife/Our Lady of Darkness

“Material possessions radiate a certain type of energy. They are not neutral. The more material possessions you have around you, the more distracting and draining those objects can become. If the outside world dominates your thoughts with responsibilities, worries, and conflicting energies of all sorts, then your mind and spirit will not have the space to allow the creative force to flow and flower.”
― Donna Goddard, Writing: A Spiritual Voice

“True abundance instills content not clutter.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets