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Link Quote Stars Tags Author
533bfab One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple. writing simplicity Jack Kerouac
421d2e4 Like all magnificent things, it's very simple. philosophy simplicity Natalie Babbitt
5aa4483 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. violence inspirational complexity elegance simplicity genius E.F. Schumacher
542de7b There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. truth simplicity Leo Tolstoy
71ec99c The greatest ideas are the simplest. inspirational simplicity William Golding
0096aca Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive. happiness heart chocolate bittersweet simplicity torture Joanne Harris
dd907a4 It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials. motivation wisdom inspirational priorities simplicity Bruce Lee
805c757 The greatest step towards a life of simplicity is to learn to let go. letting-go motivational life inspirational simplicity Steve Maraboli
74d19d6 What I want is so simple I almost can't say it: elementary kindness. kindness life simplicity Barbara Kingsolver
0b59309 Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. nature simplicity Henry David Thoreau
c17f76b "When I heard the learn'd astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself, science simplicity Walt Whitman
b1883d7 Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society. simplicity materialism Henry David Thoreau
1644dcd Simplify your life. You don't grow spiritual, you shrink spiritual. action letting-go change motivational life inspirational spiritual-growth simplicity Steve Maraboli
8f0592f Practice giving things away, not just things you don't care about, but things you do like. Remember, it is not the size of a gift, it is its quality and the amount of mental attachment you overcome that count. So don't bankrupt yourself on a momentary positive impulse, only to regret it later. Give thought to giving. Give small things, carefully, and observe the mental processes going along with the act of releasing the little thing you liked. (53) (Quote is actually Robert A F Thurman but Huston Smith, who only wrote the introduction to my edition, seems to be given full credit for this text.) non-attachment releasing giving generosity practice simplicity gift Huston Smith
17fa2de It is desirable that a man live in all respects so simply and preparedly that if an enemy take the town... he can walk out the gate empty-handed and without anxiety. simple-life simple-living simple simplicity Henry David Thoreau
4f78717 These times are too progressive. Everything has changed too fast. Railroads and telegraphs and kerosene and coal stoves -- they're good to have but the trouble is, folks get to depend on 'em. progress progressivism simplicity Laura Ingalls Wilder
b2d79ce People who advocate simplicity have money in the bank; the money came first, not the simplicity. wealth rich-man money-quotes rich-and-poor wealthy rich-people simple simplicity rich Douglas Coupland
8632e1b Because . . . most of us think that the point is something to do with work, or kids, or family, or whatever. But you don't have any of that. There's nothing between you and despair, and you don't seem a very desperate person.' 'Too stupid.' 'You're not stupid. So why don't you ever put your head in the oven?' 'I don't know. There's always a new Nirvana album to look forward to, or something happening in NYPD Blue to make you want to watch the next episode.' 'Exactly.' 'That's the point? NYPD Blue? Jesus.' It was worse than he thought. 'No, no. The point is you keep going. You want to. So all the things that make you want to are the point. I don't know if you even realize it, but on the quiet you don't think life's too bad. You love things. Telly. Music. Food. suicide life-lessons humor simplicity Nick Hornby
7db1e7d "It was as simple as that - they met. As simple as only beautiful things can be beautiful, as only life-changing things, turning-point things, can be simple. ("For The Rest Of Her Life")" fate relationship love simple life-changing meeting simplicity Cornell Woolrich
849be0d "I have never seen or heard of such a fish. But I must kill him. I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars." Imagine if each day a man must try to kill the moon, he thought. The moon runs away. . . . Then he was sorry for the great fish that had nothing to eat and his determination to kill him never relaxed in his sorrow for him. . . . There is no one worthy of eating him from the manner of his behavior and his great dignity. I do not understand these things, he thought. But it is good that we do not have to try to kill the sun or the moon or the stars. It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers." philosophy simplicity Ernest Hemingway
a558936 A person with taste is merely one who can recognize the greatest beauty in the simplest things. taste simplicity Barbara Taylor Bradford
6e54ca2 A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) simplicity T.S. Eliot
662ef37 History as well as life itself is complicated -- neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency. history life simplicity Jared Diamond
4f4e0ef Power of generalizing gives men so much the superiority in mistake over the dumb animals. simplicity George Eliot
c345d97 I advance in life, I grow more simple, and I become more and more patriotic for humanity. human-rights humanity simplicity patriotism Victor Hugo
69b3f71 He was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility. But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride. simplicity pride Ernest Hemingway
c75bbbe It was a morning like other mornings and yet perfect among mornings. nature simplicity peace John Steinbeck
6ab2416 Life always refused simplicity. simplicity Julian Barnes
5bada04 The world was beautiful when looked at in this way--without any seeking, so simple, so childlike. world observation simplicity children Hermann Hesse
0f2edb9 For us to deem a work of architecture elegant, it is hence not enough that it look simple: we must feel that the simplicity it displays has been hard won, that it flows from the resolution of demanding technical or natural predicament. Thus we call the Shaker staircase in Pleasant Hill elegant because we know--without ever having constructed one ourselves--that a staircase is a site complexity, and that combinations of treads, risers and banisters rarely approach the sober intelligibility of the Sharkers' work. We deem a modern Swiss house elegant because we not how seamlessly its windows have been joined to their concrete walls, and how neatly the usual clutter of construction has been resolved away. We admire starkly simple works that we intuit would, without immense effort, have appeared very complicated. (p 209) construction complicated complexity elegance design intuition simplicity Alain de Botton
d4bbeb7 health, social life, job, house, partners, finances; leisure use, leisure amount; working time, education, income, children; food, water, shelter, clothing, sex, health care; mobility; physical safety, social safety, job security, savings account, insurance, disability protection, family leave, vacation; place tenure, a commons; access to wilderness, mountains, ocean; peace, political stability, political input, political satisfaction; air, water, esteem; status, recognition; home, community, neighbors, civil society, sports, the arts; longevity treatments, gender choice; the opportunity to become more what you are that's all you need necessities the-good-life simplicity Kim Stanley Robinson
818d74d [Donald] Keene observed [in a book entitled The Pleasures of Japanese Literature, 1988] that the Japanese sense of beauty has long sharply differed from its Western counterpart: it has been dominated by a love of irregularity rather than symmetry, the impermanent rather than the eternal and the simple rather than the ornate. The reason owes nothing to climate or genetics, added Keene, but is the result of the actions of writers, painters and theorists, who had actively shaped the sense of beauty of their nation. Contrary to the Romantic belief that we each settle naturally on a fitting idea of beauty, it seems that our visual and emotional faculties in fact need constant external guidance to help them decide what they should take note of and appreciate. 'Culture' is the word we have assigned to the force that assists us in identifying which of our many sensations we should focus on and apportion value to. visual emotional wabi-sabi design japan value simplicity Alain de Botton
cb01293 In literature, too, we admire prose in which a small and astutely arranged set of words has been constructed to carry a large consignment of ideas. 'We all have strength enough to bear the misfortunes of others,' writes La Rochefoucauld in an aphorism which transports us with an energy and exactitude comparable to that of Maillard bridge. The Swiss engineer reduces the number of supports just as the French writer compacts into a single line what lesser minds might have taken pages to express. We delight in complexity to which genius has lent an appearance of simplicity. (p 207) words literature writing engineering simplicity Alain de Botton
efe1690 They thought more before nine a.m. than most people thought all month. I remember once declining cherry pie at dinner, and Rand cocked his head and said, 'Ahh! Iconoclast. Disdains the easy, symbolic patriotism.' And when I tried to laugh it off and said, well, I didn't like cherry cobbler either, Marybeth touched Rand's arm: 'Because of the divorce. All those comfort foods, the desserts a family eats together, those are just bad memories for Nick.' It was silly but incredibly sweet, these people spending so much energy trying to figure me out. The answer: I don't like cherries. irony thoughts memories funny over-thinking broken-home cherry-pie the-mind iconoclast psychologist divorce childhood-memories simplicity ironic patriotism logic childhood symbolism psychology Gillian Flynn
37df82a A certain simplicity of thought is common to serene souls at both ends of the social scale. simplicity Joseph Conrad
19b2d52 I beseech you, little brothers, that you be as wise as brother Daisy and brother dandelion; for never do they lie awake thinking of tomorrow, yet they have gold crowns like kings and emperors or like Charlemagne in all his glory. simplicity peace G.K. Chesterton
1ee3672 She never had much in this life, but with the simplest things, she made her corner of the world as beautiful as any king's palace. We may lack riches, but the greatest fortune is what lies in our hearts. heart life love material-possessions stormy-lewellyn simplicity Dean Koontz
0a17ba4 Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry, -- determined to make a day of it. Why should we knock under and go with the stream? Let us not be upset and overwhelmed in that terrible rapid and whirlpool called a dinner, situated in the meridian shallows. Weather this danger and you are safe, for the rest of the way is down hill. With unrelaxed nerves, with morning vigor, sail by it, looking another way, tied to the mast like Ulysses. If the engine whistles, let it whistle till it is hoarse for its pains. If the bell rings, why should we run? We will consider what kind of music they are like. Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, through church and state, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake; and then begin, having a point d'appui, below freshet and frost and fire, a place where you might found a wall or a state, or set a lamp-post safely, or perhaps a gauge, not a Nilometer, but a Realometer, that future ages might know how deep a freshet of shams and appearances had gathered from time to time. If you stand right fronting and face to face to a fact, you will see the sun glimmer on both its surfaces, as if it were a cimeter, and feel its sweet edge dividing you through the heart and marrow, and so you will happily conclude your mortal career. Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business. Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and fore-paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through these hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I will begin to mine. time nature simplicity-in-life simplicity Henry David Thoreau
1555a71 "A slight concussion of the brain simplifies matters so beautifully. ("Three O'Clock")" simplicity concussion Cornell Woolrich
5a4fe55 I delight to come to my bearings,--not walk in procession with pomp and parade, in a conspicuous place, but to walk even with the Builder of the universe, if I may,--not to live in this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century, but stand or sit thoughtfully while it goes by. What are men celebrating? They are all on a committee of arrangements, and hourly expect a speech from somebody. God is only the president of the day, and Webster is his orator. I love to weigh, to settle, to gravitate toward that which most strongly and rightfully attracts me;--not hang by the beam of the scale and try to weigh less,--not suppose a case, but take the case that is simplicity timelessness Henry David Thoreau
54a3539 In 1881, being on a visit to Boston, my wife and I found ourselves in the Parker House with the 's, and went over to Charleston to hear him lecture. His subject was 'Some Mistakes of Moses,' and it was a memorable experience. Our lost leaders, -- , , Theodore Parker, -- who had really spoken to disciples rather than to the nation, seemed to have contributed something to form this organ by which their voice could reach the people. . The wonderful power which Washington's Attorney-general, Edmund Randolph, ascribed to of insinuating his ideas equally into learned and unlearned had passed from 's pen to 's tongue. . { } laughter sympathy emotion poetry morality reason imagination friendship humor love truth wisdom inspirational lecture henry-d-thoreau henry-thoreau mirth orator pathos ralph-e-emerson ralph-emerson ralph-waldo-emerson some-mistakes-of-moses henry-david-thoreau ingersoll robert-g-ingersoll robert-green-ingersoll robert-ingersoll emerson memorable praise boston art thoreau simplicity paine thomas-paine tears respect logic honor power speech voice Moncure Daniel Conway
ee34a59 We read a good novel not in order to know more people, but in order to know fewer. Instead of the humming swarm of human beings, relatives, customers, servants, postmen, afternoon callers, tradesmen, strangers who tell us the time, strangers who remark on the weather, beggars, waiters, and telegraph-boys--instead of this bewildering human swarm which passes us every day, fiction asks us to follow one figure (say the postman) consistently through his ecstasies and agonies. That is what makes one impatient with that type of pessimistic rebel who is always complaining of the narrowness of his life and demanding a larger sphere. Life is too large for us as it is: we have all too many things to attend to. All true romance is an attempt to simplify it, to cut it down to plainer and more pictorial proportions. What dullness there is in our life arises mostly from its rapidity; people pass us too quickly to show us their interesting side. By the end of the week we have talked to a hundred bores; whereas, if we had stuck to one of them, we might have found ourselves talking to a new friend, or a humorist, or a murderer, or a man who had seen a ghost. essential novels simplicity G.K. Chesterton
d47812c The real joy of writing lies in the opportunity of being able to sacrifice a whole chapter for a single sentence, a complete sentence for a single word... writing sublimation simplicity sublime Jean Baudrillard
09ed7d0 When the peasants and their song had vanished from his sight and hearing, a heavy feeling of anguish at his loneliness, his bodily idleness, his hostility to this world, came over him...It was all drowned in the sea of cheerful common labor. God had given the day, God had given the strength. Both day and strength had been devoted to labour and in that lay the reward...Levin had often admired this life, had often experienced a feeling of envy for the people who lived this life, but that day for the first time...the thought came clearly to Levin that it was up to him to change that so burdensome, idle, artificial and individual life he lived into this laborious, pure and common, lovely life. work life meaningful-life simple simplicity Leo Tolstoy
b55abfa Life was small but good. (15) life small simplicity Francesca Lia Block
2de3b1c She wasn't stupid. She just didn't want to put her neuron power into long sentences. ommunication simplicity Margaret Atwood
cc11b2f The cities make ferocious men because they may corrupt man. The mountain, the sea, the forest, make savage men; they development fierce side, but often without destroying the humane side. civilization simplicity Victor Hugo
5daaa7b If we would aim at perfection in any thing, simplicity must not be overlooked. simplicity Henry David Thoreau
bc7c3f5 Around 2 a.m. the snow started to fall. It was quite a lovely view and I breathed it in like I only do when I truly love something, and there was a small sadness creeping in through my chest because I knew I would have to leave it, go back to my basement with no stars in sight. But I pushed it aside because those moments are rare and I'm happy because now I know this place exists and that's all you need sometimes. You need to know that lovely places exist and you can go there, when things go wrong, and it's a place of solace. minimalism solace safe places move simplicity home pretty Charlotte Eriksson
1e5f9fe Even if I be likened to a rat, I do not care, provided that that particular rat be wanted by you, and be of use in the world, and be retained in its position, and receive its reward. But what a rat it is! love simplicity self-worth Fyodor Dostoyevsky
cc861b9 That's the way progress works: the more we build up these vast repertoires of scientific and technological understanding, the more we conceal them. conventional-wisdom simplicity Steven Johnson
c33c704 that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly that, if an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate empty-handed without anxiety. simplicity Henry David Thoreau
5421170 It's on the path of simplicity that love prefers to walk. simplicity Sean Patrick Brennan
789c660 Where is it written that one should only care about big things? simplicity David Brin
eface9e "Early on, Mike Markkula had taught Jobs to "impute" - to understand that people do judge a book by its cover - and therefore to make sure all the trappings and packaging of Apple signaled that there was a beautiful gem inside. Whether it's an iPod Mini, or a MacBook Pro, Apple customers know the feeling of opening up the well-crafted box and finding the product nestled in an inviting fashion. "Steve and I spend a lot of time on the packaging," said Ive. "I love the process of unpacking something. You design a ritual of unpacking to make the product feel special. Packaging can be theater, it can create a story." steve-jobs simplicity Walter Isaacson
1e2a3d5 Simplicity! He is as simple as a spider's web. simplicity Karen Essex
3dae757 Dead's not good, but at least it's simple. simple simplicity dying James S.A. Corey
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