Quotes About Simplicity

Less is more, more or less.

The ideal of Taoism was to live in harmony with the Tao and to cultivate a simple and frugal life, avoiding unnecessary action: "Being one with nature, he [the sage] is in accord with the Tao.

Afternoon tea needn't stand on ceremony. Anything that becomes more important than sweet fellowship, whether lace or linen or the china itself, is pretense. How much more we enjoy life when the pretenses are discarded!

One is reminded of the old joke about the centipede who was asked how he managed to coordinate his 100 legs : He started thinking about it and could never walk properly again.

subtlety sometimes eludes me. Why not just hit the nail on the head?

Maybe it's old-fashioned, but I'm opposed to sneakers without laces. Digital watches and pocket calculators, too. Gizmos that make life easier and dull our minds. Besides being unable to read or write, today's kids have trouble telling time, multiplying nine time seven, and tying their shoes

I don't tweet or blog or order pizza with arugula on top. So, yeah, call me old school.

Sandwiches are wonderful. You don't need a spoon or a plate!

the beatles were always a great band. nothing more nothing less

I think people who create and write, it actually does flow – just flows from into their head, into their hand, and they right it down. It's simple.

We were doing the best we could with what we had left, and more and more it was like Diogenes tossing away the tin cup because he could drink with his hands. It turns out there is no end to learning what you can do without.

We are such spendthrifts with our lives, the trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I'm not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.

We had no electricity, no gas. Food was probably our greatest entertainment - the most fun thing that we could do was food.

You don't need a silver fork to eat good food.

Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that's why it is so complicated.

When asked to perform a miracle, a Zen master responded: "My miracle is that when I feel hungry I eat, and when I feel thirsty I drink.

I think there's something great and generic about goldfish. They're everybody's first pet.

In the days before people asked questions of every innocent thing, before this relentless need to name, to label, to categorize. People had understood that life might be rich, complicated, ambiguous.

There's something impoverished in those who want to really have everything.

been given the basic grounding for a new science which is at once simpler and more embracing than the mathematical monstrosity we have conjured up.

When I was in the Peace Corps I never made a phone call. I was in Central Africa I didn't make a phone call for two years. I was in Uganda for another four years and I didn't make a phone call. So for six years I didn't make a phone call, but I wrote letters, I wrote short stories, I wrote books.

He who is grasped by the one thing that is needed has the many things under his feet. They concern him but not ultimately, and when he loses them he does not lose the one thing he needs and that cannot be taken from him.

Everything simple is false. Everything complex is unusable.

Modern man no longer works at what cannot be abbreviated