“I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
“The Simple Life is the last refuge of complicated and restless souls.”
— John Buchan, book A Lodge in the Wilderness
Source: A Lodge in the Wilderness (1906), Ch. I, p. 22
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Do you have more details about the quote "The Simple Life is the last refuge of complicated and restless souls." by John Buchan?
John Buchan145
British politician 1875–1940Related quotes
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
Attributed on the internet but not found in print prior to an attribution in Aero Digest, Vols. 58–59, 1949, p. 115 https://books.google.com/books?id=q2ofAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Life+is+simple%22+but+we+insist+on+making+it+complicated&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22Life+is+simple%22+ <br class="br">Misattributed, Not Chinese
Charles Mingus (1922–1979) American jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader
Statement in Mainliner (July 1977), as quoted in Creativity and the writing process (1982) by Olivia Bertagnolli, p. 182; also partly quoted in Survival Skills for Managers (1981) by Marlene Wilson, p. 19
Variant: Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.
As quoted in The Evaluation and Treatment of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (1999) by Nils R. Varney and Richard J. Roberts, p. 303
Context: My son's a painter. All through school his teachers tell him he's a genius. I tell him to paint me an apple that looks like and apple before he paints me one that doesn't. Go where you can go, but start from someplace recognizable. Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.
“Death is simple. Life is messy. Give me life, the more complicated the better.”
Tom Robbins (1932) American writer
“That my complicated life could be made so simple was astounding.”
Cheryl Strayed book Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Source: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
“Man, life was complicated. But the truth was simple. He was her home. He was where she belonged.”
Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist
Source: Lover Reborn
John Von Neumann (1903–1957) Hungarian-American mathematician and polymath
Remark made by von Neumann as keynote speaker at the first national meeting of the Association for Computing Machinery in 1947, as mentioned by Franz L. Alt at the end of "Archaeology of computers: Reminiscences, 1945--1947", Communications of the ACM, volume 15, issue 7, July 1972, special issue: Twenty-fifth anniversary of the Association for Computing Machinery, p. 694.
“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer
April 7, 1775, p. 253
Boswell's full mention of this statement reads:
:Patriotism having become one of our topicks, Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone, an apophthegm, at which many will start: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." But let it be considered, that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak of self-interest.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II