simplicity Quotes

“It’s the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them.”

“That’s what I love about Aibileen, she can take the most complicated things in life and wrap them up so small and simple, they’ll fit right in your pocket.”

“Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher.”

There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.

“Be modest, be humble, be simple. Make sure you come in first so that you have something to be humble about.”

It was . . . simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation—as all good things should do.

“Ideologies are substitutes for true knowledge, and ideologues are always dangerous when they come to power, because a simple-minded I-know-it-all approach is no match for the complexity of existence.”

Reduce working time to a necessary minimum. No movies. No conversation that isn’t about truth, love, or the divine.

“They entered a very plain house, for the door was only of silver, and the ceilings were only of gold, but wrought in so elegant a taste as to vie with the richest. The antechamber, indeed, was only encrusted with rubies and emeralds, but the order in which everything was arranged made amends for this great simplicity.”

[I have learned] “Moreover, to endure labour; nor to need many things; when I have anything to do, to do it myself rather than by others; not to meddle with many businesses; and not easily to admit of any slander.”

“If we could act a little more according to common sense, and a good deal less according to fashion, we should find many things work easier.”

“Sometimes the simplest and best use of our will is to drop it all and just walk out from under everything that is covering us, even if only for an hour or so—just walk out from under the webs we’ve spun, the tasks we’ve assumed, the problems we have to solve. They’ll be there when we get back, and maybe some of them will fall apart without our worry to hold them up.”

“They opened the flower shop the next day. As Howl had pointed out, it could not have been simpler. Every early morning, all they had to do was to open the door with the knob purple-down and go out into the swimming green haze to gather flowers. It soon became a routine. Sophie took her stick and her scissors and stumped about, chatting to her stick, using it to test the squashy ground or hook down sprays of high-up choice roses. Michael took an invention of his own which he was very proud of. It was a large tin tub with water in it, which floated in the air and followed Michael wherever he went among the bushes. The dog-man went too. He had a wonderful time rushing about the wet green lanes, chasing butterflies or trying to catch the tiny, bright birds that fed on the flowers.”

“A dog has no use for fancy cars or big homes or designer clothes.”

“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”

“I suspect that many will not be satisfied with the simpler way of life.”

“The great victory, which appears so simple today, was the result of a series of small victories that went unnoticed.”

“In times of profound and overwhelming social change like the present, however, extreme views hold out the appeal of simplicity. By ignoring the complexity of the forces that shape our personal and collective circumstances, they offer us scapegoats. Yet they fail to provide a viable pathway from the cold war to the global village.”

“Life takes on a neat simplicity, too. Time ceases to have any meaning. When it is dark, you go to bed, and when it is light again you get up, and everything in between is just in between. It’s quite wonderful, really.”

“We simply need to believe in the power that’s within us, and use it.”

“When you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few other things that get in the way, sooner or later you will discover that simple, childlike, and mysterious secret known to those of the Uncarved Block: Life is Fun.”

“Ivan Ilych’s life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.”

“We were all raised to build, build, build. Bigger is better, more is better, faster is better. It had never occurred to us…that someone would intentionally keep something small, or deliberately do something slow.”

“Complex things are easy to do. Simplicity’s the real challenge.”

“As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naïve and simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too.”

“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”

“His system was so idiotically simple that some people can’t understand it, no matter how often it is explained. The people who can’t understand it are people who have to believe, for their own peace of mind, that tremendous wealth can be produced only by tremendous cleverness.”

“Sweet potato stew.”

“I guess it simply goes to show that stuff will come and stuff will go. But do we cry? Goodness no! We keep singing.”

“He lived a simple life.”

“He stopped, gave a deep sigh, quickly tore from his shoulders the ribbon Marie had tied around him, pressed it to his lips, put it on as a token, and, bravely brandishing his bare sword, jumped as nimbly as a bird over the ledge of the cabinet to the floor. ”

“Give them Simplicity to look at, the Uncarved Block to hold.”

“But the Earl is hungry! He sneaks off to an ordinary grilled cheese sandwich—and suddenly takes the Duchess’s eye. Maybe there’s something to simplicity after all. Maybe there’s something to the Earl after all . . ”

“Zorba was the man I had sought so long in vain. A living heart, a large voracious mouth, a great brute soul, not yet severed from mother earth. The meaning of the words, art, love, beauty, purity, passion, all this was made clear to me by the simplest of human words uttered by this workman.”

“Life is simple. Make good decisions and good things happen. Make bad decisions and bad things happen.”

“No class of man is altogether bad, but each has its own faults and virtues; and these shipmates of mine were no exception to the rule. Rough they were, sure enough; and bad, I suppose; but they had many virtues. They were kind when it occurred to them, simple even beyond the simplicity of a country lad like me, and had some glimmerings of honesty.”

“His greatness, like all true greatness, was not rooted in aggression or ego or his appetites or a vast fortune, but in simplicity and restraint- in how he commanded himself, which in turn made him worthy of commanding others.”

“The world, after all, was still a place of bottomless horror. It was by no means a place of childlike simplicity where everything could be settled by a simple then-and-there decision.”

“Pooh hasn’t much Brain, but he never comes to any harm. He does silly things and they turn out right.”

His liking for Mozart’s music brought him sometimes to an opera or a concert: these were the only dissipations of his life.

“Have some more beer,” said Antony with a smile. And Bill had to be content with that.

And see with what natural skill she has made those simple flowers adorn her! Had she gathered pearls, and diamonds, and rubies, in the wood, they could not have become her better.

“Don’t you think, dear, that as these girls are used to such things, and the best we can do will be nothing new, that some simpler plan would be pleasanter to them, as a change if nothing more, and much better for us than buying or borrowing what we don’t need, and attempting a style not in keeping with our circumstances?”

“How little! How naked, and—how bold!”

Often Levin had admired this life, often he had a sense of envy of the men who led this life; but today for the first time, especially under the influence of what he had seen in the attitude of Ivan Parmenov to his young wife, the idea presented itself definitely to his mind that it was in his power to exchange the dreary, artificial, idle, and individualistic life he was leading for this laborious, pure, and socially delightful life.