“It is from pure simplicity that originality is born.”

Original: (it) La ricchezza più grande che si possa avere al mondo, è la pura semplicità.
Source: prevale.net

H 1
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook H (1784-1788)

version in original Dutch / citaat van Matthijs Maris, in het Nederlands: mijn was een geboren schilder which means, hij had er plezier in.
Quote of Matthijs c. 1890; in Jacob Maris (1837-1899), M. van Heteren and others; as cited in 'Ik denk in mijn materie', in exhibition catalog of Teylers Museum / Museum Jan Cunen), Zwolle 2003, p. 29
his remark shortly after Jacob's death, from London where Matthijs lived for many years

Letter to Coleridge 1790.

"Likeness to God", an address in Providence, Rhode Island (1828) http://www.americanunitarian.org/likeness.htm
Context: I affirm, and would maintain, that true religion consists in proposing, as our great end, a growing likeness to the Supreme Being. Its noblest influence consists in making us more and more partakers of the Divinity. For this it is to be preached. Religious instruction should aim chiefly to turn men's aspirations and efforts to that perfection of the soul, which constitutes it a bright image of God. Such is the topic now to be discussed; and I implore Him, whose glory I seek, to aid me in unfolding and enforcing it with simplicity and clearness, with a calm and pure zeal, and with unfeigned charity.

"Firestorm Grows Over Islamic Center Near Ground Zero" http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1008/17/acd.01.html, Anderson Cooper 360°, CNN (17 August 2010)

Source: The Passing of an Illusion, The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century (1999), p.163