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.
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.
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".
[1] Many Friends who have been considered exemplary have also been wealthy; their commitment to the testimony, however, led them to use their wealth for spiritual purposes, including aid to the poor and oppressed.
Plainness is an extension of the testimony of simplicity and can still be observed today among modern Friends who do not follow fashion trends or purchase extravagant clothing.
In addition, the frequent buying of expensive new styles and discarding what had recently been bought, was considered wasteful and self-seeking, where Friends instead aimed to focus on simplicity, and the important things in life.
Notably, Friends did not consider it right to judge people on their material possessions, but this could not be achieved in a society which placed an emphasis on keeping up to date with inconsequential but expensive new trends.
Today, it is more likely that Friends will try to put their faith into action by dressing in a plain version of current fashions—such as avoiding clothing displaying designer labels.
[12][13] Plainness in speech addressed other concerns than materialism: honesty, avoiding class distinction and vestiges of paganism, and the speaking of truth.
These principles were put into practice by affirming rather than making an oath or shaking hands to agree upon a deal, setting fixed prices for goods, avoiding the use of honorific titles and using familiar forms for the second person pronoun.
In the eighteenth century, "thou hast" disappeared, along with the associated second-person verb forms, and the otherwise strange "thee is" became normal "plain speech".
The rejection of the past use of tu by white French missionaries to address Africans may be a factor in the contemporary francophone usage.
But what I tell you is this: You are not to swear at all - not by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is his footstool, nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King, nor by your own head, because you cannot turn one hair of it white or black.
When you say "Yes" or "No", let it be plain Yes or No, for fear you draw down judgement on yourselvesIn a similar manner Friends avoid haggling over prices.
[citation needed] The Testimony of Simplicity is an important part of Quaker life, and many examples of its influence can be seen in both day-to-day and ceremonious practices.