
“Life teaches us to be less harsh with ourselves and with others.”
Act IV, sc. iv
Iphigenie auf Tauris (1787)
Und minder ist oft mehr, wie Lessings Prinz uns lehrt.
"Neujahrswunsch", in Der Teutsche Merkur (January 1774) p. 4; translation from The Quote…Unquote Newsletter (October 1997) p. 3.
The phrase "Less is more" was later used by Robert Browning, and by Mies van der Rohe.
Und minder ist oft mehr, wie Lessings Prinz uns lehrt.
„Neujahrswunsch“ In: Zeitschrift „Der teutsche Merkur“. Des Fünften Bandes Erstes Stück. Jänner 1774. Weimar. S.4 books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=9GplAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA4&dq=lessings
Anspielung auf "Nicht so redlich, wäre redlicher." aus Gotthold Ephraim Lessing#Emilia Galotti, 1. Akt, 4. Auftritt
heute meist Weniger ist mehr
“Life teaches us to be less harsh with ourselves and with others.”
Act IV, sc. iv
Iphigenie auf Tauris (1787)
§ 39
Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth (1766)
Context: All is more or less proper to serve as a common measure, in proportion as it is more or less in general use, of a more similar quality, and more easy to be divided into aliquot parts. All is more or less applicable for the purpose of a general pledge of exchange, in proportion as it is less susceptible of decay or alteration in quantity or quality.
“Or, rather, let us be more simple and less vain.”
“We are all of us more or less the slaves of opinion.”
"On Court-Influence" (January 3/January 10, 1818)
Political Essays (1819)
Mission with LeMay: My Story (1965), p. 382.
“The more you use it, the more it produces;
the more you talk of it, the less you understand.”
Source: Tao Te Ching, Ch. 5, as interpreted by Stephen Mitchell (1992)
Context: The Tao is like a bellows:
it is empty yet infinitely capable.
The more you use it, the more it produces;
the more you talk of it, the less you understand.