Simplicity Quotes - Page 26

• Nature does nothing in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.

  Isaac Newton

  Nature, Science, Causes

  Sir Isaac Newton (1962). “Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World: The system of the world”, p.398, Univ of California Press

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• Perhaps we see equations as simple because they are easily expressed in terms of mathematical notation already invented at an earlier stage of development of the science, and thus what appears to us as elegance of description really reflects the interconnectedness of Nature's laws at different levels.

  Murray Gell-Mann

  Nature, Science, Simple

  Murray Gell-Mann's speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, www.nobelprize.org. December 10, 1969.

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• A great part of its theories derives an additional charm from the peculiarity that important propositions, with the impress of simplicity on them, are often easily discovered by induction, and yet are of so profound a character that we cannot find the demonstrations till after many vain attempts; and even then, when we do succeed, it is often by some tedious and artificial process, while the simple methods may long remain concealed.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Success, Character, Simple

  "Mathematical Circles Adieu". Book by Howard W. Eves, 1977.

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• The research worker, in his efforts to express the fundamental laws of Nature in mathematical form, should strive mainly for mathematical beauty. He should take simplicity into consideration in a subordinate way to beauty ... It often happens that the requirements of simplicity and beauty are the same, but where they clash, the latter must take precedence.

  Paul Dirac

  Science, Law, Effort

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• In this communication I wish first to show in the simplest case of the hydrogen atom (nonrelativistic and undistorted) that the usual rates for quantization can be replaced by another requirement, in which mention of "whole numbers" no longer occurs. Instead the integers occur in the same natural way as the integers specifying the number of nodes in a vibrating string. The new conception can be generalized, and I believe it touches the deepest meaning of the quantum rules.

  Erwin Schrodinger

  Believe, Communication, Science

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• Simplicity, good taste and grooming are the three fundamentals of good dressing and these do not cost money.

  Christian Dior

  Fashion, Three, Cost

  "The Little Black Dress and Zoot Suits". Book by Alison Behnke (p. 18), 2012.

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• I like to think that I can introduce people to the idea of simplicity and elegance.

  Giorgio Armani

  Fashion, Thinking, Ideas

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• We all have hometown appetites. Every other person is a bundle of longing for the simplicities of good taste once enjoyed on the farm or in the hometown left behind.

  Clementine Paddleford

  Food, Taste, Culture

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• The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which they [the clergy] have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of it's benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Christian, Mind, Friendly

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson”, p.463

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• The greatest wisdom is in simplicity. Love, respect, tolerance, sharing, gratitude, forgiveness. It's not complex or elaborate. The real knowledge is free. It's encoded in your DNA. All you need is within you. Great teachers have said that from the beginning. Find your heart, and you will find your way.

  Carlos Barrios

  Teacher, Gratitude, Real

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• Most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you'll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, 'Is this necessary?'

  Marcus Aurelius

  Focus, Essentials, Moments

  Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Aristotle (2012). “The Modern Library Collection of Greek and Roman Philosophy 3-Book Bundle: Meditations; Selected Dialogues of Plato; The Basic Works of Aristotle”, p.139, Modern Library

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• If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about.

  C. S. Lewis

  Simple, People, Islam

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.126, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The greatest wealth is a poverty of desires.

  Seneca the Younger

  Spiritual, Greatest Wealth, Desire

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• Don't let yourself forget that God's grace rewards not only those who never slip, but also those who bend and fall. So sing! The song of rejoicing softens hard hearts. It makes tears of godly sorrow flow from them. Singing summons the Holy Spirit. Happy praises offered in simplicity and love lead the faithful to complete harmony, without discord. Don't stop singing.

  Hildegard of Bingen

  Song, Fall, Heart

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• What attracted me to immunology was that the whole thing seemed to revolve around a very simple experiment: take two different antibody molecules and compare their primary sequences. The secret of antibody diversity would emerge from that. Fortunately at the time I was sufficiently ignorant of the subject not to realise how naive I was being.

  Cesar Milstein

  Ignorance, Science, Simple

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• A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. A simple morning's greeting and response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with implications. Each nicety becomes more sterile and each withdrawal more permanent.

  Maya Angelou

  Love, Morning, Truth

  Maya Angelou (2012). “The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou”, p.423, Modern Library

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• That the fundamental aspects of heredity should have turned out to be so extraordinarily simple supports us in the hope that nature may, after all, be entirely approachable. Her much-advertised inscrutability has once more been found to be an illusion due to our ignorance. This is encouraging, for, if the world in which we live were as complicated as some of our friends would have us believe we might well despair that biology could ever become an exact science.

  Thomas Hunt Morgan

  Believe, Ignorance, Simple

  Thomas Hunt Morgan (1919). “The Physical basis of heredity”

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• The simplicity we are looking for is not found in thought. It knows what you have to listen to in every moment and knows it can never make a mistake. It is the infinite working in the infinite. It projects into this world because we are here to do that.

  Robert Young

  Mistake, World, Infinite

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• Scientific progress is the discovery of a more and more comprehensive simplicity... The previous successes give us confidence in the future of science: we become more and more conscious of the fact that the universe is cognizable.

  Georges Lemaitre

  Success, Science, Discovery

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• The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.

  Nathaniel Borenstein

  Humorous, Learning, Agreement

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• These are some of the characteristics of the state of mind which the creation and appreciation of haiku demand: Selflessness, Loneliness, Grateful Acceptance, Wordlessness, Non-intellectuality, Contradictoriness, Humor, Freedom, Non-morality, Simplicity, Materiality, Love, and Courage.

  Reginald Horace Blyth

  Love, Appreciation, Loneliness

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• Beneath all the wealth of detail in a geological map lies an elegant, orderly simplicity.

  John Tuzo Wilson

  Lying, Science, Order

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• There was, I think, a feeling that the best science was that done in the simplest way. In experimental work, as in mathematics, there was "style" and a result obtained with simple equipment was more elegant than one obtained with complicated apparatus, just as a mathematical proof derived neatly was better than one involving laborious calculations. Rutherford's first disintegration experiment, and Chadwick's discovery of the neutron had a "style" that is different from that of experiments made with giant accelerators.

  J. A. Ratcliffe

  Science, Thinking, Simple

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• For if as scientists we seek simplicity, then obviously we try the simplest surviving theory first, and retreat from it only when it proves false. Not this course, but any other, requires explanation. If you want to go somewhere quickly, and several alternate routes are equally likely to be open, no one asks why you take the shortest. The simplest theory is to be chosen not because it is the most likely to be true but because it is scientifically the most rewarding among equally likely alternatives. We aim at simplicity and hope for truth.

  Nelson Goodman

  Science, Trying, Alternatives

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• Why it is that animals, instead of developing in a simple and straightforward way, undergo in the course of their growth a series of complicated changes, during which they often acquire organs which have no function, and which, after remaining visible for a short time, disappear without leaving a trace ... To the Darwinian, the explanation of such facts is obvious. The stage when the tadpole breathes by gills is a repetition of the stage when the ancestors of the frog had not advanced in the scale of development beyond a fish.

  Francis Maitland Balfour

  Science, Animal, Simple

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