Testimony of simplicity

The testimony of simplicity is a shorthand description of the actions generally taken by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Friends or Quakers) to testify or bear witness to their beliefs that a person ought to live a simple life in order to focus on what is most important, and ignore (or minimize) what is least important. The testimony of simplicity reflects the Quaker belief that life should be organized in a way that frees individuals from unnecessary material or emotional burdens, enabling clearer attention to spiritual values and God’s guidance.

The Religious Society of Friends believes that a person's spiritual life and character are more important than the quantity of goods he possesses or his monetary worth. They also believe that one should use one's resources, including money and time, deliberately in ways that are most likely to make life truly better for oneself and others. The word testimony describes the way that they testify or bear witness to their beliefs in their everyday life. A testimony is therefore not a belief, but is committed action arising out of their religious experience. Testimony to simplicity includes the practice among Quakers (members of the Religious Society of Friends) of being more concerned with one's inner condition than one's outward appearance and with other people more than oneself.

General explanation

Early Friends believed that it was important to avoid fanciness in dress, speech, and material possessions, because those things tend to distract one from waiting on God's personal guidance. They also tend to cause a person to focus on himself more than on his fellow human beings, in violation of Jesus' teaching to "love thy neighbor as thyself". This emphasis on plainness, as it was called, made the Friends in certain times and places easily recognizable to the society around them, particularly by their plain dress in the 18th and 19th centuries.