Quotes About Simplicity

Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach – waiting for a gift from the sea.

One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can only collect a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few.

This is not the life of simplicity but the life of multiplicity that the wise men warn us of. It leads not to unification but to fragmentation. It does not bring grace; it destroys the soul.

I mean to live a simple life, to choose a simple shell I can carry easily - like a hermit crab.

One cannot collect all the beautful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few.

I remember again, ironically, that today more of us in America than anywhere else in the world have the luxury of choice between simplicity and complication of life. And for the most part, we, who could choose simplicity, choose complication.

A singer can shatter glass with the proper high note, he said, but the simplest way to break glass is simply to drop it on the floor.

God, why didn't you make us all dogs?

You really have need of very little, but each of us must decide how much he wants.

It was almost as if he had become, in his inveterate goodness, a little bit of a simpleton as is bound to happen, I think, if and when one gives oneself absolutely to God.

History is a litany of injustice, no one denies it. But when has a simple solution ever been anything but evil? Only in complexity do we find answers. Through complexity men struggle towards fairness; it is slow and clumsy, but it's the only way. Simplicity demands too great a sacrifice. It always has. Yes, Marius said. Exactly. Simplicity and brutality are synonymous in philosophy and in actions. It is brutal what you propose!

Tis the gift to be simple... 'Tis the gift to be free...

A singer can shatter a glass with the proper high note," he said, "but the simplest way for anyone to break a glass is simply to drop it on the floor.

Sólo en la complejidad podemos encontrar las respuestas. A través de la complejidad el hombre lucha hacia la claridad; es un proceso lento y lleno de obstáculos, pero es el único camino. La simplicidad exige demasiados sacrificios. Siempre los ha exigido.

Seperti jiwaku yang sederhana,' bisik Khayman. 'Kau tersesat dalam semua ini karena kau terlalu mengenal medan. Dan seberapa pun jauhnya kau berjalan, kau akan kembali lagi ke pegunungan yang sama, ke bukit yang sama.

Only in complexity do we find answers. Through complexity men struggle towards fairness; it is slow and clumsy, but it's the only way. Simplicity demands too great a sacrifice. It always has.

Ben scooped her up in his arms, holding her high against his chest as he carried her back into the cottage, past the shrouded, familiar shapes of the furniture into the night-dark bedroom. They were alone now for the first time. There was no Emmett, no Harris, no lies or masquerade or motives or revenge. There was just Ben and Rachel, together in the darkness.

And she thought what a clean, simple life she would have led if it weren't for love.

She saw herself riding in the passenger seat, Sam behind the wheel. Like two of those little peg people in a toy car. Husband peg, wife peg, side by side. Facing the road and not looking at each other; for why would they need to, really, having gone beyond the visible surface long ago. No hope of admiring gazes anymore, no chance of unremitting adoration. Nothing left to show but their plain, true, homely, interior selves, which were actually much richer anyhow.

I broke my days into separate moments," he said. "See, it's true I didn't have any more to look forward to. But on the other hand, there were these individual moments that I could still appreciate. Like drinking that first cup of coffee in the morning. Working on something fine in my workshop. Watching a baseball game on TV.

The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside by a generous hand. But- and this is the point- who gets excited by a mere penny? But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days.

Could two live that way? Could two live under the wild rose, and explore by the pond, so that the smooth mind of each is as everywhere present to the other, and as received and as unchallenged, as falling snow?

The point of going somewhere like the Napo River in Ecuador is not to see the most spectacular anything. It is simply to see what is there.

Let the grass die. I let almost all of my indoor plants die from neglect while I was writing the book. There are all kinds of ways to live. You can take your choice. You can keep a tidy house, and when St. Peter asks you what you did with your life, you can say, 'I kept a tidy house, I made my own cheese balls.