Quotes About Simplicity

When we do something with a quite simple, clear mind, we have no notion or shadows, and our activity is strong and straightforward. But when we do something with a complicated mind, in relation to other things or people, or society, our activity becomes very complex.

Most people have a double or triple notion in one activity. There is a saying, "To catch two birds with one stone." That is what people usually try to do. Because they want to catch too many birds they find it difficult to be concentrated on one activity, and they may end up not catching any birds at all!

The Zen way of calligraphy is to write in the most straightforward, simple way as if you were a beginner, not trying to make something skillful or beautiful, but simply writing with full attention as if you were discovering what you were writing for the first time; then your full nature will be in your writing. This is the way of practice moment after moment.

SIMPLICITY is practicing a lifestyle that is increasingly free of excess, greed, covetousness, and other forms of dependence on the things of this world. The Holy Spirit works through simplicity to release spiritual gifts such as hospitality, mercy, and giving... to live free of anxiety, and to better take care of this Earth.

Es war doch so leicht. Dieses Leben, wenn man es den anderen gleichtat.

You just pick up a chord, go twang, and you're got music.

Elegance is not everything.

Asking what is the cause, is just as bizarre as asking what is the cause of not having an accident. Accidents have their basis in the real complexity of the system, not their apparent simplicity.

Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and freeYe publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea!

Sincerity is not a spontaneous flower nor is modesty either.

Who's this—alone with stone and sky? It's only my old dog and I— It's only him; it's only me; Alone with stone and grass and tree. What share we most—we two together? Smells, and awareness of the weather. What is it makes us more than dust? My trust in him; in me his trust.

Joys come from simple and natural things; mist over meadows, sunlight on leaves, the path of the moon over water. Even rain and wind and stormy clouds bring joy.

Chaos is complexity viewed through a reductionist filter.

The couple had only lived a short while in that village, and they were poor as rats. Leonarda's husband bought damaged cigarettes, personally extracted his own teeth, ate meat and polenta twice a week, drank mate from an earthenware mug, never took his wife to the movies, and when she was ill he took her to a veterinarian.

Life is easy greediness adds complexity

The trick to surviving with low funds is to not have such high standards.

No, no, no, choose life , More Marimondes thought. It wasn't that he disrespected the sacrifice of the martyr, but the simplicity of absolute ideals, across all religions, he found alien and disrespectful of the injunction to save life clearly enjoined in the Torah.

And he is enchanted by the beauty of small things: hot coffee, wind through an open window, the tapping of rain, a passing bicycle, the desolation of snow on a winter's day.

This attitude was the main reason the cats and dogs here at the shelter amazed him so much. They could be subjected to the worst of circumstances and yet give their love to the first person who showed it back. If people could learn that simple aspect, there might be a chance of saving this world.

I'm staring into chocolate eyes. although my brain is clouded and I'm dizzy, I know enough to register that chocolate is the opposite of blue. I don't want blue. Blue confuses me too much. Chocolate is straight-forward, easier to deal with.

To hand warmers," she says with a smile on her lips. "To hand warmers," I agree. And sex, I add silently. "Do

Everyone wanted to know what life was like at Belle-Feuille, behind all those ramparts of green - how they ate, talked, drank, went about their daily lives. And above all, what was important to them in life, and were they at least glad to be alive?

I am not asking you to do that because the tree is ugly—actually it is just as attractive as the other trees. I don't create ugly, ever!11 You won't be able to look at the fruit and think, That must taste horrible. It is a fine-looking tree. So it's simple. Trust me, obey me, and love me because of who I am and because you are enjoying what I have given to you. Trust me, obey me, and you will grow.

Ross's style is always beautifully matched to his material – spare, lean, honest, no gimmicks, and yet in its very simplicity setting up continuing echoes of the mind. (Margaret Laurence's Afterword)