Martin Freeman - Adam Curtis TV - Charles Mingus - Leo Tolstoy - Edward Teller - Karl Popper - Walt Whitman - L S Lowry - Bill Bryson - William of Occam - St Jerome - Psalms 116:6 - Jack Kerouac - Confucius - William Golding - Duck Soup 1933 - Henry David Thoreau - Steve Maraboli - Isaac Newton - John Maeda - Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Henry Adams - Frederic Chopin - Coco Chanel - Richard Feynman - Leonardo da Vinci - Frank Lloyd Wright - Arnold Palmer -
I like things that are simple, such as an alarm clock. Martin Freeman
At the end of the twentieth century, faced with a complex and chaotic world, politicians retreated into simple stories of right and wrong. Moral fables of good versus evil. Politicians in America and Britain gave even more of their power away to the banks. The financial technocrats promised they could manage the new complexities. But the politicians still wanted to change the world. So they did what President Reagan had done. They ruthlessly simplified the complex struggles around the world into simple stories of good versus evil. Adam Curtis, Bitter Lake, BBC 2015
Over the past forty years politicians, financiers and technological Utopians rather than face up to the real complexities of the world, retreated. Instead, they constructed a simpler version of the world in order to hang on to power. And as this fake world grew, all of us went along with it. The simplicity was reassuring. Adam Curtis, HyperNormalisation, BBC 2016
Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity. Charles Mingus
There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. Leo Tolstoy
Science attempts to find logic and simplicity in nature. Mathematics attempts to establish order and simplicity in human thought. Edward Teller, The Pursuit of Simplicity
Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification – the art of discerning what we may with advantage omit. Karl Popper, The Open Universe: An Argument for Indeterminism p44, 1992
The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity. Walt Whitman
I’m a simple man, and I use simple materials. L S Lowry
Physics is really nothing more than a search for ultimate simplicity, but so far all we have is a kind of elegant messiness. Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything
No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary. William of Occam, ‘Occam’s Razor’ attributed
I have revered always not crude verbosity, but holy simplicity. St Jerome
The Lord preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me. Psalms 116:6
One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple. Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. Confucius
The greatest ideas are the simplest. William Golding, Lord of the Flies
Why, a four-year-old child could understand this report. Run out and find me a four-year-old child; I can’t make head nor tail of it. Duck Soup 1933 starring Groucho Marx & Harpo Marx & Chico Marx & Zeppo Marx & Margeret Dumont & Louis Calhern & Raquel Torres & Edgar Kennedy & Edmund Breese & Edwin Maxwell & William Worthington et al, director Leo McCarey, Rufus in Chamber of Deputies
I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run. Henry David Thoreau
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness. Henry David Thoreau
The greatest step towards a life of simplicity is to learn to let go. Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy. Isaac Newton
Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful. John Maeda, The Laws of Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life
Or, rather, let us be more simple and less vain. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Simplicity is the most deceitful mistress that ever betrayed man. Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams
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. Frédéric Chopin
Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance. Coco Chanel
Nature has a great simplicity and, therefore, a great beauty. Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Leonardo da Vinci, attributions & variations
‘Think simple’ as my old master used to say – meaning reduce the whole of its parts into the simplest terms, getting back to first principles. Frank Lloyd Wright
Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated. Arnold Palmer