Simplicity Short Quotes

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Physics is really nothing more than a search for ultimate simplicity, but so far all we have is a kind of elegant messiness.
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
I don't believe in a lot of baggage. It's such a nuisance. Life's too short to fuss with it. And it isn't really necessary
Hugh Lofting (The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (Doctor Dolittle, #2))
She was appalled by West Egg’s raw vigour that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that eroded its inhabitants along a short-cut from nothing to nothing. She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
The crazy thing about poetry is how its simplicity makes it complicated.
Richelle E. Goodrich (Slaying Dragons: Quotes, Poetry, & a Few Short Stories for Every Day of the Year)
And in the space of a few short hours, life had been reduced from a highly complex existence, with a thousand petty problems, to one of the barest simplicity in which only one real task remained—the achievement of the goal.
Alfred Lansing (Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage)
The solutions put forth by imperialism are the quintessence of simplicity...When they speak of the problems of population and birth, they are in no way moved by concepts related to the interests of the family or of society...Just when science and technology are making incredible advances in all fields, they resort to technology to suppress revolutions and ask the help of science to prevent population growth. In short, the peoples are not to make revolutions, and women are not to give birth. This sums up the philosophy of imperialism.
Fidel Castro
Why use long words when short ones will do? Not all readers have been to college or university.
Ken Scott
This life is short, but it contains everything. There is an inherent beauty in simplicity. Choose your path wisely; often the simple route is the most beautiful path to follow.
Joshua Fields Millburn (Simplicity: Essays)
Our Saviour's meaning, when He said, He must be born again and become a little child that will enter in the Kingdom of Heaven is deeper far than is generally believed. It is only in a careless reliance upon Divine Providence, that we are to become little children, or in the feebleness and shortness of our anger and simplicity of our passions, but in the peace and purity of all our soul. Which purity also is a deeper thing than is commonly apprehended. For we must disrobe infant-like and clear; the powers of our soul free from the leaven of this world, and disentangled from men's conceits and customs. Grit in the eye or yellow jaundice will not let a man see those objects truly that are before it. And therefore it is requisite that we should be as very strangers to the thoughts, customs, and opinions of men in this world, as if we were but little children. So those things would appear to us only which do to children when they are first born. Ambitions, trades, luxuries, inordinate affections, casual and accidental riches invented since the fall, would be gone, and only those things appear, which did to Adam in Paradise, in the same light and in the same colours: God in His works, Glory in the light, Love in our parents, men, ourselves, and the face of Heaven: Every man naturally seeing those things, to the enjoyment of which he is naturally born.
Thomas Traherne (Centuries of Meditations)
Some seek the comfort of their therapist’s office, others head for the corner pub and dive into a pint, but I choose running as my therapy. It was the best source of renewal there was. I couldn’t recall a single time that I felt worse after a run than before. What drug could compete? As Lily Tomlin said, “Exercise is for people who can’t handle drugs and alcohol.” I’d also come to recognize that the simplicity of running was quite liberating. Modern man has virtually everything one could desire, but too often we’re still not fulfilled. “Things” don’t bring happiness. Some of my finest moments came while running down the open road, little more than a pair of shoes and shorts to my name. A runner doesn’t need much. Thoreau once said that a man’s riches are based on what he can do without. Perhaps in needing less, you’re actually getting more.
Dean Karnazes (Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner)
The verve of the youth, their simplicity, their use of short sentences. Straight to the point and free of the Gordian nature that comes with age.
Soroosh Shahrivar (Tajrish)
Life is short. Make the most of it now.
Tsh Oxenreider (Organized Simplicity: The Clutter-Free Approach to Intentional Living)
As always when he worked with this much concentration he began to feel a sense of introverting pressure. There was no way out once he was in, no genuine rest, no one to talk to who was capable of understanding the complexity (simplicity) of the problem or the approaches to a tentative solution. There came a time in every prolonged effort when he had a moment of near panic, or "terror in a lonely place," the original semantic content of the word. The lonely place was his own mind. As a mathematician he was free from subjection to reality, free to impose his ideas and designs on his own test environment. The only valid standard for his work, its critical point (zero or infinity), was the beauty it possessed, the deft strength of his mathematical reasoning. THe work's ultimate value was simply what it revealed about the nature of his intellect. What was at stake, in effect, was his own principle of intelligence or individual consciousness; his identity, in short. This was the infalling trap, the source of art's private involvement with obsession and despair, neither more nor less than the artist's self-containment, a mental state that led to storms of overwork and extended stretches of depression, that brought on indifference to life and at times the need to regurgitate it, to seek the level of expelled matter. Of course, the sense at the end of a serious effort, if the end is reached successfully, is one of lyrical exhilaration. There is air to breathe and a place to stand. The work gradually reveals its attachment to the charged particles of other minds, men now historical, the rediscovered dead; to the main structure of mathematical thought; perhaps even to reality itself, the so-called sum of things. It is possible to stand in time's pinewood dust and admire one's own veronicas and pavanes.
Don DeLillo (Ratner's Star)
Logical reasoning may be a most convenient means of mental communication for covering short distances, but the curvature of the earth, alas, is reflected even in logic: an ideally rational progression of thought will finally bring you back to the point of departure where you return aware of the simplicity of genius, with a delightful sensation that you have embraced truth, while actually you have merely embraced your own self... anything you might term a deduction already exposes the flaw: logical development inexorably becomes an envelopment.
Vladimir Nabokov (The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov)
No matter how many precautions we take, none of us are truly in control. Only God can claim that kind of authority. All we can do is use the good sense he provides and trust him to guide us.” Meredith stroked his arm from shoulder to wrist, then lightly clasped his hand. “If you want to protect me, Travis, prayer is just as powerful a weapon as that gun you carry.” Travis blinked, stunned by the simplicity of that statement.
Karen Witemeyer (Short-Straw Bride (Archer Brothers, #1))
Certainly we can say that the pace of modern life, increased and supported by our technology in general and our personal electronics in particular, has resulted in a short attention span and an addiction to the influx of information. A mind so conditioned has little opportunity to think critically, and even less chance to experience life deeply by being in the present moment. A complex life with complicated activities, relationships and commitments implies a reflexive busy-ness that supplants true thinking and feeling with knee-jerk reactions. It is a life high in stress and light on substance, at least in the spiritually meaningful dimensions of being.
Arthur Rosenfeld
What better reminder do we have than our kids of our own best selves, our less stressed and more carefree selves? In their silliness we see the echo of the way we used to be: when we were kids, yes, but also before we had kids, or even two weeks ago, before all of the stress of these year-end corporate meetings. Their joy, their infectious enthusiasm, their sense of "mission" as the poor dog is dressed in boxer shorts, cannot help but cajole you, and beckon you, to lighten up.
Kim John Payne (Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids)
I didn’t “grow” wise, spiritual, or happy.. I shrunk towards it. I didn’t add; I subtracted… There is wisdom in simplification… There is strength in recognizing that life is too short for nonsense… You find yourself spending time with people who make you laugh… Those who make you feel loved.. Simplify your life.. .that’s where happiness is found.
Steve Maraboli
Though Wilder blamed her family’s departure from Kansas on “blasted politicians” ordering white squatters to vacate Osage lands, no such edict was issued over Rutland Township during the Ingallses’ tenure there. Quite the reverse is true: only white intruders in what was known as the Cherokee Strip of Oklahoma were removed to make way for the displaced Osages arriving from Kansas. (Wilder mistakenly believed that her family’s cabin was located forty—rather than the actual fourteen—miles from Independence, an error that placed the fictional Ingalls family in the area affected by the removal order.) Rather, Charles Ingalls’s decision to abandon his claim was almost certainly financial, for Gustaf Gustafson did indeed default on his mortgage. The exception: Unlike their fictional counterparts, the historical Ingalls family’s decision to leave Wisconsin and settle in Kansas was not a straightforward one. Instead it was the eventual result of a series of land transactions that began in the spring of 1868, when Charles Ingalls sold his Wisconsin property to Gustaf Gustafson and shortly thereafter purchased 80 acres in Chariton County, Missouri, sight unseen. No one has been able to pinpoint with any certainty when (or even whether) the Ingalls family actually resided on that land; a scanty paper trail makes it appear that they actually zigzagged from Kansas to Missouri and back again between May of 1868 and February of 1870. What is certain is that by late February of 1870 Charles Ingalls had returned the title to his Chariton County acreage to the Missouri land dealer, and so for simplicity’s sake I have chosen to follow Laura Ingalls Wilder’s lead, contradicting history by streamlining events to more closely mirror the opening chapter of Little House on the Prairie, and setting this novel in 1870, a year in which the Ingalls family’s presence in Kansas is firmly documented.
Sarah Miller (Caroline: Little House, Revisited)
We know, however, that the mind is capable of understanding these matters in all their complexity and in all their simplicity. A ball flying through the air is responding to the force and direction with which it was thrown, the action of gravity, the friction of the air which it must expend its energy on overcoming, the turbulence of the air around its surface, and the rate and direction of the ball's spin. And yet, someone who might have difficulty consciously trying to work out what 3 x 4 x 5 comes to would have no trouble in doing differential calculus and a whole host of related calculations so astoundingly fast that they can actually catch a flying ball. People who call this "instinct" are merely giving the phenomenon a name, not explaining anything. I think that the closest that human beings come to expressing our understanding of these natural complexities is in music. It is the most abstract of the arts - it has no meaning or purpose other than to be itself. Every single aspect of a piece of music can be represented by numbers. From the organization of movements in a whole symphony, down through the patterns of pitch and rhythm that make up the melodies and harmonies, the dynamics that shape the performance, all the way down to the timbres of the notes themselves, their harmonics, the way they change over time, in short, all the elements of a noise that distinguish between the sound of one person piping on a piccolo and another one thumping a drum - all of these things can be expressed by patterns and hierarchies of numbers. And in my experience the more internal relationships there are between the patterns of numbers at different levels of the hierarchy, however complex and subtle those relationships may be, the more satisfying and, well, whole, the music will seem to be. In fact the more subtle and complex those relationships, and the further they are beyond the grasp of the conscious mind, the more the instinctive part of your mind - by which I mean that part of your mind that can do differential calculus so astoundingly fast that it will put your hand in the right place to catch a flying ball- the more that part of your brain revels in it. Music of any complexity (and even "Three Blind Mice" is complex in its way by the time someone has actually performed it on an instrument with its own individual timbre and articulation) passes beyond your conscious mind into the arms of your own private mathematical genius who dwells in your unconscious responding to all the inner complexities and relationships and proportions that we think we know nothing about. Some people object to such a view of music, saying that if you reduce music to mathematics, where does the emotion come into it? I would say that it's never been out of it.
Douglas Adams (Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (Dirk Gently, #1))
This began to get interesting. The situation ran away with me, and one lie after another engendered in my head. I sat down again, forgot the newspaper, and the remarkable documents, grew lively, and cut short the old fellow's talk. The little goblin's unsuspecting simplicity made me foolhardy; I would stuff him recklessly full of lies; rout him out o' field grandly, and stop his mouth from sheer amazement. Had he heard of the electric psalm-book that Happolati had invented?
Knut Hamsun (The Best of Knut Hamsun: Boxed Set)
In short, there are surprising new structures that looping gives rise to that constitute a new level of reality that could in principle be deduced from the basic loop and its detailed properties, but that in practice have a different kind of “life of their own” and that demand — at least when it comes to extremely finite, simplicity-seeking, pattern-loving creatures like us — a new vocabulary and a new level of description that transcend the basic level out of which they emerge.
Douglas R. Hofstadter (I Am a Strange Loop)
Don't devote yourself to anyone. Eventually, everyone walks out of your life If you are so filled with love, there are many out there who are waiting for just one kind gesture, one kind word Extend your hand and help the right ones. Again, don't get involved! Attachment only leads to emotional exhaustion. This world is a simple place. Get busy exploring its simplicity. Get busy exploring its beauty. People are complicated. Life is too short to get involved in their complications.
Shreya Naik
[The] structural theory is of extreme simplicity. It assumes that the molecule is held together by links between one atom and the next: that every kind of atom can form a definite small number of such links: that these can be single, double or triple: that the groups may take up any position possible by rotation round the line of a single but not round that of a double link: finally that with all the elements of the first short period [of the periodic table], and with many others as well, the angles between the valencies are approximately those formed by joining the centre of a regular tetrahedron to its angular points. No assumption whatever is made as to the mechanism of the linkage. Through the whole development of organic chemistry this theory has always proved capable of providing a different structure for every different compound that can be isolated. Among the hundreds of thousands of known substances, there are never more isomeric forms than the theory permits.
Nevil Vincent Sidgwick
A man’s power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth, and his desire to communicate it without loss. The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language. When simplicity of character and the sovereignty of ideas is broken up by the prevalence of secondary desires, the desire of riches, of pleasure, of power, and of praise, — and duplicity and falsehood take place of simplicity and truth, the power over nature as an interpreter of the will, is in a degree lost; new imagery ceases to be created, and old words are perverted to stand for things which are not; a paper currency is employed, when there is no bullion in the vaults. In due time, the fraud is manifest, and words lose all power to stimulate the understanding or the affections. Hundreds of writers may be found in every long-civilized nation, who for a short time believe, and make others believe, that they see and utter truths, who do not of themselves clothe one thought in its natural garment, but who feed unconsciously on the language created by the primary writers of the country, those, namely, who hold primarily on nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (The Complete Works)
The comparatively innocent hero still shows some marked imperfection or defect – irresolution, precipitancy, pride, credulousness, excessive simplicity, excessive susceptibility to sexual emotions, and the like. These defects or imperfections are certainly, in the wide sense of the word, evil, and they contribute decisively to the conflict and catastrophe. And the inference is again obvious. The ultimate power which shows itself disturbed by this evil and reacts against it, must have a nature alien to it. Indeed its reaction is so vehement and ‘relentless’ that it would seem to be bent on nothing short of good in perfection, and to be ruthless in its demand for it.
A.C. Bradley (Shakespearean Tragedy)
That is why it is praise to an author to say that he is naïve; it means that he need not shrink from showing himself as he is. Generally speaking, to be naïve is to be attractive; while lack of naturalness is everywhere repulsive. As a matter of fact we find that every really great writer tries to express his thoughts as purely, clearly, definitely and shortly as possible. Simplicity has always been held to be a mark of truth; it is also a mark of genius. Style receives its beauty from the thought it expresses; but with sham-thinkers the thoughts are supposed to be fine because of the style. Style is nothing but the mere silhouette of thought; and an obscure or bad style means a dull or confused brain.
Arthur Schopenhauer (The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Literature)
There was a short railway official travelling up to the terminus, three fairly short market-gardeners picked up two stations afterwards, one very short widow lady going up from a small Essex town, and a very short Roman Catholic priest going up from a small Essex village. When it came to the last case, Valentin gave it up and almost laughed. The little priest was so much the essence of those Eastern flats; he had a face as round and dull as a Norfolk dumpling; he had eyes as empty as the North Sea; he had several brown-paper parcels, which he was quite incapable of collecting. The Eucharistic Congress had doubtless sucked out of their local stagnation many such creatures, blind and helpless, like moles disinterred. Valentin was a skeptic in the severe style of France, and could have no love for priests. But he could have pity for them, and this one might have provoked pity in anybody. He had a large, shabby umbrella, which constantly fell on the floor. He did not seem to know which was the right end of his return ticket. He explained with a moon-calf simplicity to everybody in the carriage that he had to be careful, because he had something made of real silver "with blue stones" in one of his brown-paper parcels. His quaint blending of Essex flatness with saintly simplicity continuously amused the Frenchman till the priest arrived (somehow) at Tottenham with all his parcels, and came back for his umbrella.
G.K. Chesterton (The Innocence of Father Brown (Father Brown, #1))
To clothe the penguins is a very serious business. At present when a penguin desires a penguin he knows precisely what he desires and his lust is limited by an exact knowledge of its object. At this moment two or three couples of penguins are making love on the beach. See with what simplicity! No one pays any attention and the actors themselves do not seem to be greatly preoccupied. But when the female penguins are clothed, the male penguin will not form so exact a notion of what it is that attracts him to them. His indeterminate desires will fly out into all sorts of dreams and illusions; in short, father, he will know love and its mad torments. And all the time the female penguins will cast down their eyes and bite their lips, and take on airs as if they kept a treasure under their clothes! . . . what a pity!
Anatole France (Penguin Island)
III. They seek for themselves private retiring places, as country villages, the sea-shore, mountains; yea thou thyself art wont to long much after such places. But all this thou must know proceeds from simplicity in the highest degree. At what time soever thou wilt, it is in thy power to retire into thyself, and to be at rest, and free from all businesses. A man cannot any whither retire better than to his own soul; he especially who is beforehand provided of such things within, which whensoever he doth withdraw himself to look in, may presently afford unto him perfect ease and tranquillity. By tranquillity I understand a decent orderly disposition and carriage, free from all confusion and tumultuousness. Afford then thyself this retiring continually, and thereby refresh and renew thyself. Let these precepts be brief and fundamental, which as soon as thou dost call them to mind, may suffice thee to purge thy soul throughly, and to send thee away well pleased with those things whatsoever they be, which now again after this short withdrawing of thy soul into herself thou dost return unto. For what is it that thou art offended at? Can it be at the wickedness of men, when thou dost call to mind this conclusion, that all reasonable creatures are made one for another? and that it is part of justice to bear with them? and that it is against their wills that they offend? and how many already, who once likewise prosecuted their enmities, suspected, hated, and fiercely contended, are now long ago stretched out, and reduced unto ashes? It is time for thee to make an end. As for those things which among the common chances of the world happen unto thee as thy particular lot and portion, canst thou be displeased with any of them, when thou dost call that our ordinary dilemma to mind, either a providence, or Democritus his atoms; and with it, whatsoever we brought to prove that the whole world is as it were one city? And as for thy body, what canst thou fear, if thou dost consider that thy mind and understanding, when once it hath recollected itself, and knows its own power, hath in this life and breath (whether it run smoothly and gently, or whether harshly and rudely), no interest at all, but is altogether indifferent: and whatsoever else thou hast heard and assented unto concerning either pain or pleasure? But the care of thine honour and reputation will perchance distract thee? How can that be, if thou dost look back, and consider both how quickly all things that are, are forgotten, and what an immense chaos of eternity was before, and will follow after all things: and the vanity of praise, and the inconstancy and variableness of human judgments and opinions, and the narrowness of the place, wherein it is limited and circumscribed? For the whole earth is but as one point; and of it, this inhabited part of it, is but a very little part; and of this part, how many in number, and what manner of men are they, that will commend thee? What remains then, but that thou often put in practice this kind of retiring of thyself, to this little part of thyself; and above all things, keep thyself from distraction, and intend not anything vehemently, but be free and consider all things, as a man whose proper object is Virtue, as a man whose true nature is to be kind and sociable, as a citizen, as a mortal creature. Among other things, which to consider, and look into thou must use to withdraw thyself, let those two be among the most obvious and at hand. One, that the things or objects themselves reach not unto the soul, but stand without still and quiet, and that it is from the opinion only which is within, that all the tumult and all the trouble doth proceed. The next, that all these things, which now thou seest, shall within a very little while be changed, and be no more: and ever call to mind, how many changes and alterations in the world thou thyself hast already been an eyewitness of in thy time. This world is mere change, and this life, opinion.
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
They seek for themselves private retiring places, as country villages, the sea-shore, mountains; yea thou thyself art wont to long much after such places. But all this thou must know proceeds from simplicity in the highest degree. At what time soever thou wilt, it is in thy power to retire into thyself, and to be at rest, and free from all businesses. A man cannot any whither retire better than to his own soul; he especially who is beforehand provided of such things within, which whensoever he doth withdraw himself to look in, may presently afford unto him perfect ease and tranquillity.... free from all confusion and tumultuousness. Afford then thyself this retiring continually, and thereby refresh and renew thyself. Let these precepts be brief and fundamental, which as soon as thou dost call them to mind, may suffice thee to purge thy soul throughly, and to send thee away well pleased with those things whatsoever they be, which now again after this short withdrawing of thy soul into herself thou dost return unto.
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
Then gloom settled heavily upon him. Dantes was a man of great simplicity of thought, and without education; he could not, therefore, in the solitude of his dungeon, traverse in mental vision the history of the ages, bring to life the nations that had perished, and rebuild the ancient cities so vast and stupendous in the light of the imagination, and that pass before the eye glowing with celestial colors in Martin’s Babylonian pictures. He could not do this, he whose past life was so short, whose present so melancholy, and his future so doubtful. Nineteen years of light to reflect upon in eternal darkness! No distraction could come to his aid; his energetic spirit, that would have exalted in thus revisiting the past, was imprisoned like an eagle in a cage. He clung to one idea—that of his happiness, destroyed, without apparent cause, by an unheard-of fatality; he considered and reconsidered this idea, devoured it (so to speak), as the implacable Ugolino devours the skull of Archbishop Roger in the Inferno of Dante. Rage
Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)
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Timothy Ferriss (Tribe Of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World)
In short, the observer is choked with observations. Only to prevent us from being submerged by chaos, nature and society between them have arranged a system of classification which is simplicity itself; stalls, boxes, amphitheatre, gallery. The moulds are filled nightly. There is no need to distinguish details. But the difficulty remains—one has to choose. For though I have no wish to be Queen of England or only for a moment—I would willingly sit beside her; I would hear the Prime Minister's gossip; the countess whisper, and share her memories of halls and gardens; the massive fronts of the respectable conceal after all their secret code; or why so impermeable? And then, doffing one's own headpiece, how strange to assume for a moment some one's—any one's—to be a man of valour who has ruled the Empire; to refer while Brangaena sings to the fragments of Sophocles, or see in a flash, as the shepherd pipes his tune, bridges and aqueducts. But no—we must choose. Never was there a harsher necessity! or one which entails greater pain, more certain disaster; for wherever I seat myself, I die in exile: Whittaker in his lodging-house; Lady Charles at the Manor.
Virginia Woolf (Jacob's Room)
Daniel could feel ir,like a layer of skin was lifting off his bones. His past self's body was slowly cleaving from his own.The venom of separation coursed through him,threading deep into the fibers of his wings.The pain was so raw it was nauseating, roiling deep inside him with great tidal swells. His vision clouded; ringing filled his ears.The starshot in his hand tumbled to the ground.Then,all at once, he felt a great shove and a sharp,cold breath of air.There was a long grunt and two thuds,and then- His vision cleared.The ringing ceased. He felt lightness, simplicity. Free. Miles lay on the ground below him, chest heaving. The starshot in Daniel's hand disappeared. Daniel spun around to find a specter of his past self standing behind him,his skin gray and his body wraithlike,his eyes and teeth coal-black,the starshot grasped in his hand. His profile wobbled in the hot wind,like the picture on a shorted-out television. "I'm sorry," Daniel said,reaching forward and clutching his past self at the base of his wings.When Daniel lifted the shadow of himself off the ground, his body felt scant and insufficient.His fingers found the graying portal of the Announcer through which both Daniels had traveled just before it fell apart. "Your day will come," he said. Then he pitched his past self back into the Announcer. He watched the void fading in the hot sun. The body made a drawn-out whistling sound as it tumbled into time, as if it were falling off a cliff. The Announcer split into infinitesimal traces,and was gone.
Lauren Kate (Passion (Fallen, #3))
Two weeks ago my mountain of mail delivered forth a pipsqueak mouse of a letter from a well-known publishing house that wanted to reprint my story “The Fog Horn” in a high school reader. In my story, I had described a lighthouse as hav­ing, late at night, an illumination coming from it that was a “God-Light.” Looking up at it from the view-point of any sea-creature one would have felt that one was in “the Presence.” The editors had deleted “God-Light” and “in the Presence.” Some five years back, the editors of yet another anthology for school readers put together a volume with some 400 (count ‘em) short stories in it. How do you cram 400 short stories by Twain, Irving, Poe, Maupassant and Bierce into one book? Simplicity itself. Skin, debone, demarrow, scarify, melt, render down and destroy. Every adjective that counted, every verb that moved, every metaphor that weighed more than a mosquito—out! Every simile that would have made a sub-moron’s mouth twitch—gone! Any aside that explained the two-bit philosophy of a first-rate writer—lost! Every story, slenderized, starved, bluepenciled, leeched and bled white, resembled every other story. Twain read like Poe read like Shakespeare read like Dostoevsky read like—in the finale—Edgar Guest. Every word of more than three syllables had been ra­zored. Every image that demanded so much as one instant’s attention—shot dead. Do you begin to get the damned and incredible picture? How did I react to all of the above? By “firing” the whole lot. By sending rejection slips to each and every one. By ticketing the assembly of idiots to the far reaches of hell.
Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)
A man’s power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth and his desire to communicate it without loss. The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language. When simplicity of character and the sovereignty of ideas is broken up by the prevalence of secondary desires—the desire of riches, of pleasure, of power, and of praise—and duplicity and falsehood take place of simplicity and truth, the power over nature as an interpreter of the will is in a degree lost; new imagery ceases to be created, and old words are perverted to stand for things which are not; a paper currency is employed, when there is no bullion in the vaults. In due time the fraud is manifest, and words lose all power to stimulate the understanding or the affections. Hundreds of writers may be found in every long-civilized nation who for a short time believe and make others believe that they see and utter truths, who do not of themselves clothe one thought in its natural garment, but who feed unconsciously on the language created by the primary writers of the country, those, namely, who hold primarily on nature. But wise men pierce this rotten diction and fasten words again to visible things; so that picturesque language is at once a commanding certificate that he who employs it is a man in alliance with truth and God. The moment our discourse rises above the ground line of familiar facts and is inflamed with passion or exalted by thought, it clothes itself in images. A man conversing in earnest, if he watch his intellectual processes, will find that a material image more or less luminous arises in his mind, contemporaneous with every thought, which furnishes the vestment of the thought. Hence, good writing and brilliant discourse are perpetual allegories. This imagery is spontaneous. It is the blending of experience with the present action of the mind. It is proper creation. It is the working of the Original Cause through the instruments he has already made.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson)
No,’ she answered, wondering at the harsh simplicity of life. ‘My father was a scoundrel then? cried the lad, clenching his fists. She shook her head. ‘I knew he was not free. We loved each other very much. If he had lived, he would have made provision for us. Don’t speak against him, my son. He was your father, and a gentleman. Indeed he was highly connected.’ An oath broke from his lips. ‘I don’t care for myself,’ he exclaimed, ‘but don’t let Sibyl… It is a gentleman, isn’t it, who is in love with her, or says he is? Highly connected, too, I suppose?’ For a moment a hideous sense of humiliation came over the woman. Her head drooped. She wiped her eyes with shaking hands. ‘Sibyl has a mother,’ she murmured; ‘I had none.’ The lad was touched. He went towards her, and stooping down he kissed her. ‘I am sorry if I have pained you by asking about my father,’ he said, ‘but I could not help it. I must go now. Good-bye. Don’t forget that you will only have one child how to look after, and believe me that if this man wrongs my sister, I will find out who he is, track him down, and kill him like a dog. I swear it.’ The exaggerated folly of the threat, the passionate gesture that accompanied it, the mad melodramatic words, made life seem more vivid to her. She was familiar with the atmosphere. She breathed more freely, and for the first time for many months she really admired her son. She would have liked to have continued the scene on the same emotional scale, but he cut her short. Trunks had to be carried down, and mufflers looked for. The lodging-house drudge bustled in and out. There was the bargaining with the cabman. The moment was lost in vulgar details. It was with a renewed feeling of disappointment that she waved the tattered lace handkerchief from the window, as her son drove away. She was conscious that a great opportunity had been wasted. She consoled herself by telling Sibyl how desolate she felt her life would be, now that she had only one child to look after. She remembered the phrase. It had pleased her. Of the threat she said nothing. It was vividly and dramatically expressed. She felt that they would all laugh at it some day.
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
Only then comes the fourth and last movement, the Adagio, the final farewell. It takes the form of a prayer, Mahler's last chorale, his closing hymn, so to speak; and it prays for the restoration of life, of tonality, of faith. This is tonality unashamed, presented in all aspects ranging from the diatonic simplicity of the hymn tune that opens it through every possible chromatic ambiguity. It's also a passionate prayer, moving from one climax to another, each more searing than the last. But there are no solutions. And between these surges of prayer there is intermittently a sudden coolness, a wide-spaced transparency, like an icy burning — a Zen-like immobility of pure meditation. This is a whole other world of prayer, of egoless acceptance. But again, there are no solutions. "Heftig ausbrechend!" he writes, as again the despairing chorale breaks out with greatly magnified intensity. This is the dual Mahler, flinging himself back into his burning Christian prayer, then again freezing into his Eastern one. This vacillation is his final duality. In the very last return of the hymn he is close to prostration; it is all he can give in prayer, a sobbing, sacrificial last try. But suddenly this climax fails, unachieved — the one that might have worked, that might have brought solutions. This last desperate reach falls short of its goal, subsides into a hint of resignation, then another hint, then into resignation itself. And so we come to the final incredible page. And this page, I think, is the closest we have ever come, in any work of art, to experiencing the very act of dying, of giving it all up. The slowness of this page is terrifying: Adagissimo, he writes, the slowest possible musical direction; and then langsam (slow), ersterbend (dying away), zögernd (hesitat-ing); and as if all those were not enough to indicate the near stoppage of time, he adds äusserst langsam (extremely slow) in the very last bars. It is terrifying, and paralyzing, as the strands of sound disintegrate. We hold on to them, hovering between hope and submission. And one by one, these spidery strands connecting us to life melt away, vanish from our fingers even as we hold them. We cling to them as they dematerialize; we are holding two-then one. One, and suddenly none. For a petrifying moment there is only silence. Then again, a strand, a broken strand, two strands, one ... none. We are half in love with easeful death ... now more than ever seems it rich to die, to cease upon the midnight with no pain ... And in ceasing, we lose it all. But in letting go, we have gained everything.
Leonard Bernstein (The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard)
He had a rough idea where he was going, since Rylann had previously mentioned that she lived in Roscoe Village. At the stoplight at Belmont Avenue, he pulled out his cell phone and scrolled through his contacts. The beauty of text messaging, he realized, was in its simplicity. He didn’t have to try to explain things, nor did he have to attempt to parse through all the banter in an attempt to figure out what she might be thinking. Instead, he could keep things short and sweet. I’D LIKE TO SEE YOU. He hit send. To kill time while he waited for her response, he drove in the direction of his sister’s wine shop, figuring he could always drop in and harass Jordan about something. This time, however, she beat him to the punch. “So who’s the brunette bombshell?” Jordan asked as soon as he walked into the shop and took a seat at the main bar. Damn. He’d forgotten about the stupid Scene and Heard column. Kyle helped himself to a cracker and some Brie cheese sitting on the bar. “I’m going to say…Angelina Jolie. Actually, no—Megan Fox.” “Megan Fox is, like, twenty-five.” “And this is a problem why, exactly?” Jordan slapped his hand as he reached for more crackers. “Those are for customers.” She put her hand on her hip. “You know, after reading the Scene and Heard column, I’d kind of hoped it was Rylann they were talking about. And that maybe, just maybe, my ne’er-do-well twin had decided to stop playing around and finally pursue a woman of quality.” He stole another cracker. “Now, that would be something.” She shook her head. “Why do I bother? You know, one day you’re going to wake up and…” Kyle’s cell phone buzzed, and he tuned out the rest of Jordan’s lecture—he could probably repeat the whole thing word for word by now—as he checked the incoming message. It was from Rylann, her response as short and sweet as his original text. 3418 CORNELIA, #3. He had her address. With a smile, he looked up and interrupted his sister. “That’s great, Jordo. Hey, by any chance do you have any bottles of that India Ink cabernet lying around?” She stopped midrant and stared at him. “I’m sure I do. Why, what made you think of that?” Then her face broke into a wide grin. “Wait a second…that was the wine Rylann talked about when she was here. She said it was one of her favorites.” “Did she? Funny coincidence.” Jordan put her hand over her heart. “Oh my God, you’re trying to impress her. That is so cute.” “Don’t be ridiculous,” Kyle scoffed. “I just thought, since I’ve heard such good things about the wine, that I would give it a shot.” Jordan gave him a look, cutting through all the bullshit. “Kyle. She’s going to love it.” Okay, whatever. Maybe he was trying to impress Rylann a little. “You don’t think it’s too much? Like I’m trying too hard?” Jordan put her hand over her heart again. “Oh. It’s like watching Bambi take his first steps.” “Jordo…” he growled warningly. With a smile, she put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed affectionately. “It’s perfect. Trust me.
Julie James (About That Night (FBI/US Attorney, #3))
The simple act of sailing had carried him beyond the world of reversals, frustrations, and inanities. And in the space of a few short hours, life had been reduced from a highly complex existence, with a thousand petty problems, to one of the barest simplicity in which only one real task remained—the achievement of the goal.
Alfred Lansing (Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage)
an exceptionally goodhumoured and candid youth, goodnatured to the point of simplicity,
Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Novels, Short Stories and Autobiographical Writings: The Entire Opus of the Great Russian Novelist, Journalist ... The Idiot, Notes from the Underground...)
Originating at the top, simplification requires a leadership quality that’s often in short supply: courage. It requires a leap of faith, the belief that freeing people to do higher-level thinking will pay back dividends. And it requires a mindset—the will, foresight, and fortitude to push simplicity through. Do you as a leader have these things? If not, why not?
Lisa Bodell (Why Simple Wins: Escape the Complexity Trap and Get to Work That Matters)
The Moffat Tunnel is a cathedral to engineering. Its simplicity occludes its sophistication, with the creation of nothing from something—the deliberate absence of rock amid incalculable weight. The finalized engineering marvel has a ventilation system that performs a complete air exchange within the tunnel in 18 minutes. The seemingly endless stone archway has intricately designed and perfectly positioned “umbrellas” to disperse alpine lake seepage to either side of the tracks. During construction, on February 15, 1925, tunneling progress stalled 1,100 feet directly under Crater Lake as 1,800 gallons per minute of water began flowing into the tunnel. At the suggestion of electrician K.S. Weston, crews ventured to the lake, cut through three feet of ice, and poured in 10 pounds of chloride of lime. Shortly thereafter, the presence of lime was detected inside of the tunnel. In an attempt to close the seam, a stick of dynamite was tossed into the lake, and the flow rate dropped drastically to 150 gallons per minute and then slowed to a trickle. Multiple times per day, the visceral vibration of mechanical thunder reverberates through the bowels of the earth.
B. Travis Wright (Rollins Pass (Images of America))
Think Skeptic. Expect the first reaction of others to be negative. The forces of Complexity will inevitably tell you that something can’t be done, even if the truth is that your request simply requires extra effort. You’ll probably achieve better results if you believe more in the talent of people to work miracles than in those who are quick to provide negative answers. Don’t allow the discouragement of others to force compromise upon your ideas. Push. If you can’t get satisfaction with one person or vendor, move to another. If there was one area in which Steve Jobs had a well-deserved reputation for being impossible, this was it. He was relentless about executing ideas and demanding that people perform. Take pride in your independence and objectivity too. See facts and opinions in context. Definitely consider the expertise of those who provide counsel, but evaluate those opinions against things that may be beyond the expert’s vision—like your long-term goals. Steve Jobs knew that the short-term cost, even if it’s large, is often outweighed by the future benefit. Real leaders have the ability to grasp the context and decide accordingly. Simplicity isn’t afraid to act on Common Sense, even when it runs counter to an expert’s opinion.
Ken Segall (Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success)
In his evolving view, the fact that he'd gone to those schools and accomplished those things didn't need to complicate what life had once been about: the simplicity of providing for oneself, without expectations.
Jeff Hobbs (The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League)
Nature's secret is simplicity and patience.
Shree Shambav (Twenty + One - 21 Short Stories)
Some five years back, the editors of yet another anthology for school readers put together a volume with some 400 (count ’em) short stories in it. How do you cram 400 short stories by Twain, Irving, Poe, Maupassant, and Bierce into one book? Simplicity itself. Skin, debone, demarrow, scarify, melt, render down, and destroy. Every adjective that counted, every verb that moved, every metaphor that weighed more than a mosquito—out! Every simile that would have made a sub-moron’s mouth twitch—gone! Any aside that explained the two-bit philosophy of a first-rate writer—lost. Every story, slenderized, starved, bluepenciled, leeched, and bled white, resembled every other story. Twain read like Poe read like Shakespeare read like Dostoevsky read like—in the finale—Edgar Guest. Every word of more than three syllables had been razored. Every image that demanded so much as one instant’s attention—shot dead.
Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)
Wherein do evangelical Churchmen fall short of their great predecessors in the last century I Let us look this question fairly in the face. Let us come to particulars. They fall short in doctrine. They are neither so full nor so distinct, nor so bold, nor so uncompromising. They are afraid of strong statements. They are too ready to fence, and guard, and qualify all their teaching, as if Christ’s gospel was a little baby, and could not be trusted to walk alone. They fall short as preachers. They have neither the fervour, nor fire, nor thought, nor illustration, nor directness, nor holy boldness, nor grand simplicity of language which characterized the last century. Above all, they fall short in life. They are not men of one thing, separate from the world, unmistakable men of God, ministers of Christ everywhere, indifferent to man’s opinion, regardless who is offended, if they only preach truth, always about their Father’s business, as Grimshaw and Fletcher used to be. They do not make the world feel that a prophet is among them, and carry about with them their Master’s presence, as Moses when he came down from the mount. I write these things with sorrow. I desire to take my full share of blame. But I do believe I am speaking the truth.
J.C. Ryle (Christian Leaders Of The 18th Century)
Pick your life's short list.
Leo Babauta (Focus: A Simplicity Manifesto in the Age of Distraction)
She traced the dragon’s body on his biceps where it transitioned into rope. “I just thought it would be more difficult. After all this time, the heartache, the waiting, the despairing and giving up, the pure pissed-offness of dealing with near misses…" She blew out a breath. “And there it is. With you, easy as breathing. ‘I’m in love with you.’ You said it and meant it. It changes the universe, but the way throwing a stone in a pond does. All those ripples. It's…amazing.” She frowned and cocked her head. “There should at least be dramatic music.” "I can retract it if you want. Brood for a while, play commitment paranoia games, alienate you so we break up, sort of, and then I chase you down before you make some monumental decision, like moving back to New York, or signing up for a three year stint in the merchant marines. Then we can have a big makeup scene.“ She pursed her lips. "Complete with dramatic music.” "Absolutely. If I could afford it, I’d hire John Williams to come up with the score.“ "You’d do all that for me?” "Hell, no.” He snorted, puffing a short, playful breath against her. “I’d tie you up and keep you in my basement until you contracted Stockholm syndrome and couldn’t breathe without me.“ She tipped her head back, sobering. "Sometimes, it feels like I can’t. Crazy, right?” He put his mouth on hers and took her air in the best kind of way, all while giving it back to her. at her, boyishly appealing, but then sobered. "We’re normal, extraordinary people,” he said. “It took us a while, but we always knew what it would look like when it happened. The simplicity of it is what makes it extraordinary. A tadpole gets legs and walks on land, and evolution begins. All in a simple blink, the whole world changes.
Joey W. Hill (Worth the Wait (Nature of Desire, #9))
Wee, wee, wee, wee, all the way home,” Hazlit quoted the nursery rhyme. Portmaine paused before sipping his own drink. “Did Maggie Windham strike you on the head?” “No. She hired me, and it took me half my walk home to figure out what she’s truly about.” “She wants to have her way with your tender young flesh,” Portmaine suggested. “You’re overdue to get your wick dipped, you know.” “Your concern is touching, Archer.” “You always get short-tempered when you’ve neglected your romping. Maybe you should go a round or two with Lady Norcross.” “Maybe I should find a partner who can think beyond his next swiving.” “I like swiving.” Portmaine pushed off the desk and refilled his drink, then came to rest on the sofa a couple of feet from Hazlit. “It’s normal to like swiving. Lady Norcross apparently understands this. You used to understand this. I certainly understand it. More brandy?” “You’re outpacing me,” Hazlit said, smiling slightly at Portmaine’s predictable simplicity. “And
Grace Burrowes (Lady Maggie's Secret Scandal (The Duke's Daughters, #2; Windham, #5))
TO VICTOR HUGO OF MY CROW PLUTO “Even when the bird is walking we know that it has wings.”—VICTOR HUGO Of: my crow Pluto, the true Plato, azzurronegro green-blue rainbow — Victor Hugo, it is true we know that the crow “has wings,” however pigeon-toe- inturned on grass. We do. (adagio) Vivorosso “corvo,” although con dizionario io parlo Italiano— this pseudo Esperanto which, savio ucello you speak too — my vow and motto (botto e totto) io giuro è questo credo: lucro è peso morto. And so dear crow— gioièllo mio— I have to let you go; a bel bosco generoso, tuttuto vagabondo, s erafino uvaceo Sunto, oltremarino verecondo Plato, addio. (((((Impromptu equivalents for esperanto madinusa (made in U.S.A.) for those who might not resent them. azzurro-negro: blue-black vivorosso: lively con dizionario: with dictionary savio ucello: knowing bird botto e totto: vow and motto io giuro: I swear è questo credo: is this credo lucro è peso morto: profit is a dead weight gioièllo mio: my jewel a bel bosco: to lovely woods tuttuto vagabondo: complete gypsy serafino uvaceo: grape-black seraph sunto: in short verecondo: modest))))
Marianne Moore (Complete Poems)
We arrived back at the Abbey hand in hand and in perfect amity. In the space of our short walk we had agreed upon a new career and a new style of living. We should embrace simplicity, at least a privileged and eccentric sort of simplicity. We would have rooms for consulting and photographic equipment as well as a sitting room and bedroom with further accommodation for Morag and Aquinas. A pair of guest rooms and another pair for a cook and maid would complete our domestic arrangements. That still left a few rooms unused, but I had little doubt we would eventually put them to good purpose. As to the work Brisbane proposed, I felt a thrill at the prospect of taking on such important and clandestine activities. There was much yet to be discussed, but I felt the new year had dawned full of expectant promise, and already it was being fulfilled.
Deanna Raybourn (Twelfth Night (Lady Julia Grey, #5.6))
Give your product a personality. 37signals may not sell the best project management software in the world, but it has personality. The 37signals team stands for something: uncompromising simplicity. Want an extra feature? Tough. If you want features, buy something else.
Neil Davidson (Don't Just Roll the Dice - a usefully short guide to software pricing)
True genius is understanding simplicity, not complexity.
Trevor Dunbar (The Short-Form Book Money Maker Method)
Simplicity is the key to understanding. Short words in short sentences present the listener or reader with the fewest obstacles to comprehension.
Ros Atkins (The Art of Explanation)
If you truly believe in your simplicity & innocense, and wish to retain it, figure out something that you can practice for 10-12 hours a day; you will certainly be heading towards the path of Greatness.
Sandeep Sahajpal (The Twelfth Preamble: To all the authors to be! (Short Stories Book 1))
Nature's secrets are simplicity and patience.
Shree Shambav (Twenty + One - 21 Short Stories)
Bushido meant stoicism, self-discipline, and dignity in one’s personal bearing; it emphasized mastery of the martial arts through long training and practice; it lauded sacrifice in service to duty, without the slightest fear of death; it demanded asceticism and simplicity in daily life, without regard to comforts, appetites, or luxuries. The samurai was “to live as if already dead,” an outlook consonant with Buddhism; he was to regard death with fatalistic indifference, rather than cling to a life that was essentially illusory. Shame or dishonor might require suicide as atonement—and when a samurai killed himself, he did so by carving out his own viscera with a short steel blade. But traditional bushido had not imposed an obligation to abhor retreat or surrender even when a battle had turned hopeless, and the old-time samurai who had done his duty in a losing cause could lay down his arms with honor intact.
Ian W. Toll (Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (The Pacific War Trilogy))
The attraction of doing so is, however, obvious: simplicity, ease, and the illusion of mastery (which can have exceptionally useful psychological and social consequences, particularly in the short term)—and, let us not forget, the frequent discovery of a villain, or set of villains, upon which the hidden motivations for the ideology can be vented.
Jordan B. Peterson (Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life)
Everyone wants to outperform the market over every single time frame, both short term and long term. There's a name for this strategy—it's called impossible.
Ben Carlson (A Wealth of Common Sense: Why Simplicity Trumps Complexity in Any Investment Plan (Bloomberg))
Everything about the investment process is a series of trade-offs. Investing itself is delaying current consumption for future consumption. You can either try to maximize your chances of getting rich or minimize your chances of missing out on your goals and becoming poor. You have to be willing to accept periodic large losses to earn higher long-term returns. Or you have to save a lot more money to accept lower returns and decrease your chances of short-term losses. You have to be able to sleep at night, but also be able to sustain your living standards throughout retirement. You have to worry about certain spending needs in the near-term but also your spending needs many decades out. Decisions, decisions.
Ben Carlson (A Wealth of Common Sense: Why Simplicity Trumps Complexity in Any Investment Plan (Bloomberg))
KEEP IT SHORT. Simplicity goes hand in hand with elegance. When it comes to expressing your ideas, this usually means using as few words as possible. It is also a well-known marker of expertise that when you truly understand something, you can explain it to a layperson without dumbing it down.
Rohit Bhargava (Non Obvious Megatrends: How to See What Others Miss and Predict the Future (Non-Obvious Trends Series))
David Christian, who, in March 2011, narrated the complete history of the universe for a TED audience and took all of 18 minutes to do it (17 minutes and 40 seconds, to be exact). Christian told me that he teaches a world-history course that examines the entire history of the universe—from the Big Bang 13 billion years ago to today. The Big History course is offered by The Teaching Company in a series of 48 half-hour lectures. Christian’s deep understanding of the subject helped him condense the content into just the right amount of time to grab the audience’s attention and inspire them to take better care of our fragile planet. “I’ve been teaching Big History now for over 20 years, so I have a pretty good feel for the story and that means I can tell it in many different versions,”6 Christian told me. E. F. Schumacher, economist and author of Small Is Beautiful, once said, “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” Courage is the key word. It takes courage to keep things simple. It takes courage to put one picture on a PowerPoint slide instead of filling it with tiny text that most people in the audience won’t even be able to read. It takes courage to reduce the number of the slides in a presentation. It takes courage to speak for 18 minutes instead of rambling on for much longer. Leonardo da Vinci once said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Be sophisticated. Keep your presentations and pitches short and simple.
Carmine Gallo (Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World's Top Minds)
I have found therapy to be of limited usefulness, constrained in ways that religion is not, because it consistently falls short of mystery, by which I mean a profound simplicity that allows for paradox and poetry. In therapy I am likely to be searching for explanations, causes, and definitions, information that will help me change my behavior in healthful ways. But wisdom is the goal of spiritual seeking, and it is religion's true home.
Kathleen Norris (Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life)
Before she knew it, a rusty green pick-up truck was slowly rolling to a stop in front of her; her carriage had arrived.
Dani J. Norwell (Fairly Familiar: A Collection of Short Stories)
Dheeraj explained to me that when leaders don’t have the skills to lean into vulnerability, they’re not able to successfully hold the tension of the paradoxes that are inherent in entrepreneurship. His examples of the paradoxes that elicit vulnerability in leaders align with what we heard from the research participants: Optimism and paranoia Letting chaos reign (the act of building) and reining in chaos (the act of scaling) Big heart and tough decision making Humility and fierce resolve Velocity and quality when building new things Left brain and right brain Simplicity and choice Thinking global, acting local Ambition and attention to detail Thinking big but starting small Short-term and long-term Marathons and sprints, or marathon of sprints in business-building Dheeraj told me, “Leaders must learn the skills to hold these tensions and get adept at “balancing on the ‘tightrope’ of life. Ultimately, leadership is the ability to thrive in the ambiguity of paradoxes and opposites
Brené Brown (Dare to Lead)
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Simplicity, balance, character, direction and relation of the limbs to each other, with their proportions and general symmetry of the whole, must be apprehended in a flash and put down in long lines, without lingering on less important details of form, for there is little time to hesitate in making a ten-minutes sketch. The quicker we draw, the better, so long as we can keep up the tension of our eyes, brain and hand all working together at the same time. The moment one of these three faculties gets out of gear or tired, the vitality of the drawing is lost. An intelligent model in a good pose inspires us enormously to produce an artistic and living drawing. A drawing done in a few minutes, in a red-hot fever of excitement and with concentrated observation, following the contour of the form from start to finish, is far more living than the often elaborated drawings of a cataleptic, relaxed figure, dumped upon the traditional throne, so often seen in art schools ; for the essence of life figure drawing lies in the outline. There is no short cut, no royal road to excellence : the only way is by persistent study and cultivation of visual memory.
Borough Johnson (The Technique of Pencil Drawing (Dover Art Instruction))
Shortly after Ryan and I broke up, I returned to the solitude I normally enjoyed, appreciating the simplicity of my life because I no longer had to walk on eggshells around a man. But now that time had passed, the loneliness had started reappearing like a growing tidal wave in the distance. I could feel it building and when it finally reached me, I would spend the rest of the day or night restless and fighting tears. It would eventually pass, but the episodes were becoming more frequent. I tried to fill my days with more social interaction, but that only left me feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. A personal connection with someone was what I craved the most. Someone who understood my needs and was willing to speak my language. Someone like Jonathan. I avert my eyes as I answer him. "I don't mind spending time alone, but sometimes I do get very lonely." Jonathan leans over and puts his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close as I fight back tears. "Not everyone can look past their own hang-ups to see what I see. It's their loss." When Jonathan said things like that, it propped me up and took away a little of the sting from the people who'd tried to tear me down or make me feel like a second-class citizen because I viewed things differently than they did. Ten years ago, I might not have been clear on what Jonathan was saying, but that had changed. Tina had taught me that it was important to surround myself with people who understood me. People who were secure about their own place in the world. It wasn't always easy to identify who those people were, but I was much better at it now than I had been in the past.
Tracey Garvis Graves (The Girl He Used to Know)
In our confessions, he was never overbearing with the canon; all his spiritual canons were moderate….He gave freedom; for one he would instruct him in short prayers, “O my Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me,” for another who liked to pray the agpeya [canonical] prayers he would instruct him to do so. [Fr. Mina] would remove conceit and complexes from a person, by showing him how to live in simplicity. He didn’t overburden people with more than what the Church recommends….He who loved hymns would be with him day and night chanting, he who loved the Holy Bible would study it day and night, he who loved psalmody would praise day and night he encouraged those who loved to serve…supporting them with supplies and money. He used to give us money for the Sunday school service and for the area of Old Cairo… —Abdelmessih Bishara (1923-2000), university study, eventually becoming Bishop Athanasius of Beni Suef, speaking on Fr. Kyrillos
Daniel Fanous (A Silent Patriarch)
Simplicity and concision are tough. The French philosopher Blaise Pascal famously noted that he’d written a long letter, having lacked the time required to write a shorter one.2 As I believe, if you can’t convey a thought clearly and in a few words, then your comprehension of it is probably lacking.
David Cote (Winning Now, Winning Later: How Companies Can Succeed in the Short Term While Investing for the Long Term)
Once the relation of science and metaphysics with “intellectual intuition” is misunderstood, Kant has no difficulty in showing that our science is entirely relative and our metaphysics wholly artificial. Because he strained the independence of the understanding in both cases, because he relieved metaphysics and science of the “intellectual intuition” which gave them their inner weight, science with its relations presents to him only an outer wrapping of form, and metaphysics with its things, an outer wrapping of matter. Is it surprising, then, that the first shows him only frameworks within frameworks, and the second phantoms pursuing phantoms? He struck our science and metaphysics such rude blows that they have not yet entirely recovered from their shock. Our mind would willingly resign itself to see in science a wholly relative knowledge and in metaphysics an empty speculation. It seems to us even today that Kantian criticism applies to all metaphysics and to all science. In reality it applies especially to the philosophy of the ancients, as well as to the form—still ancient—that the moderns have given most often to their thought. It is valid against a metaphysics which claims to give us a unique and ready-made system of things, against a science which would be a unique system of relations, finally against a science and a metaphysics which present themselves with the architectural simplicity of the Platonic theory of Ideas, or of a Greek temple. If metaphysics claims to be made up of concepts we possessed prior to it, if it consists in an ingenious arrangement of pre-existing ideas which we utilize like the materials of construction for a building, in short, if it is something other than the constant dilation of our mind, the constantly renewed effort to go beyond our actual ideas and perhaps our simple logic as well, it is too evident that it becomes artificial like all works of pure understanding. And if science is wholly the work of analysis or of conceptual representation, if experience is only to serve as the verification of “clear ideas,” if instead of starting from multiple and varied intuitions inserted into the movement proper to each reality but not always fitting into one another, it claims to be an immense mathematics, a single system of relations which imprisons the totality of the real in a mesh prepared for it, it becomes a knowledge purely relative to the human understanding. A close reading of the Critique of Pure Reason will show that for Kant this kind of universal mathematics is science, and this barely modified Platonism, metaphysics. To tell the truth, the dream of a universal mathematics is itself only a survival of Platonism. Universal mathematics is what the world of Ideas becomes when one assumes that the Idea consists in a relation or a law, and no longer in a thing.
Henri Bergson (The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics)
Elegance and simplicity . . . plastic, including polyester resin, which has several attractions: permanence (indoors), an aura of difficulty and technical expertise, and preciousness . . . rivaling bronze or marble. . . . in short, the aroma of Los Angeles in the sixties — newness, postcard sunset color, and intimations oif aerospace profundity.
Peter Plagens (Sunshine Muse; Contemporary Art on the West Coast)
So, do you think—at least for this first patrol—we can simplify this a little by cutting down the distance and keeping the entire patrol inside battlespace owned by this company, Team Bulldog?” “That will only be a few hundred meters out,” the MiTT leader objected. “I know,” I replied. “I know it seems short, but let’s just keep it simple to start, and we can expand as we get more experience.” I knew that one real operation in this environment for the MiTT leader would convince him that simplicity was key. After some further discussion, the MiTT leader agreed to a much shorter, simpler route.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
This is why total return matters—not just income. The total return to investors over three years was –13.7 percent even though each year the company started out showing a yield in excess of 15 percent. Also, the amount of dividend payments dropped over 30 percent. There are investors who will see 15 percent yields and think it's a can't-miss investment opportunity with little-to-no-risk involved because there's a dividend payment attached. Yield makes investors feel safe because it's tangible. As usual, higher returns come from higher risks, and a higher yield means higher risk. Either you own high-quality investments with a lower yield, but more safety in the short term, or you own riskier investments with a higher yield and less short-term safety of principal.
Ben Carlson (A Wealth of Common Sense: Why Simplicity Trumps Complexity in Any Investment Plan (Bloomberg))
In short, Calvin has been given too much blame by critics and too much credit by fans. His real genius is to be found in his remarkable ability to synthesize the best thought of the whole Christian tradition and sift it with rigorous exegetical skill and evangelical instincts. His rhetorical rule was “brevity and simplicity,” and this, combined with a heart enflamed by truth, draws us back to his wells for refreshment in many times and places—especially when we seem to have lost our way.
Michael Scott Horton (Calvin on the Christian Life: Glorifying and Enjoying God Forever)
There are thousands upon thousands of students who have practiced meditation and obtained its fruits. Do not doubt its possibilities because of the simplicity of the method. If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it? Life is short and no one knows what the next moment will bring. Open your mind while you have the opportunity, thereby gaining the treasures of wisdom, which in turn you can share abundantly with others, bringing them happiness. adapted from the FUKANZAZENGI, translated by Senzaki and McCandless
Jack Kornfield (Teachings of the Buddha)