Simplicity Quotes - Page 18

• How happy is the little stone That rambles in the road alone, And doesn't care about careers, And exigencies never fears; Whose coat of elemental brown A passing universe put on; And independent as the sun, Associates or glows alone, Fulfilling absolute decree In casual simplicity.

  Emily Dickinson

  Independent, Careers, Coats

  Emily Dickinson (2016). “The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson”, p.169, First Avenue Editions

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• Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.

  John Maeda

  Meaningful, Design, Obvious

  Twitter post from Nov 17, 2013

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• People often ask me why my style is so simple. It is, in fact, deceptively simple, for no two sentences are alike. It is clarity that I am striving to attain, not simplicity. Of course, some people want literature to be difficult and there are writers who like to make their readers toil and sweat. They hope to be taken more seriously that way. I have always tried to achieve a prose that is easy and conversational. And those who think this is simple should try it for themselves.

  Ruskin Bond

  Taken, Simple, Thinking

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• There is more simplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than in the man who eats Grape-Nuts on principle.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Peace, Men, Nuts

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.176, Simon and Schuster

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• Charisma is the numinous aura around a narcissistic personality. It flows outward from a simplicity or unity of being and a composure and controlled vitality. There is gracious accommodation, yet commanding impersonality. Charisma is the radiance produced by the interaction of male and female elements in a gifted personality. The charismatic woman has a masculine force and severity. The charismatic man has an entrancing female beauty. Both are hot and cold, glowing with presexual self love.

  Camille Paglia

  Men, Glowing, Hot And Cold

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• We must begin our practice by walking the narrow path of simplicity, the hinayana path, before we can walk upon the open highway of compassionate action, the mahayana path.

  Chogyam Trungpa

  Practice, Path, Action

  Chogyam Trungpa (2010). “The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Three: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism; The Myth of Freedom; The Heart of the Bud dha; Selected Writings”, p.191, Shambhala Publications

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• There are no tricks in plain and simple faith.

  William Shakespeare

  Life, Faith, Simple

  'Julius Caesar' (1599) act 4, sc. 2, l. 20

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• As I drift back into sleep, I can't help thinking that it's a wonderful thing to be right about the world. To weigh the evidence, always incomplete, and correctly intuit the whole, to see the world in a grain of sand, to recognize its beauty, its simplicity, its truth. It's as close as we get to God in this life, and reside in the glow of such brief flashes of understanding, fully awake, sometimes for two or three seconds, at peace with our existence. And then back to sleep we go.

  Richard Russo

  Sleep, Thinking, Two

  FaceBook post by Richard Russo from Dec 28, 2010

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• For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn't give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Business, Giving, Sides

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• Time, which is so often an enemy in life, can also become our ally if we see how a pale moment can lead to a glowing moment, and then turn to a moment of perfect transparency, before dropping again to a moment of everyday simplicity.

  Peter Brook

  Glowing, Perfect, Enemy

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• I only achieve simplicity with enormous effort

  Clarice Lispector

  Effort, Achieve, Enormous

  Clarice Lispector (1986). “The Hour of the Star”, p.11, New Directions Publishing

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• I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Truth, Lying, Science

  "What is Art?". Book by Leo Tolstoy, Ch. 14, 1897.

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• The good word of the Lord with which we must nourish is the simple doctrine of the gospel. We need not fear either simplicity or repetition.

  Henry B. Eyring

  Simple, Doctrine, Needs

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• ...the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Sides, Found, Complexity

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• The success of any trap lies in its fundamental simplicity. The reverse trap by the nature of its single complication must be swift and simpler still.

  Robert Ludlum

  Lying, Fundamentals, Traps

  Robert Ludlum (2013). “The Jason Bourne Series 3-Book Bundle: The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum”, p.465, Bantam

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• It is always what I have already said: always the wish that you may find patience enough in yourself to endure, and simplicity enough to believe; that you may acquire more and more confidence in that which is difficult, and in your solitude among others. And for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is right, in any case.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Believe, Solitude, Wish

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• Do not assume that he who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond yours. Were it otherwise, he would never have been able to find these words.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Friendship, Emo, Sadness

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• All of us--all who knew her--felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her. We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humor. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous. Even her waking dreams we used--to silence our own nightmares.

  Toni Morrison

  Beautiful, Dream, Pain

  Toni Morrison (2014). “The Bluest Eye”, p.161, Random House

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• The important thing to understand about American history, wrote Mr. Ibis, in his leather-bound journal, is that it is fictional, a charcoal-sketched simplicity for the children, or the easily bored.

  Neil Gaiman

  Children, Bored, Important

  "American Gods". Book by Neil Gaiman, books.google.ru. November 10, 2011.

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• He believed that he must, that he could and would recover the good things, the happy things, the easy tranquil things of life. He had made mistakes, but he could overlook these. He had been a fool, but that could be forgiven. The time wasted--must be relinquished. What else could one do about it? Things were too complex, but they might be reduced to simplicity again. Recovery was possible.

  Saul Bellow

  Mistake, Recovery, Might

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• Quick now, here, now, always- A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one.

  T. S. Eliot

  Fire, Flames, Rose

  Four Quartets "Little Gidding" pt. 5 (1942)

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• So much wanting and longing, clutching, desiring, passion and hatred and terrible need. Here, death was suitable, there was room for it, the grip of life's relentless urges slackened, replaced by this icy simplicity. This wasnt her death. It was his. That was the sad and honest truth. Though it would stay with her, it would be more like a black onyx heart on a silver chain, worn privately, under her clothes, close to her body, all her life. The guilt, the beauty, everything. It wasnt over, it had only begun. Well ok then, Okay.

  Janet Fitch

  Passion, Heart, Clothes

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• Simplicity and sincerity generally go hand in hand, as both proceed from a love of truth.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Hands, Sincerity, Hand In Hand

  Mary Wollstonecraft, Barbara H. Solomon (1983). “A Mary Wollstonecraft reader”, Signet

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• He always reminded us that every atom in our bodies was once part of a distant star that had exploded. He talked about how evolution moves from simplicity toward complexity, and how human intelligence is the highest known expression of evolution. I remember him telling me that a frog's brain is much more complex than a star. He saw human consciousness as the first neuron of the universe coming to life and awareness. A spark in the darkness, waiting to spread to fire.

  Greg Iles

  Stars, Moving, Fire

  Greg Iles (2004). “The Footprints of God”, p.293, Simon and Schuster

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• A curious thing about the ontological problem is its simplicity. It can be put into three Anglo-Saxon monosyllables: 'What is there?' It can be answered, moreover, in a word--'Everything'--and everyone will accept this answer as true.

  Willard Van Orman Quine

  Three, Answers, Problem

  Willard Van Orman Quine, Roger F. Gibson (2004). “Quintessence: Basic Readings from the Philosophy of W.V. Quine”, p.177, Harvard University Press

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