“… the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.”
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher
"Holmes-Pollock Letters : The Correspondence of Mr. Justice Holmes and Sir Frederick Pollock, 1874-1932" (2nd ed., 1961), p. 109.
Often quoted as "I wouldn't give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity; I would give my right arm for the simplicity on the far side of complexity" and attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr..
1930s
“… the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.”
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher
Benoît Mandelbrot (1924–2010) Polish-born, French and American mathematician
Source: The Fractalist (2012), Ch. 29, p. 299
L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer
Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 221
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher
Sometimes presented in paraphrased form, such as "Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing" https://books.google.com/books?id=5Za7o6teOHoC&pg=PR18&dq=%22example+is+not+the+main+thing%22+schweitzer&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjFh4m9vqvMAhUG02MKHRqZDtsQ6AEIMzAE#v=onepage&q=%22example%20is%20not%20the%20main%20thing%22%20&f=false. <br class="br">God's Own Man (1952)
“A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.”
O. Henry (1862–1910) American short story writer
"A Ruler of Men" Rolling Stones http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3815/3815-h/3815-h.htm (1913)
Melvin Schwartz (1932–2006) American experimental physicist
in Electromagnetism and Its Relation to Relativity, chapter 3 of his book [Principles of electrodynamics, Courier Dover Publications, 1987, 0486654931, 105]
Ptolemy (100–170) Greco-Egyptian writer and astronomer of Alexandria
James Gow, A Short History of Greek Mathematics https://books.google.com/books?id=9d8DAAAAMAAJ (1884) p.308.
Derek Walcott (1930–2017) Saint Lucian–Trinidadian poet and playwright
Conversations with Derek Walcott (University Press Mississippi, 1996, page.165)
Alfred Denning, Baron Denning (1899–1999) British judge
Packer v. Packer [1954] P. 15 at 22.
Judgments