Quotes About Simplicity

Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.

Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter.

Who has not felt the urge to throw a loaf of bread and a pound of tea in an old sack and jump over the back fence?

learn to live like the wild animals

I tied a crust of bread to my belt, and with Carlo set out for the upper slopes of the Pilot Peak Ridge, and had a good day, notwithstanding the care of seeking the silly runaways.

Here I could stay tethered forever with just bread and water, nor would I be lonely; loved friends and neighbors, as love for everything increased, would seem all the nearer however many the miles and mountains between us.

We thought nothing of running right ahead ten or a dozen miles before turning back; for we knew nothing about taking time by the sun, and none of us had a watch in those days.

Rilke recommended that when life became turbulent and troublesome, it was wise to stay close to one simple thing in nature.

Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.

The best thing in life aren't things.

To watch the corn grow, or the blossoms set; to draw hard breath over the plough or spade; to read, to think, to love, to pray, are the things that make men happy.

It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated

There was an old joke about a small town: a real small town meant that you didn't have to use the turn signals on your car, because anybody behind you already knew where you were going…

most old farmhouses were built like that.

The thing that drew her to guns was their precision, lethality, and simplicity.

Occam's razor theory of combat: The simplest way of kicking someone's ass was usually the correct one.

The reality is more complicated, but as with most humans, the people on Earth prefer the simple answer.

For two years, all you have to do is go where they tell you, stay behind your rifle, and kill and not be killed. It's simple, but simple isn't the same as easy.

One of Harvey's guiding lights in terms of strategies was simplicity; all things being equal, Harvey preferred the course of action that let him get into the middle of things and then just buckle down.

Harvey called it his Occam's razor theory of combat: The simplest way of kicking someone's ass was usually the correct one.

You need to explain this to me like I'm an idiot," I said. "Because clearly I am.

Making peace is often a simple thing, but simple isn't the same thing as easy.

With sentences, shorter is better than longer:

the assumption that simple = stupid. But it's not true; indeed, I find from personal experience that the stupidest writers are the ones whose writing is positively baroque in form.