simplicity

 

 'Simplicity is the outcome of technical subtlety; it is the goal, not starting point'.

- Fernand Braudel, from the foreword to The Wheels of Commerce, Civilization & Capitalism--15th-18th Century. 

“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”
― Albert Einstein

“And I learned what is obvious to a child. That life is simply a collection of little lives, each lived one day at a time. That each day should be spent finding beauty in flowers and poetry and talking to animals. That a day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing breezes cannot be bettered. But most of all, I learned that life is about sitting on benches next to ancient creeks with my hand on her knee and sometimes, on good days, for falling in love.”
― Nicholas Sparks

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. 
These three are your greatest treasures.
- Lao Tzu
 

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


 
That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.
- Steve Jobs
 

The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.
- Walt Whitman
 

Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.
- Frederic Chopin


Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens. If you have them, you have to take care of them! There is great freedom in simplicity of living. It is those who have enough but not too much who are the happiest.
- Peace Pilgrim
 

Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity.
- Thor Heyerdahl

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.
- Lao Tzu


Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations.
- Paul Rand


 Simplicity and repose are the qualities that measure the true value of any work of art.
- Frank Lloyd Wright


 Simplicity is the most difficult thing to secure in this world; it is the last limit of experience and the last effort of genius.
- George Sand


 As I grew older, I realized that it was much better to insist on the genuine forms of nature, for simplicity is the greatest adornment of art.
- Albrecht Durer

 

 Even before string theory, especially as physics developed in the 20th century, it turned out that the equations that really work in describing nature with the most generality and the greatest simplicity are very elegant and subtle.
- Edward Witten




 Simplicity is not the absence of clutter, that's a consequence of simplicity. Simplicity is somehow essentially describing the purpose and place of an object and product. The absence of clutter is just a clutter-free product. That's not simple.
- Jonathan Ive

 

 Organic architecture seeks superior sense of use and a finer sense of comfort, expressed in organic simplicity.
- Frank Lloyd Wright


 And yes, there's a simplicity to writing books because you're not a member of a team, so you make all the decisions yourself instead of deferring to a committee.
- Bernard Cornwell



 Purity and simplicity are the two wings with which man soars above the earth and all temporary nature.
- Thomas a Kempis
 

Guided only by their feeling for symmetry, simplicity, and generality, and an indefinable sense of the fitness of things, creative mathematicians now, as in the past, are inspired by the art of mathematics rather than by any prospect of ultimate usefulness.
- E. T. Bell


So with that will prompt and prepared to serve all those whom I perceive to be servants of my Lord, I will speak of three things with simplicity and love as if I were speaking to my own soul.
- Ignatius Loyola










The Greek philosopher Diogenes (404-323 BC) is seated in his abode, the earthenware tub, in the Metroon, Athens, lighting the lamp in daylight with which he was to search for an honest man. His companions were dogs that also served as emblems of his "Cynic" (Greek: "kynikos," dog-like) philosophy, which emphasized an austere existence. Three years after this painting was first exhibited, Gerome was appointed a professor of painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts where he would instruct many students, both French and foreign.



Diogenes of Sinope was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynic philosophy. Also known as Diogenes the Cynic, he was born in Sinope (modern-day Sinop, Turkey), an Ionian colony on the Black Sea,ⁱn 412 or 404 BC and died at Corinth in 323 BC