This is true, but it is not a form which commits anyone to any insincere act or speech. This is considered to be a special kind of spiritual exercise where every effort is made to attain spontaneity, sincerity, and a fresh facing of reality. In the past Friends sometimes leaned over backward in efforts to attain complete honesty and sincerity in speech. Many humorous anecdotes are based on this peculiarity. Closely allied with this effort to attain truth and sincerity was the testimony against every form of superfluity in dress, speech, and behavior.
Simplicity is a form of genuineness.
It means concentration upon that which is genuinely functional. Quakerism is here described in terms of its ideals, not necessarily its attainments. In avoiding one form, Friends sometimes slip into another. Forms and creeds are inevitable. They have important uses, especially in education, where forms are used to show what ought to be their real content, and even, sometimes, to create the content.