Quotes About Simplicity

For my own part I am pleased enough with surfaces—in fact they alone seem to me to be of much importance. Such things for example as the grasp of a child's hand in your own, the flavor of an apple, the embrace of friend or lover, the silk of a girl's thigh, the sunlight on rock and leaves, the feel of music, the bark of a tree, the abrasion of granite and sand, the plunge of clear water into a pool, the face of the wind—what else is there? What else do we need?

Pinto beans without sauce or chili or even much salt; a slice of bread; a tincup of coffee. Out of loyalty to life and the immortal spirit of man, he ate.

I am here not only to evade for a while the clamor and filth and confusion of the cultural apparatus but also to confront, immediately and directly if it's possible, the bare bones of existence, the elemental and fundamental, the bedrock which sustains us. I want to be able to look at and into a juniper tree, a piece of quartz, a vulture, a spider, and see it as it is in itself, devoid of all humanly ascribed qualities, anti-Kantian, even the categories of scientific description.

Wilderness, wilderness.… We scarcely know what we mean by the term, though the sound of it draws all whose nerves and emotions have not yet been irreparably stunned, deadened, numbed by the caterwauling of commerce, the sweating scramble for profit and domination. Why

And most significant, these hordes of nonmotorized tourists, hungry for a taste of the difficult, the original, the real, do not consist solely of people young and athletic but also of old folks, fat folks, pale-faced office clerks who don't know a rucksack from a haversack, and even children. The one thing they all have in common is the refusal to live always like sardines in a can—they are determined to get outside of their motorcars for at least a few weeks each year.

I am here not only to evade for a while the clamor and filth and confusion of the cultural apparatus but also to confront, immediately and directly if it's possible, the bare bones of existence, the elemental and fundamental, the bedrock which sustains us.

you can't see anything from a car; you've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees, over the sandstone and through the thornbush and cactus.

A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles.

The best thing about graduating from the university was that I finally had time to sit on a log and read a good book.

The simple and familiar hold the secrets of the complex and unknown.

As you learn more, the fundamentals become at once simpler but also subtler, deeper, more nuanced, and more meaningful.

The simple and familiar hold the secrets of the complex and unknown. The depth with which you master the basics influences how well you understand everything you learn after that. Today

The best way to realize the pleasure of feeling rich is to live in a smaller house than your means would entitle you to have.

An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore.

Dealing with complexity is an inefficient and unnecessary waste of time, attention and mental energy. There is never any justification for things being complex when they could be simple.

Simplicity before understanding is simplistic; simplicity after understanding is simple. - Edward De Bono

Cooking is not a mystery.

The plainer the dress, the greater luster does beauty appear.

Don't write if you can talk, don't talk if you can nod your head, don't nod your head if you don't have to.

Nothing in excess.

And I too in Arcadia.

The antidote for civilization.

Camping: The art of getting closer to nature while getting farther away from the nearest cold beverage, hot shower and flush toilet.

As having nothing, and yet possessing all things.