“Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better.”

Dijkstra (1984) On the nature of Computing Science http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EWD896.html (EWD896).
1980s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matter…" by Edsger W. Dijkstra?
Edsger W. Dijkstra photo
Edsger W. Dijkstra 68
Dutch computer scientist 1930–2002

Related quotes

Benoît Mandelbrot photo
Anthony Bourdain photo
John Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh photo

“The work may be hard, and the discipline severe; but the interest never fails, and great is the privilege of achievement.”

John Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh (1842–1919) English physicist

Address to the British Association in Montreal (1884)
Context: Without encroaching upon grounds appertaining to the theologian and the philosopher, the domain of natural sciences is surely broad enough to satisfy the wildest ambition of its devotees. In other departments of human life and interest, true progress is rather an article of faith than a rational belief; but in science a retrograde movements is, from the nature of the case, almost impossible. Increasing knowledge brings with it increasing power, and great as are the triumphs of the present century, we may well believe that they are but a foretaste of what discovery and invention have yet in store for mankind. … The work may be hard, and the discipline severe; but the interest never fails, and great is the privilege of achievement.

Marshall Goldsmith photo

“Lasting goal achievement requires lots of time, hard work, personal sacrifice, ongoing effort, and dedication to a process that is maintained over years.”

Marshall Goldsmith (1949) American author of leadership and management literature

Source: What Got You Here Won't Get You There, 2008, p. 189 (in 2010 edition}

Ben Carson photo

“Being a doctor at Johns Hopkins does not make me any better in God's sight than the individual who has not had the opportunity to gain such an education but who still works hard.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

Thomas Edison photo

“The World is a very complex system. It is easy to have too simple a view of it, and it is easy to do harm and to make things worse under the impulse to do good and make things better.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Kenneth Boulding (1986) "Proceedings of the 7th Friends Association for Higher Education Conference, Malone College, 1986" p. 4, quoted in Debora Hammond, The Science of Synthesis, Colorado: University of Colorado Press, 2003.
1980s

Maya Angelou photo

“All great achievements require time.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Related topics