plain living
Modest, unadorned lifestyle
Plain living is a lifestyle emphasizing simplicity and modesty—avoiding luxury, excess, and unnecessary material goods.
The phrase often pairs with "high thinking" to suggest that intellectual or spiritual pursuits matter more than physical comforts: They believed in plain living and high thinking.
Associated with Quaker traditions, intentional communities, and philosophical movements that reject consumerism.
- Thoreau19th-century American naturalist-essayist
- energy conservationUnchanging total in closed systems
- austerityEnforced economic stringency
- declutteringEliminating unnecessary possessions
- simplicityLack of complexity
good life · restraint · antimaterialism · frugality · make do · mindfulness · intentionality · back-to-the-land · off the grid · minimalism · less is more · asceticism · Zen Buddhism · unadorned · daily bread · monasticism · downshifting · small footprint
- rusticbarns, cabins, farmhouses, log cabins, hay bales
- simple livingfrugality, minimalism, decluttering, back-to-the-land, downshifting
- QuakersFriends, Quakerism, Quaker meetings, William Penn, inner light
- work ethicdiligence, hard worker, industriousness, go-getter, hard work
- CalvinismCalvinism, TULIP, predestination, total depravity, John Calvin
- TranscendentalismTranscendentalism, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, Walden Pond
plain livingluxury
Expensive nonessential comfort
extravagance · opulence · high living · affluent lifestyle · the good life
plain livingconsumerism
Preoccupation with acquiring goods
materialism · hedonism · self-indulgence · acquisitiveness · conspicuous consumption
plain livingostentation
Vulgar flaunting of means
showiness · conspicuous consumption · flamboyance · living large · keeping up with the Joneses