simplicity Quotes

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.

“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.”

[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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”