simplicity

1.

Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.

- Zinsser, William

2.

The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.

- Buffett, Warren

3.

The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.

- Gibran, Kahlil

4.

You don't need to outdo the competition. It's expensive and defensive. Underdo your competition. We need more simplicity and clarity.

- Jason Fried

5.

When thought is too weak to be simply expressed, it's clear proof that it should be rejected.

- Clapiers, Luc De

6.

Simplicity is the peak of civilization.

- Jessie Sampter

7.

Everything is simpler than you think and yet more complex than you imagine.

8.

Elegance of language may not be in the power of all of us; but simplicity and straight forwardness are. Write much as you would speak; speak as you think. If with your inferior, speak no coarser than usual; if with your superiors, no finer. Be what you say; and, within the rules of prudence, say what you are.

- Alford

9.

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.

- Thoreau, Henry David

10.

The great things in life are what they seem to be. And for that reason, strange as it may sound to you, often are very difficult to interpret (understand). Great passion are for the great of souls. Great events can only be seen by people who are on a level with them. We think we can have our visions for nothing. We cannot. Even the finest and most self-sacrificing visions have to paid for. Strangely enough, that is what makes them fine.

- Wilde, Oscar

11.

No matter how complicated a problem is, it usually can be reduced to a simple, comprehensible form which is often the best solution.

- Wang, An

12.

The Americans never use the word peasant, because they have no idea of the class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved among them; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization.

- Tocqueville, Alexis De

13.

Seek simplicity, and distrust it.

- Alfred North Whitehead

14.

Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.

- Warner, Charles Dudley

15.

There comes a time when we must narrow our sphere of thought much, that we may truly enlarge it! we must, artificialised as we have been, return to the rudiments of life, to children's pleasures, that we may find easily, through their transparent simplicity, spiritual laws which we may apply to the more intricate spheres of art and science.

- MS. Letter. 1842.

16.

Behind the complicated details of the world stand the simplicities: God is good, the grown-up man or woman knows the answer to every question, there is such a thing as truth, and justice is as measured and faultless as a clock. Our heroes are simple: they are brave, they tell the truth, they are good swordsmen and they are never in the long run really defeated. That is why no later books satisfy us like those which were read to us in childhood --for those promised a world of great simplicity of which we knew the rules, but the later books are complicated and contradictory with experience; they are formed out of our own disappointing memories.

- Greene, Graham

17.

In our systems work through simplicity, consistency, and repetition.

- Kinder, Jack

18.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.

- Henry David Thoreau

19.

ARTLESSNESS, n. A certain engaging quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring male, who is pleased to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young.

- Ambrose Bierce

20.

It's not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.

- Lee, Bruce