Quotes about simplicity

Everything is simpler than one can imagine, at the same time more involved than can be comprehended.

It is well to be simple once in a while.

The knife's plain haft, against his ribs, through a starched evening shirt.

The handles of a craftman’s tools bespeak an absolute simplicity, the plainest forms affording the greatest range of possibilities for the user’s hand.

That which is overdesigned, too highly specific, anticipates outcome; the anticipation of outcome guarantees, if not failure, the absence of grace.

One of the most succinct commentaries I've come across for encouraging plain talk came from an executive who told his staff, "Don't utilize utilize. Use use."

I try to avoid pompous language. Some people use it as an oral status symbol to impress others. Others use it because they've simply forgotten how to talk in simple, clear, everyday terms. You will be far better off, because you'll be better received and better understood, if you avoid "trendy talk."

Inner listening makes clearer to us what we really want, as distinct from what we have been talked into, and it might not have a price tag. We may also discover that "ownership" is in some sense an illusion, that holding on to things can keep us from freely enjoying them. Greater awareness may give us new appreciation for simple things.

Bad, I thought, looking around me, that I’d accumulated so much. A man should never own more stuff than he can carry in his hands at a dead run. It was bad, but it had happened.

[...] live hard not soft; eat hard not soft; seek fiber in foods and in life.

In the desert I had found a freedom unattainable in civilization; a life unhampered by possessions, since everything that was not a necessity was an encumbrance.  I had found, too, a comradeship inherent in the circumstances, and the belief that tranquillity was to be found there.  I had learnt the satisfaction which comes from hardship and the pleasure which derives from abstinence: the contentment of a full belly; the richness of meat; the taste of clean water; the ecstasy of surrender when the craving for sleep becomes a torment; the warmth of a fire in the chill of dawn.

When a musical piece is too simple we tend not to like it, finding it trivial. When it is too complex, we tend not to like it, finding it unpredictable—we don't perceive it to be grounded in anything familiar. Music, or any art form... has to strike the right balance between simplicity and complexity...

Sometimes, a deeper order—a better fit to a purpose—is achieved through simplification rather than further increases in complexity.

“Why can nothing be simple?”

Geloë shifted on her stool. The wise woman’s voice was surprisingly sympathetic. “Because nothing is simple, Prince Josua.”

Simple answers to life’s questioning. That would be a magic beyond any I have ever been seeing.