Simplicity Quotes
Here are some of the best simplicity quotes for anyone looking to simplify their life and understand the world around us.
Simplicity quotes to live by
Some people search all their lives for simple answers to complex questions.
These quotes offer an important reminder about the many benefits of living with fewer possessions and material things. The quotes listed here can be used as daily inspiration and focus on the need for simplicity in our lives.
Top ten best simplicity quotes
Let’s begin with ten of our favorite simplicity quotes and sayings.
1.) The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity.
Douglas Horton
2.) If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.
Albert Einstein
3.) Simplicity is the key to brilliance.
Bruce Lee
4.) One should use common words to say uncommon things.
Arthur Schopenhauer
5.) The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
Hans Hofmann
6.) Let us learn to live simply, so that others may simply live.
Mahatma Gandhi
7.) Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Albert Einstein
8.) A man must be able to cut a knot, for everything cannot be untied.
Henri Frederic Amiel
9.) Simplicity does not precede complexity but follows it.
Alan Perlis
10.) Simplicity is not style, it is a state of harmony.
Naoto Fukasawa
Short simplicity quotes
1.) Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.
Coco Chanel
2.) A little simplification would be the first step toward rational living.
Eleanor Roosevelt
3.) Don’t make the process harder than it is.
Jack Welch
4.) I like simplicity; I don’t need luxury.
Francis Ford Coppola
5.) Simplicity is an exact medium between too little and too much.
Joshua Reynolds
6.) The spirit’s foe in man has not been simplicity, but sophistication.
George Santayana
7.) I feel that the simplicity of life is just being yourself.
Bobby Brown
8.) From native simplicity we arrive at more profound simplicity.
Albert Schweitzer
9.) It is the essence of genius to make use of the simplest ideas.
Charles Péguy
10.) Simplicity is a prerequisite for reliability.
Edsger Dijkstra
11.) Anything simple always interests me.
David Hockney
12.) I am convinced that there can be a luxury in simplicity.
Jil Sander
13.) Living simply makes loving simple.
Bell Hooks
14.) Progress is man’s ability to complicate simplicity.
Thor Heyerdahl
15.) Rather let us be more simple and less vain.
Rousseau Jean-Jacques
16.) I always go for simplicity.
David Bailey
17.) A taste for simplicity cannot last for long.
Eugene Delacroix
Inspirational quotes
1.) Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.
Frederic Chopin
2.) I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things in life which are the real ones after all.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
3.) If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable.
Rainer Maria Rilke
4.) The greatest ideas are the simplest.
William Golding
5.) Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.
Lao Tzu
6.) My philosophy? Simplicity plus variety.
Hank Stram
7.) Simplicity and repose are the qualities that measure the true value of any work of art.
Frank Lloyd Wright
8.) I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, and compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.
Lao Tzu
9.) It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials.
Bruce Lee
10.) The art of art, the glory of expression, and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.
Walt Whitman
11.) Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Motivational quotes
1.) Mental toughness is many things. It is humility because it behooves all of us to remember that simplicity is the sign of greatness and meekness is the sign of true strength.
Vince Lombardi
2.) Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.
General Colin Powell
3.) Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.
Charles Mingus
4.) Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.
Robert Brault
5.) The greatest step towards a life of simplicity is to learn to let go.
Steve Maraboli
6.) Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.
E. F. Schumacker
7.) My encouragement: delete the energy vampires from your life, clean out all complexity, build a team around you that frees you to fly, remove anything toxic, and cherish simplicity. Because that’s where genius lives.
Robin S. Sharma
8.) Three rules of work: out of clutter find simplicity. From discord find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
Albert Einstein
Check out these famous Banksy quotes and sayings.
Funny quotes
1.) A child of five could understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.
Groucho Marx
2.) I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
Oscar Wilde
3.) For every problem there is a solution that is simple, clean, and wrong.
Henry Louis Mencken
4.) The English language has a deceptive air of simplicity; so have some little frocks; but they are both not the kind of thing you can run up in half an hour with a machine.
Dorothy L. Sayers
5.) Man is an over-complicated organism. If he is doomed to extinction he will die out for want of simplicity.
Ezra Pound
6.) I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.
Paul Anderson
7.) If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
Ludwig Boltzmann
8.) There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit.
Alexander Pope
Simplicity quotes to learn from
1.) There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness, and truth.
Leo Tolstoy
2.) Like all magnificent things, it’s very simple.
Natalie Babbitt
3.) Clutter and confusion are failures of design, not attributes of information.
Edward Tuft
4.) Simplicity is the most difficult thing to secure in this world; it is the last limit of experience and the last effort of genius.
George Sand
5.) Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury – to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best for both the body and the mind.
Albert Einstein
6.) I just like simplicity. I like simple songs, I like simple chords, simple vocals, simple lead guitar, I just like simplicity. That’s just the way I like it.
Jeremy Spencer
7.) Every solution to every problem is simple. It’s the distance between the two where the mystery lies.
Derek Landy
8.) Enjoy the simple, the natural, and the plain. Along with that comes the ability to do things spontaneously and have them work.
Benjamin Hoff
9.) As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
Henry David Thoreau
About happiness
10.) Simplicity is the essence of happiness.
Cedric Bledsoe
11.) I believe we would be happier to have a personal revolution in our individual lives and go back to simpler living and more direct thinking. It is the simple things of life that make living worthwhile, the sweet fundamental things such as love and duty, work and rest, and living close to nature.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
About beauty
12.) The core of beauty is simplicity.
Paulo Coelho
13.) Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity.
Plato
14.) Some of the greatest poetry is revealing to the reader the beauty in something that was so simple you had taken it for granted.
Neil Degrasse Tyson
15.) Don’t get me wrong, I admire elegance and have an appreciation of the finer things in life. But to me, beauty lies in simplicity.
Mark Hyman
16.) Grandeur and beauty are so very opposite, that you often diminish the one as you increase the other. Variety is most akin to the latter, simplicity to the former.
William Shenston
Simplicity quotes about life
1.) Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
Henry David Thoreau
2.) Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.
Charles Dudley Warner
3.) Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
Lin Yutang
4.) A vocabulary of truth and simplicity will be of service throughout your life.
Winston Churchill
5.) Of manners gentle, of affections mild; In wit a man, simplicity a child.
Alexander Pope
6.) I take a simple view of living. It is, keep your eyes open and get on with it.
Sir Laurence Olivier
7.) The world calls for, and expects from us, simplicity of life, the spirit of prayer, charity towards all, especially towards the lowly and the poor, obedience and humility, detachment, and self-sacrifice.
Pope Paul VI
8.) Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have even lived a more simple and meager life than the poor.
Henry David Thoreau
9.) I have to remind myself to live simply and not to overindulge, which is a constant battle in a material world.
Sandra Cisneros
For a simple life
10.) Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
11.) A simple life is not seeing how little we can get by with, but how efficiently we can put first things first… When you’re clear about your purpose and your priorities, you can discard whatever does not support these.
Victoria Moran
12.) In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
13.) Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.
Henry David Thoreau
Thoughtful simplicity quotes
1.) The simplest things are often the truest.
Richard Bach
2.) To simplify complications is the first essential of success.
George Earle Buckle
3.) That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.
Steve Jobs
4.) I have a simple philosophy. Fill what’s empty. Empty what’s full. And scratch where it itches.
Alice Roosevelt Longwort
5.) Simplicity is a choice, a discrimination, a crystallization. Its object is purity.
Le Corbusier
6.) As I grew older, I realized that it was much better to insist on the genuine forms of nature, for simplicity is the greatest adornment of art.
Albrecht Durer
7.) I like simplicity, I like using natural sources, I like images to look natural — as though somebody sitting in a room by a lamp is being lit by that lamp.
Roger Deakins
8.) Everything is complex and everything is simple… What could be more complicated than a rose for someone who wants to understand it? What could be simpler for someone who wants nothing? The complexity of thinking, the simplicity of beholding.
Andre Comte-Sponville
9.) Voluntary simplicity means going fewer places in one day rather than more, seeing less so I can see more, doing less so I can do more, acquiring less so I can have more.
John Kabat-Zinn
10.) The main purpose of science is simplicity and as we understand more things, everything is becoming simpler.
Edward Teller
11.) People who pride themselves on their “complexity” and deride others for being “simplistic” should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth.
Thomas Sowell
Famous simplicity quotes
1.) Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy.
Isaac Newton
2.) Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Leonardo da Vinci
3.) Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.
Isaac Newton
4.) For the more limited, if adequate, is always preferable.
Aristotle
5.) Simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run.
Henry David Thoreau
6.) Fishing is much more than fish. It is the great occasion when we may return to the fine simplicity of our forefathers.
Herbert Hoover
7.) I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
8.) It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences.
Aristotle
9.) Pure, holy simplicity confounds all the wisdom of this world and the wisdom of the flesh.
Francis of Assisi
10.) Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.
Albert Einstein
More famous sayings
11.) The Cube is, at the same time, a symbol of simplicity and complexity.
Erno Rubik (creator of the Rubik’s Cube)
12.) When I was growing up, Dr. Seuss was really my favorite. There was something about the lyrical nature and the simplicity of his work that really hit me.
Tim Burton
13.) I believe that the Apple Shuffle is an excellent compromise among the conflicting requirements of simplicity, elegance, size, battery life, and function.
Donald Norman
Simplicity quotes for Instagram captions
1.) It is the gift to be simple, it is the gift to be free…
Joseph Brackett
2.) Childhood means simplicity. Look at the world with the child’s eye – it is very beautiful.
Kailash Satyarthi
3.) One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
Jack Kerouac
4.) As beautiful as simplicity is, it can become a tradition that stands in the way of exploration.
Laura Nyro
5.) If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.
Wu-Men
6.) Simplicity boils down to two steps: Identify the essential. Eliminate the rest.
Leo Babauta
7.) Simplicity is ultimately a matter of focus.
Ann Voskamp
Thank you for reading these simplicity quotes and sayings. For more self-improvement quotes, check out these lists:
By Greg Johnson | Published 3/14/2023
