Quotes About Simplicity

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.

My life is a simple thing that would interest no one. It is a known fact that I was born and that is all that is necessary.

Theories should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.

We pride ourselves on nothing but the courage to be trivial. For a person is simple in his striving for truth, and it is honest to admit this openly.

If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.

On the other hand, although perhaps more rarely, happiness comes without any ego satisfaction. Monks, hermits, anchorites sometimes find this kind of happiness, but so do men and women who are simply content with what they have regardless of whether it is much or little. Ego satisfaction is a clear reflection of self, or as clear as the muddy water of experience will allow.

Now, I want to remember all this. My life has known days of innocence when I had only to close my eyes in order not to see.

The artist needs but a roof, a crust of bread, and his easel, and all the rest God gives him in abundance. He must live to paint and not paint to live.

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

I think about this, not like someone thinking, but like someone breathing, And I look at flowers and I smile... I don't know if they understand me Or if I understand them, But I know the truth is in them and in me And in our common divinity Of letting ourselves go and live on the Earth And carrying us in our arms through the contented Seasons And letting the wind sing us to sleep And not have dreams in our sleep.

I love flowers for being flowers, directly. And I love trees for being trees without my thought.

quem ama nunca sabe o que ama Nem sabe por que ama, nem o que é amar ... Amar é a eterna inocência, E a única inocência não pensar...

Water's water and that's why it's beautiful.

If I die very young, hear this: I was never anything but a kid playing. I was a heathen like the sun and the water, I had the universal religion only people don't have. I was happy because I didn't ask for anything at all, Or tried to find anything, And I didn't find any more explanation Than the word explanation having no meaning at all.

The river of my village doesn't make you think about anything. When you're at its bank you're only at its bank.

A row of trees far away, there on the hillside. But what is it, a row of trees? It's just trees. Row and the plural trees aren't things, they're names.

All the evil in the world comes from us bothering with each other, Wanting to do good, wanting to do evil. Our soul and the sky and the earth are enough for us. To want more is to lose this, and be unhappy.

Yes: I exist inside my body. I'm not carrying the sun and the moon in my pocket. I don't want to conquer worlds because I slept badly, And I don't want to eat the world for breakfast because I have a stomach. Indifferent? No: a son of the earth, who, if he jumps, it's wrong, A moment in the air that's not for us, And only happy when his feet hit the ground again, Pow! In reality where nothing's missing! (6/20/1919)

Lightly, lightly, very lightly, A wind passes very lightly And goes away, always very lightly. And I don't know what I think And I don't want to know.

I was never a keeper of sheep

It's not enough to open the window To see the fields and the river. It's also not enough to not be blind To see the trees and the flowers. It's also necessary to not have any philosophy at all. With philosophy there are no trees, there are only ideas. There's only each of us, like a wine-cellar. There's only a shut window and the world outside it; And a dream of what you could see if you opened the window, Which is never what you see when you open the window.

Digo de mim 'sou eu'. E não digo mais nada. Que mais há a dizer?

Há metafísica bastante em não pensar em nada.

Let's be simple and calm, Like brooks and trees, And God will love us by making Beautiful things like the trees and brooks for us, And give us greenness in his spring, And a river for us to go to when we end...