Simplicity Quotes - Page 34

• Beauty is highly desirable but simplicity and usefulness are the overwhelming fashion of our age. Just because it's beautiful does not mean it's useful.

  Gerry McGovern

  Beautiful, Fashion, Mean

  12 Copy quote

• The customer demands simplicity, that organizations organize around them. Easy to use is a customer tsunami ripping across the world. Ease of use and simplicity must now be at the heart of organizational strategy.

  Gerry McGovern

  Heart, Organization, Use

  7 Copy quote

• Complexity is acceptable as long as it is intelligible and necessary. We want to avoid needless complications.

  Donald A. Norman

  Long, Want, Complexity

  9 Copy quote

• As for the complex ways of living, I love them not, however much I practice them. In as many places as possible, I will get my feet down to the earth.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Practice, Feet, Earth

  Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.204, Yale University Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The savage lives simply through ignorance and idleness or laziness, but the philosopher lives simply through wisdom.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Ignorance, Savages, Laziness

  Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.113, David M Gross

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• To what end do I lead a simple life at all, pray? That I may teach others to simplify their lives? - and so all our lives be simplified merely, like an algebraic formula? Or not, rather, that I may make use of the ground I have cleared to live more worthily and profitably?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Simple, Use, May

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.369, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The rule is to carry as little as possible.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Littles

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Green Thoreau: America's First Environmentalist on Technology, Possessions, Livelihood, and More”, p.72, New World Library

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen,
  Delightful industry enjoy'd at home,
  An Nature, in her cultivated trim
  Dress'ed to his taste, inviting him abroad -
  Can he want occupation who has these?

  William Cowper

  Friendship, Book, Home

  William Cowper, “The Task: Book Iii. -- The Garden”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• When speech comes from a quiet heart, it has the strength of the orchid, and the fragrance of rock.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Heart, Rocks, Orchids

  254 Copy quote

• Desired substance, things, patterns, or sequences of experience that are in some sense "good" for the organism - items of diet, conditions of life, temperature, entertainment, sex, and so forth - are never such that more of the something is always better than less of the something. Rather, for all objects and experiences, there is a quantity that has optimum value. Above that quantity, the variable becomes toxic. To fall below that value is to be deprived.

  Gregory Bateson

  Sex, Fall, Toxic

  10 Copy quote

• For one day, or for one day for a week, refrain from something you habitually do to run away, to escape. Pick something concrete, such as overeating or excessive sleeping or overworking or spending too much time texting or checking e-mails. Make a commitment to yourself to gently and compassionately work with refraining from this habit for this one day. Really commit to it. Do this with the intention that it will put you in touch with the underlying anxiety or uncertainty that you've been avoiding. Do it and see what you discover.

  Pema Chodron

  Running, Sleep, Commitment

  54 Copy quote

• In a single sentence the moral is: admit that complexity always increases, first from the model you fit to the data, thence to the model you use to think about and plan about the experiment and its analysis, and thence to the true situation.

  John Tukey

  Thinking, Data, Analysis

  26 Copy quote

• What is commonest and cheapest and nearest and easiest is Me, Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns, Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me, Not asking the sky to come down to my goodwill, Scattering if freely forever.

  Walt Whitman

  Sky, Forever, Asking

  Walt Whitman, Ezra Greenspan (2005). “Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself": A Sourcebook and Critical Edition”, p.53, Psychology Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Two wings lift a person up from earthly concerns: Simplicity in intention, and Purity in feeling.

  Thomas a Kempis

  Wings, Two, Feelings

  10 Copy quote

• My themes will not be far-fetched. I will tell of homely every-day phenomena and adventures.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Adventure, Scrapbooking, Theme

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.168, Courier Corporation

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Whatever's merely willful, and not miraculous (be never it so skilful) must wither fail and cease - but better than to grow beauty knows no.

  e. e. cummings

  Failing, Grows, Miraculous

  4 Copy quote

• He lacks much who has no aptitude for idleness.

  Louise Wilder

  Work, Aptitude, Idleness

  4 Copy quote

• Do not be afraid of simplicity. If you have a cold chicken for supper, why cover it with a tasteless white sauce which makes it look like a pretentious dish on the buffet table at some fance dress ball?

  Marcel Boulestin

  Food, White, Dresses

  7 Copy quote

• It matters not how simple the food - a chop, steak or a plain boiled or roast joint, but let it be of good quality and properly cooked, and everyone who partakes of it will enjoy it.

  Alexis Soyer

  Simple, Quality, Matter

  Alexis Soyer (1959). “Soyer's cookery book”

  50 Copy quote

  Show source

• Life will not bear refinement. You must do as other people do.

  Samuel Johnson

  People, Bears, Refinement

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1866). “The Life of Samuel Johnson”, p.114

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The qualities in music which I considered most important - and still do - were beauty, simplicity, originality, discrimination, and sincerity.

  Paul Desmond

  Music, Important, Quality

  27 Copy quote

• Successful people understand that you don't need to make things complicated.

  Anne McKevitt

  Inspirational, Women, Successful

  46 Copy quote

• My policy is not how fast you play, it's not how much you play but it's what you play and where you play it ... play for the commercial side of the music ... the word I still use today is called "simplicity" .. it is so important that you use simplicity in your playing and in your music.

  James Burton

  Music, Play, Important

  8 Copy quote

• We are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations, and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Religious, Heart, Organization

  15 Copy quote

• I still hate making pictures! And I don't like Hollywood any better. I detest the limelight and love simplicity, and in Hollywood the only thing that matters is the hullabaloo of fame. If Hollywood will let me alone to find my way without forcing me and rushing me into things, I probably will change my feelings about it. But at present Hollywood seems utterly horrible and interfering and consuming. Which is why I want to leave it as soon as I am able.

  Margaret Sullavan

  Hate, Rushing, Feelings

  6 Copy quote