An aphorism is nothing else but the slightest
QUOTES AND APHORISMS ON SIMPLICITY
A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty is worth a whole eternity in bondage.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719, British essayist, poet, statesman)
Elegance of language may not be in the power of all of us; but simplicity and straight forwardness are. Write much as you would speak; speak as you think. If with your inferior, speak no coarser than usual; if with your superiors, no finer.
William P. Alford (American professor and director of East Asian Legal Studies at Harvard Law School)
I just take my three swings and go sit on the bench. I don't ever want to mess up my swing.
Dick Allen
The great artist and thinker are the simplifiers.
Henri Frederic Amiel (1821-1881, Swiss philosopher, poet, critic)
I go about looking at horses and cattle. They eat grass, make love, work when they have to, bear their young. I am sick with envy of them.
Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941 American writer)
Players have two things to do: Play and keep their mouths shut.
Sparky Anderson (1934-, American baseball manager)
The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing?
Richard Bach (1936-, American author)
The more we reduce the size of our world, the more we shall be its master.
Jacinto Benavente
The way you get better at playing football is to play football.
Gene Brodie
Simplicity is nature's first step, and the last of art.
Philip James Bailey (1816-1902, British poet)
The price we pay for the complexity of life is too high. When you think of all the effort you have to put in -- telephonic, technological and relational -- to alter even the slightest bit of behavior in this strange world we call social life, you are left pining for the straightforwardness of primitive peoples and their physical work.
Jean Baudrillard (French postmodern philosopher, writer)
If you can't write your idea on the back of my calling card, you don't have a clear idea.
David Belasco
I have a simple life. I mean, you just give me a drum roll, they announce my name, and I come out and sing. In my job I have a contract that says I'm a singer. So I sing.
Tony Bennett (1926-, American musician, painter, singer)
What is conceived well is expressed clearly.
Nicholas Boileau (1636-1711, French literary poet, critic)
Partial culture runs to the ornate, extreme culture to simplicity.
John Christian Bovee (1820-1904, American author, lawyer)
To simplify complications is the first essential of success.
George Earle Buckle (1854-1935, British journalist)
They regard the essential as essential, and they regard the unessential as unessential -- those who nurture such right thoughts experience the essence.
Buddha (568-488 BC, Indian born, founder of Buddhism)
The business schools reward difficult, complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.
Warren Buffett (1930-, American investment entrepreneur)
Art, it seems to me, should simplify.
Willa Cather (1876-1947, American author)
The most complex things are the simplest.
Agni Celeste
To be simple is the best thing in the world.
Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874-1936, British author)
All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965, British statesman, Prime Minister)
Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965, British statesman, Prime Minister)
Every contrivance of man, every tool, every instrument, every utensil, every article designed for use, of each and every kind, evolved from a very simple beginnings.
Robert Collier (1885-1950, American writer, publisher)
Life is really simple, but men insist on making it complicated.
Confucius (BC 551-479, Chinese ethical teacher, philosopher)
A refined simplicity is the characteristic of all high bred deportment, in every country, and a considerate humanity should be the aim of all beneath it.
James F. Cooper (1789-1851, American novelist)
I searched through rebellion, drugs, diet, mysticism, religion, intellectualism and much more, only to find that truth is basically simple and feels good, clear and right.
Chick Corea
My advice about acting? Speak clearly, don't bump into people, and if you must have motivation, think of your pay packet on Friday.
Noel Coward (1899-1973, British writer)
The common tasks are beautiful if we have eyes to see their shining ministry.
Grace Noll Crowell
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519, Italian inventor, architect, painter, scientist, sculptor)
A taste for simplicity cannot endure for long.
Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863, French artist)
Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.
Rene Descartes (1596-1650, French philosopher, scientist)
There is a master key to success with which no man can fail. Its name is simplicity... reducing to the simplest possible terms every problem.
Henri Deterding
I don't understand complicated problems. I only understand simple ones.
Richard Deupree
The ideal never comes. Today is ideal for him who makes it so.
Horatio W. Dresser
There are only five things you can do in baseball: run, throw, catch, hit, and hit with power.
Leo Durocher (1905-1991, American baseball player/manager)
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955, German-born American physicist)
God always takes the simplest way.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955, German-born American physicist)
Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955, German-born American physicist)
The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955, German-born American physicist)
When the solution is simple, God is answering.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955, German-born American physicist)
He is only rich who owns the day. There is no king, rich man, fairy, or demon who possesses such power as that.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
It the proof of high culture to say the greatest matters in the simplest way.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
The days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant friendly party, but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
To be simple is to be great.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
When ideas come, I write them; when they don't come, I don't.
William Faulkner (1897-1962, American novelist)
It is the childlike mind that finds the kingdom.
Charles Fillmore (American co-founder of Unity School of Christianity)
The man of fixed ingrained principles who has mapped out a straight course, and has the courage and self-control to adhere to it, does not find life complex. Complexities are all of our own making.
B.C. Forbes
I can always make it a rule to get there first with the most men.
Nathan Bedford Forrest
Simple style is like white light. It is complex, but its complexity is not obvious.
Anatole France (1844-1924, French writer)
Simplicity, carried to an extreme, becomes elegance.
Jon Franklin
I never thought of myself as a writer, but the simplest thing seemed to be to put a piece of paper in the roller and start typing.
Cynthia Friedman
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.
John Gall
You have got to own your days and live them, each one of them, every one of them, or else the years go right by and none of them belong to you.
Herb Gardner
The whole is simpler than the sum of its parts.
Willard Gibbs
The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931, Lebanese poet, novelist)
Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931, Lebanese poet, novelist)
Success is simple. Do what's right, the right way, at the right time.
Arnold H. Glasow
God made man simple, but how he changed and got complicated is hard to say.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832, German poet, dramatist, novelist)
Nothing is true, but that which is simple.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832, German poet, dramatist, novelist)
There is repetition everywhere, and nothing is found only once in the world.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832, German poet, dramatist, novelist)
If you don't throw it, they can't hit it.
Lefty Gomez
Simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds.
Remy De Gourmont (1858-1915, French novelist, philosopher, poet, playwright)
Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830, British essayist)
Behind the complicated details of the world stand the simplicities: God is good, the grown-up man or woman knows the answer to every question, there is such a thing as truth, and justice is as measured and faultless as a clock. Our heroes are simple: they are brave, they tell the truth, they are good swordsmen and they are never in the long run really defeated. That is why no later books satisfy us like those which were read to us in childhood -- for those promised a world of great simplicity of which we knew the rules, but the later books are complicated and contradictory with experience; they are formed out of our own disappointing memories.
Graham Greene (1904-1991, British novelist)
The niftiest turn of phrase, the most elegant flight of rhetorical fancy, isn't worth beans next to a clear thought clearly expressed.
Jeff Greenfield
There is nothing certain about war except that one side won't win.
Ian Hamilton
There is a point at which everything becomes simple and there is no longer any question of choice, because all you have staked will be lost if you look back. Life's point of no return.
Dag Hammarskjold (1905-1961, Swedish statesman, Secretary-General of the UN)
The greatest truths are the simplest, and so are the greatest men.
Julius Charles Hare
My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.
Ernest Hemingway (1898-1961, American writer)
There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.
C.A.R. Hoare
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
Hans Hofmann
Understanding reduces the greatest to simplicity, and lack of its causes the least to take on the magnitude.
Raymond Holliwell
Gladly accept the gifts of the present hour.
Horace (BC 65-8, Italian poet)
He possesses dominion over himself, and is happy, who can every day say, "I have lived." Tomorrow the heavenly Father may either involve the world in dark clouds, or cheer it with clear sunshine; he will not, however, render ineffectual the things which have already taken place.
Horace (BC 65-8, Italian poet)
Live mindful of how brief your life is.
Horace (BC 65-8, Italian poet)
The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity.
Doug Horton
The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed -- it is a process of elimination.
Elbert Hubbard (1859-1915, American author, publisher)
Most of us spend our lives as if we had another one in the bank.
Ben Irwin
In our systems work through simplicity, consistency, and repetition.
Jack Kinder (American businessman, author)
The course of every intellectual, if he pursues his journey long and unflinchingly enough, ends in the obvious, from which the non-intellectuals have never stirred.
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963, British author)
The object of war is to survive it.
John Irving (1942-, American author)
I hate American simplicity. I glory in the piling up of complications of every sort. If I could pronounce the name James in any different or more elaborate way, I should be in favor of doing it.
Henry James (1843-1916, American author)
Life will not bear refinement. You must do as other people do.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784, British author)
Simplicity is the intention, purity in the affection; simplicity turns to God, purity unites with and enjoys him.
Thomas a Kempis (1379-1471, German monk, mystic, religious writer)
Outward simplicity befits ordinary men, like a garment made to measure for them; but it serves as an adornment to those who have filled their lives with great deeds: they might be compared to some beauty carelessly dressed and thereby all the more attractive.
Jean De La Bruyere (1645-1696, French classical writer)
If you want to be found, stand where the seeker seeks.
Sidney Lanier
It's not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.
Bruce Lee (1940-1973, Chinese-American martial artist, actor, director, author) Author's website: www.brucelee.com
The height of cultivation runs to simplicity. Halfway cultivation runs to ornamentation.
Bruce Lee (1940-1973, Chinese-American martial artist, actor, director, author) Author's website: www.brucelee.com
To me, the extraordinary aspect of martial arts lies in its simplicity. The easy way is also the right way, and martial arts is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of martial arts, the less wastage of expression there is.
Bruce Lee (1940-1973, Chinese-American martial artist, actor, director, author) Author's website: www.brucelee.com
The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble short-sightedness of him who observes it.
Georg C. Lichtenberg (1742-1799, German physicist, satirist)
The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.
Yutang, Lin (1895-1976, Chinese writer and philologist)
Football is blocking and tackling. Everything else is mythology.
Vince Lombardi (1913-1970, American football coach)
Simplicity in character, in manners, in style; in all things the supreme excellence is simplicity.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1819-1892, American poet)
The wisest keeps something of the vision of a child. Though he may understand a thousand things that a child could not understand, he is always a beginner, close to the original meaning of life.
John Macy
The idea is to get the pencil moving quickly.
Bernard Malamud
Order and simplification are the first steps towards the mastery of a subject.
Thomas Mann (1875-1955, German author, critic)
The first law of war is to preserve ourselves and destroy the enemy.
Zedong Mao (1893-1976, Founder of the People's Republic of China)
They throw the ball, I hit it. They hit the ball, I catch it.
Willie Mays (1931-, American baseball player)
Some days you tame the tiger. And some days the tiger has you for lunch.
Tug McGraw
Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.
Charles Mingus
The simplest things give me ideas.
Joan Miro
I have always observed that to succeed in the world a person must seem simple, yet wise.
Charles De Montesquieu (1689-1755, French jurist, political philosopher)
Simplicity of character is no hindrance to subtlety of intellect.
John Morley (1838-1923, British journalist, biographer, statesman)
I paint from the top down. From the sky, then the mountains, then the hills, then the houses, then the cattle, and then the people.
Grandma Moses (1860-1961, American artist)
In combat, life is short, nasty and brutish. The issues of national policy which brought him into war are irrelevant to the combat soldier; he is concerned with his literal life chances.
Charles E. Moskos
You don't hurt `em if you don't hit `em.
Chesty Puller (1898-1971, American general)
The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his.
George S. Patton (1885-1945, American army general during World War II)
We struggle with the complexities and avoid the simplicities.
Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993, American Christian reformed pastor, speaker, author)
It is the essence of genius to make use of the simplest ideas.
Charles Peguy (1873-1914, French poet, philosopher)
The main obligation is to amuse yourself.
Sydney Joseph Perelman (1904-1979, American humorous writer)
See it big, and keep it simple.
Wilfred A. Peterson
Putting aside all the fancy words and academic double talk, the basic reason for having a military is to do two jobs -- to kill people and to destroy the works of man.
Thomas S. Power
The simplest things are the most startling.
American Proverb (Sayings of American origin)
Never do anything standing that you can do sitting, or anything sitting that you can do lying down.
Chinese Proverb (Sayings of Chinese origin)
Many things are lost for want of asking.
English Proverb (Sayings of British origin)
A great man is one who seizes the vital issue in a complex question, what we might call the jugular vein of the whole organism, and spends his energies upon that.
Joseph Rickaby
Everyone once, once only. Just once and no more. And we also once. Never again.
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926, German poet)
It's a round ball and a round bat, and you got to hit it square.
Pete Rose (1942-, American baseball player, manager)
Everything is simpler than you think and yet more complex than you imagine.
Author Unknown
It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill and easy execution in the proper place, than to expand both indiscriminately.
John Ruskin (1819-1900, British critic, social theorist)
It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill and easy execution in the proper place, than to expand both indiscriminately.
John Ruskin (1819-1900, British critic, social theorist)
Simplicity is the peak of civilization.
Jessie Sampter
Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860, German philosopher)
No objects of value... are worth risking the priceless experience of waking up one more day.
Jack Smith
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.
E. F. Schumacher (1911-1977, German economist)
Intellectual comradeship requires that you think your thoughts through to the place where you can make the complex seem simple, the obscure quite clear.
David Seabury (American doctor, author)
Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing.
Warren Spahn
Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.
Oscar Wilde (1856-1900, British author, wit)
The best things are nearest: breath in our nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of God just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things of life.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1895, Scottish essayist, poet, novelist)
The trouble with so many of us is that we underestimate the power of simplicity. We have a tendency it seems to over complicate our lives and forget what's important and what's not. We tend to mistake movement for achievement. We tend to focus on activities instead of results. And as the pace of life continues to race along in the outside world, we forget that we have the power to control our lives regardless of what's going on outside.
Robert Stuberg
Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862, American essayist, poet, naturalist)
Just learn your lines and don't bump into the furniture.
Spencer Tracy (1900-1967, American film actor)
If you walk, just walk. If you sit, just sit. But whatever you do, don't wobble.
Author Unknown
Simplicity is the seal of truth.
Author Unknown
The trouble with measurement is its seeming simplicity.
Author Unknown
Simple truths are a relief from grand speculations.
Marquis De Vauvenargues (1715-1747, French moralist)
When a thought is too weak to be expressed simply, it should be rejected.
Marquis De Vauvenargues (1715-1747, French moralist)
When an idea is too weak to support a simple statement, it is a sign that it should be rejected.
Marquis De Vauvenargues (1715-1747, French moralist)
No matter how complicated a problem is, it usually can be reduced to a simple, comprehensible form, which is often the best solution.
An Wang (1920-1989, Chinese-American physicist, founder of Wang Laboratories)
Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.
Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900, American author)
At times almost all of us envy the animals. They suffer and die, but do not seem to make a "problem" of it.
Alan W. Watts (1915-1973, British-born American philosopher, author)
If we live, we live; if we die, we die; if we suffer, we suffer; if we are terrified, we are terrified. There is no problem about it.
Alan W. Watts (1915-1973, British-born American philosopher, author)
Seek simplicity but distrust it.
Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947, British mathematician, philosopher)
The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.
Walt Whitman (1819-1892, American poet)
I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.
Oscar Wilde (1856-1900, British author, wit)
The complex develops out of the simple.
Colin Wilson (1931-, British novelist and writer on philosophy, sociology, and the occult)
The rules of soccer are very simple. Basically it's this: If it moves, kick it; if it doesn't move, kick it until it does.
Phil Woosnam
|
