quotations about simplicity
I prefer the honestly simple to the ingeniously wicked.
WILLIAM PENN
attributed, "William Penn and His Philanthropy", The Ladies' Repository, Volume 17
Simplicity is ultimately a matter of focus.
ANN VOSKAMP
One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
A simple life is not seeing how little we can get by with--that's poverty--but how efficiently we can put first things first.
VICTORIA MORAN
Lit From Within: Tending Your Soul For Lifelong Beauty
The sick man, wasted by fever, consumed with thirst, dreams in his sleep of a fresh stream wherein he bathes, or of a clear fountain from which he drinks in great draughts. So, amid the confused restlessness of modern life, our wearied minds dream of simplicity.
CHARLES WAGNER
The Simple Life
Simplicity is sometimes sexier in its naked honesty. But simplicity isn't simple. It demands great ingredients and on-point technique.
MIA STAINSBY
"Oddfish goes for simple and delicious", The Province, August 30, 2017
Simplicity does not belong to such and such economic or social phases: rather, it is a spirit, able to vivify and modify lives of very different sorts. Far from being reduced to vainly regretting it, we may, I affirm, make it the object of resolve, the end of practical effort.
CHARLES WAGNER
The Simple Life
Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.
FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN
attributed, Chopin: An Introduction to His Piano Works
The greatest ideas are the simplest.
WILLIAM GOLDING
Lord of the Flies
Simplicity is the most difficult of all concepts.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVEN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Corrino
All the works of God are characterized by great and even amazing simplicity.
HUBBARD WINSLOW
Moral Philosophy: Analytical, Synthetical, and Practical
Simplicity is the base of everything. At the end of the day if you feel good about yourself, you don't need anything.
NIKKI OGUNNAIKE
"Alessandra Mastronardi, Master of Style", Elle, August 11, 2017
The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
KHALIL GIBRAN
attributed, Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing
It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials.
BRUCE LEE
attributed, Lead Yourself Today
When true simplicity is gain'd
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight
'Till by turning, turning we come round right.
JOSEPH BRACKETT
Simple Gifts
Simplicity is the shortest path to a solution.
WARD CUNNINGHAM
"The Simplest Thing that Could Possibly Work", Artima, January 19, 2004
Simplicity is a strict taskmaster.
MASON COOLEY
City Aphorisms
Simple style is like white light. It is complex, but its complexity is not obvious.
ANATOLE FRANCE
attributed, Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing
For it is always the simple that produces the marvelous.
AMELIA E. BARR
All the Days of My Life
Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity--I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only a euphemism for folly.
PLATO
The Republic
Therefore I say once more, cast your eyes upon paper, and ready only such letters as I write, which convey no darts, no flames, but proceed from innocence of soul, and simplicity of heart.
ALEXANDER POPE
letter to Mrs. ***, The Works of Alexander Pope