“Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.”

—  Oscar Wilde

Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

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Irish writer and poet 1854–1900

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“They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer — not an easy answer — but simple.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

In some published transcripts or quotations of this speech a variant of this statement appears immediately before the quote by Churchill below, but was not said during Reagan's televised address on (27 October 1964). Though he did make variations of the speech elsewhere it is unclear exactly when and where he may have said used these precise words:
: They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.
Later variant: For many years now, you and I have been shushed like children and told there are no simple answers to the complex problems which are beyond our comprehension. Well, the truth is, there are simple answers, they just are not easy ones.
:* California Gubernatorial Inauguration Speech (5 January 1967) http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/govspeech/01051967a.htm
1960s, A Time for Choosing (1964)

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“The chief difficulty of the spiritual life is to maintain a simple, qualitative, heavenly position in a complex, quantitative, earthly setting.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2016, La conscience de l’Absolu, Hozhoni, 20, 978-2-37241-020-5]
Spiritual life, Outline

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