Quotes about simple (2550 quotes, page 22)

“The police case was very simple, because the robbers had been caught in the act of shifting the bullion; and as gold bars are more valuable than human lives, the robbers were given longer sentences than if they had been murderers.”

Arthur Calder-Marshall (1908–1992) English novelist, essayist, critic, memoirist and biographer

Mascott, R. D. (pseud. Arthur Calder-Marshall). The Adventures of James Bond Junior 003½. London: Jonathan Cape. 1967.

“If we are to select our subjects or arrange our groups with a pictorial motive we must absolutely and entirely sacrifice every other consideration, and be prepared to cut out of our composition the prettiest and most interesting item, if by so doing composition pure and simple is improved. And if some subject you are attached to will not admit of composition or will not admit of your treating it pictorially, then photograph it if you wish, but never suppose that it will form a picture.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton (1863–1908) British photographer

Source: Practical Pictorial Photography, 1898, Methods - The practical application of means to end, p. 29

Motivation

“I notice me. I notice you too.
And there are simple things that we don't even try anymore. There's a way out of this.
Beat the time.
And every time I turn around
we got some clever way to put each other down.”

Edie Brickell (1966) singer from the United States

"Beat The Time"
Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars (1988)

Way , Time

“The earliest achievement of this (of equality and the restriction on the powers of the constitutionally mandated magistrates), the most ancient opposition in Rome, consisted in the abolition of the life-tenure of the presidency of the community; in other words, in the abolition of the monarchy… Not only in Rome (but all over the Italian peninsula) … we find the rulers for life of an earlier epoch superseded in after times by annual magistrates. In this light the reasons which led to the substitution of the consuls for kings in Rome need no explanation. The organism of the ancient Greek and Italian polity through its own action and by a sort of natural necessity produced the limitation of the life-presidency to a shortened, and for the most part an annual, term… Simple, however, as was the cause of the change, it might be brought about in various ways, resolution (of the community),.. or the rule might voluntarily abdicate; or the people might rise in rebellion against a tyrannical ruler, and expel him. It was in this latter way that the monarchy was terminated in Rome. For however much the history of the expulsion of the last Tarquinius, "the proud", may have been interwoven with anecdotes and spun out into a romance, it is not in its leading outlines to be called in question. Tradition credibly enough indicates as the causes of the revolt, that the king neglected to consult the senate and to complete its numbers; that he pronounced sentences of capital punishment and confiscation without advising with his counsellors(sic); that he accumulated immense stores of grain in his granaries, and exacted from the burgesses military labours and task-work beyond what was due… we are (in light of the ignorance of historical facts around the abolition of the monarchy) fortunately in possession of a clearer light as to the nature of the change which was made in the constitution (after the expulsion of the monarchy). The royal power was by no means abolished, as is shown by the fact that, when a vacancy occurred, a "temporary king" (Interrex) was nominated as before. The one life-king was simply replaced by two [one year] kings, who called themselves generals (praetores), or judges…, or merely colleagues (Consuls) [literally, "Those who leap or dance together"]. The collegiate principle, from which this last - and subsequently most current - name of the annual kings was derived, assumed in their case an altogether peculiar form. The supreme power was not entrusted to the two magistrates conjointly, but each consul possessed and exercised it for himself as fully and wholly as it had been possessed and exercised by the king; and, although a partition of functions doubtless took place from the first - the one consul for instance undertaking the command of the army, and the other the administration of justice - that partition was by no means binding, and each of the colleagues was legally at liberty to interfere at any time in the province of the other.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 1, Book II , Chapter 1. "Change of the Constitution" Translated by W.P. Dickson
The History of Rome - Volume 1

Life , People , Justice , Way

“I have often thought that if photography were difficult in the true sense of the term — meaning that the creation of a simple photograph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching — there would be a vast improvement in total output. The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.”

Ansel Adams (1902–1984) American photographer and environmentalist

"A Personal Credo" (1943), published in American Annual of Photography (1944), reprinted in Nathan Lyons, editor, Photographers on Photography (1966), reprinted in Vicki Goldberg, editor, Photography in Print: Writings from 1816 to the Present (1988)

Sense , Effort , Time

“All I'm trying to say to you is that our world hinges on moral foundations. God has made it so. God has made the universe to be based on a moral law. So long as man disobeys it he is revolting against God. That's what we need in the world today: people who will stand for right and goodness. It's not enough to know the intricacies of zoology and biology, but we must know the intricacies of law. It is not enough to know that two and two makes four, but we've got to know somehow that it's right to be honest and just with our brothers. It's not enough to know all about our philosophical and mathematical disciplines, but we've got to know the simple disciplines of being honest and loving and just with all humanity. If we don't learn it, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own powers.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Rediscovering Lost Values (1954)

Love , God , People , World

“[T]he concept of “feedback”, so simple and natural in certain elementary cases, becomes artificial and of little use when the interconnexions between the parts become more complex. When there are only two parts joined so that each affects the other, the properties of the feedback give important and useful information about the properties of the whole. But when the parts rise to even as few as four, if every one affects the other three, then twenty circuits can be traced through them; and knowing the properties of all the twenty circuits does not give complete information about the system. Such complex systems cannot be treated as an interlaced set of more or less independent feedback circuits, but only as a whole.
For understanding the general principles of dynamic systems, therefore, the concept of feedback is inadequate in itself. What is important is that complex systems, richly cross-connected internally, have complex behaviours, and that these behaviours can be goal-seeking in complex patterns.”

W. Ross Ashby (1903–1972) British psychiatrist

Source: An Introduction to Cybernetics (1956), Part I: Mechanism, p. 54 as cited in: Margaret A. Bode (2006) Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science, Volume 1. p.229

Understanding , Nature , Parting

“In this book I try to show how models of self-organization can be applied to many economic phenomena - how the principle of "order from instability," which explains the growth of hurricanes and embryos, can also explain the formation of cities and business cycles; how the principle of "order from random growth" can explain the strangely simple rules that describe the sizes of earth quakes, meteorites, and metropolitan areas. I believe that the ideas of self-organization theory can add substantially to our understanding of the economy; whatever their ultimate usefulness, these ideas are very exciting, and playing around with them is tremendous fun.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

Preface
The Self-Organizing Economy (1996)

Books , Idea , Understanding , Business

“When a device as simple as a door has to come with an instruction manual—even a one-word manual—then it is a failure, poorly designed.”

Donald A. Norman book The Design of Everyday Things

Source: The Design of Everyday Things (1988, 2002), Ch. 4, p. 87; regarding doors labeled "Push" and "Pull".

Failure

“There was that word quaint again. It seemed to refer patronizingly to anything simple or backward, from the viewpoint of a city-bred tourist.”

David Brin book Glory Season

Source: Glory Season (1993), Chapter 5 (p. 90)

“The Phoenicians who from their sagacity and learning possess great insight into things divine, hold the doctrine that this universally diffused radiance is a part of the "Soul of the Stars." This opinion is consistent with sound reason: if we consider the light that is without body, we shall perceive that of such light the source cannot be a body, but rather the simple action of a mind, which spreads itself by means of illumination as far as its proper seat; to which the middle region of the heavens is contiguous, from which place it shines forth with all its vigour and fills the heavenly orbs, illuminating at the same time the whole universe with its divine and pure radiance.”

Julian (emperor) (331–363) Roman Emperor, philosopher and writer

Upon the Sovereign Sun (362)

Soul , Star , Light , Learning

“If only one could tell true love from false love as one can tell mushrooms from toadstools. With mushrooms it is so simple — you salt them well, put them aside and have patience. But with love, you have no sooner lighted on anything that bears even the remotest resemblance to it than you are perfectly certain it is not only a genuine specimen, but perhaps the only genuine mushroom ungathered.”

Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) New Zealand author

"Love and Mushrooms," journal entry (1917), published in More Extracts from a Journal, ed. J. Middleton Murry, in The Adelphi (1923), p. 1068

Love , Light , Falseness , Patience

“The moments of perfect pleasure in Johnson's songs, and the beauty of those songs, remind one that it is not the simple presence of evil that is unbearable; what is unbearable is the impossibility of reconciling the facts of evil with the beauty of the world.”

Greil Marcus (1945) American historian

Marcus on Robert Johnson in Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music (1975, fourth revision May, 1997) p. 31.

Pleasure , World , Beauty , Evil

“Everyone who wishes to help bring the world out of the economic woes will line up to get a chip implanted! It's safe, simple and already available. It's been tested on animals for years. One little chip under the skin and everyone can be identified and conduct business electronically! No more theft, bad checks, waiting for checks to clear, stolen credit cards, armored cars, stolen ID, waiting lines at stores or airports, etc. Just little archways to walk through that can quickly scan who you are and automatically deduct the “cash” from your account or verify your identity! Simple! Anyone who resists this “obvious solution” will be an enemy of the state. Oh, and one more minor insignificant thing. No more privacy or independence. Big brother will be watching everything.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 140

World , Cars , Business , Waiting

“For us scientists, on the other wing, life is not quite so simple. Because we learn the unknown. Unlike, hah-hah, our esteemed friends the philosophers, who learn the unknowable.”

Ken MacLeod book Learning the World

Source: Learning the World (2005), Chapter 4 “A Moving Point of Light” (p. 51)

Life , Learning

“Even with all the difficulties and the frustrations that we feel—those of us who have been consistent in this journey—what makes it so remarkably attractive and encouraging are the men and women you meet on the way. I have met some glorious human beings: Eleanor Roosevelt, Fanny Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, and Dr. King, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela and Che Guevara, and Cesar Chavez and others not quite so famous—they are the ones who really make the journey rewarding. The work I do with UNICEF. The men and women I’ve met in Rwanda, South Africa, working against HIV/AIDS, and the courageous things that simple, wonderful human beings do for each other.”

Harry Belafonte (1927) American singer

Women , Men , Way , Feeling

“The moment juries or judges go beyond their functions, and take upon themselves to lay down the law or find the facts, not according to the law as it is, but according to the law as they think it ought to be, then the certainty of the law is at an end; there is nothing to rely upon; we are left to the infinite variety and uncertainty of human opinion; to caprice which may at any moment influence the best of us, to feelings and prejudices, perhaps excellent in themselves, but which may distort or disturb our judgment, and distract our minds from the single simple operation of ascertaining whether the facts proved bring the case within the law as we are bound to take it.”

John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge (1820–1894) British lawyer, judge and Liberal politician

1 Cababe & Ellis' Q. B. D. Rep. 134.
Reg. v. Ramsey (1883)

Law , Feeling , Thinking

“Yes, they are beautiful… The shirt, the blouse are garments the folds of which yield simple planes and effects that, rightly rendered, are those of true sculpture. But there is something better still, and that is sackcloth. If I had clothed my 'Burghers of Calais' in sackcloth, they would certainly be more beautiful. I did not dare to. Some one else will do this and will succeed. It is sufficient to express an idea and leave it to its destiny.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Source: Rodin : the man and his art, with leaves from his notebook, 1917, p. 295-296; About the sculpture The Burghers of Calais

Beauty , Idea , Clothes

“He had developed his own limited, or very simple style. He was never very keen on improving himself as a bass player and half the time I would play bass on the records because I would tend to do it quicker. Right back to those early records; I mean, at least half the bass on all recorded output is me anyway. … Rog used to come in and say, "Thank you very much" to me once in a while for winning him bass-playing polls.”

David Gilmour (1946) guitarist, singer, best known as a member of Pink Floyd

On Roger Waters, as quoted in Rock Compact Disc (September 1992)

Time

“We all know India has a huge competitive advantage -- we have the largest arable land, focused sunshine, sensible utilisation of water in 30% of land. The question is what should we do to make the US market -- the most difficult market in the world -- accept our produce. For that, we need traceability. It is a simple technology, which we are giving the farmers. It needs certification and verification processes -- to us it is like a process plant. You can then get the output, sort it and grade it.”

Mukesh Ambani (1957) Indian business magnate

Mukesh Ambani on retail and SEZ plans

World , Question , Water

“The idea of comparative advantage—with its implication that trade between two nations normally raises the real incomes of both—is, like evolution via natural selection, a concept that seems simple and compelling to those who understand it. Yet anyone who becomes involved in discussions of international trade beyond the narrow circle of academic economists quickly realizes that it must be, in some sense, a very difficult concept indeed.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

"Ricardo's Difficult Idea," in G. Cook (ed.), Freedom and Trade: The Economics and Politics of International Trade, Volume 2 (1998)

Idea , Understanding , Nature , Sense

“The strong appearance of design [in nature] allows a disarmingly simple argument: if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to conclude it's a duck. Design should not be overlooked simply because it's so obvious.”

Michael J. Behe (1952) American biochemist, author, and intelligent design advocate

" Design for Living http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/opinion/07behe.html", New York Times, 7 February 2005.

Nature , Strong , Appearance

“Young man the simple answer is: land, land and land. No-one gives up land. Ever.”

Munir Butt (1940–2015) British diplomat

Source: On answering the question "Why can't the Kashmir question be resolved?" Yale Daily News, Review of Guest Speaker Dr Munir Butt, 1994

“The Internet is uncontrollable. And if the Internet is uncontrollable, freedom will win. It’s as simple as that.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, China’s Censorship Can Never Defeat the Internet, 2012

Freedom

“Counting is the most simple and primitive of narratives -- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -- a tale with a beginning, a middle and an end and a sense of progression -- arriving at a finish of two digits -- a goal attained, a dénouement reached.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Fear of Drowning By Numbers

Sense

“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will make a ton of money, Michael Bay will be lauded as the greatest director of our generation, and the accountants at Paramount will have their second collective orgasm in as many months. As for me, I will try desperately not to weep — not so much for what the success of a movie like this means to motion pictures, but for the simple fact that I'm going to have to do this all over again in two or three years for Transformers 3.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=1695 of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009).
One-and-a-half star reviews

Money , Revenge , Success

“So I had carved one face with hollows curving in-out, in-out, very simple really. I set the timber upright and Frank Stella came in and came over and looked at the chiseling and said it looked good. He turned around to the back of the piece which was uncut – the backside of the timber – and he said, you know that's sculpture too. I supposed what he meant to say was, that cutting was a good idea and the idea of not cutting was good too. But you know, I thought to myself, yes the uncut side is really much better than the cut side. The form of the timber was by no way improved by my cutting into it. From that time, I began to think that the next timbers I get I'm not going to cut. I'm going to combine the timbers; I'm going to use them as cuts in space. I began to look for what I call 'particles”

Carl Andre (1935) American artist

that is, units which are identical in shape – and finding ways to combine these particles by properties of the individual particles. That is, no gluing and no nailing and no joining.
Source: Artists talks 1969 – 1977, p. 29

Way , Idea , Thinking , Time

“Let him look to it, who is pleased with the game of Tarocco, that the only signification of this word Tarocco, is stupid, foolish, simple, fit only to be used by Bakers, Coblers, and the vulgar, to play at most for the fourth part of a Carlino, at Tarocchi, or at Trionfi, or any Sminckiate whatever: which in every way signifies only foolery and idleness, feasting the eye with the Sun, and the Moon, and the twelve (signs) as children do.”

Francesco Berni (1497–1535) Italian poet

Mention made on the Tarocchi in his Capitolo del Gioco della Primiera col Comento di messer Pietropaulo da San Chirico (1526).

Children , Stupidity , Way , Game

“Accept that all of us can be hurt, that all of us can — and surely will at times — fail. Other vulnerabilities, like being embarrassed or risking love, can be terrifying, too. I think we should follow a simple rule: if we can take the worst, take the risk.”

Joyce Brothers (1927–2013) Joyce Brothers

As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 415

Love , Thinking , Time , Hurt

“I was against the idea to commit the ground American troops in South Vietnam for the simple reason that we do not need that. We need the support, the technical support, the technology of the of the uh…American armed forces but we do not need the combat troops at that time…You know, uh…how can we justify with the population if the American come to fight for us? We just can't. So, this error…is main, one of the main error that we made…in the year '65, to bring in the combat troops, American combat troop in South Vietnam. And, then the South Vietnamese armed forces become a kind of uh subletive, you know, the the second reign on the, and the, the national mission of these forces cannot be uh in the Vietnamese hand. Then it, 't…are under the American hand. And later, later on when we see the American withdrawal we changing government back in Washington 'n 'n policy, and then when the element of the American troops is getting out of the country, the disaster we saw later on in '75 is a result of the decision to send the…the troops, the American troop to fight for the Vietnamese troops.”

Nguyen Khanh (1927–2013) South Vietnamese soldier

1980s, Interview with Nguyen Khanh (1981)

Error , Idea , Support , Decision

“The organization of federal units of black soldiers, comprised of both escaped slaves and free men, was taken as an outrage. It struck a raw nerve, never far off in the southern psyche. Fear of a slave insurrection. The prospect of African American men in blue uniforms was taken as an extreme provocation, so much so that it was proposed in the Confederate congress, and endorsed by General Beauregard, the hero of Fort Sumter, that all Federals captured, black or white, should be summarily executed. This proposal was never adopted, but the Confederate congress did eventually pass, in May 1863, a proclamation instructing President Jefferson Davis to exercise 'full and ample retaliation' against the north for arming black soldiers. Finally, there was simple revenge. The Union army's shelling of Fredericksburg several months before had been a particular sore point, that festered for months as the Confederate army went into winter quarters nearby. One officer, determined to fix the destruction there in his mind's eye, made a special visit to that town one last time before setting out on the road north into Maryland and Pennsylvania.”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

Andy Hall, "We have received provocation enough..." http://deadconfederates.com/2013/07/01/we-have-received-provocation-enough/ (1 July 2013), Dead Confederates: A Civil War Era Blog.

Men , Fear , Exercises , Revenge

“Writing is simple. First you have to make sure you have plenty of paper… sharp pencils… typewriter ribbon. Then put your belly up to the desk… roll a sheet of paper into the typewriter… and stare at it until beads of blood appear on your forehead.”

Jeff MacNelly (1947–2000) American cartoonist

Prof. Cosmo Fishhawk, in Shoe

Appearance

“If the whole of natural theology, as some people seem to maintain, resolves itself into one simple, though somewhat ambiguous, at least undefined proposition, that the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence: If this proposition be not capable of extension, variation, or more particular explication: If it affords no inference that affects human life, or can be the source of any action or forbearance: And if the analogy, imperfect as it is, can be carried no farther than to the human intelligence, and cannot be transferred, with any appearance of probability, to the other qualities of the mind; if this really be the case, what can the most inquisitive, contemplative, and religious man do more than give a plain, philosophical assent to the proposition, as often as it occurs, and believe that the arguments on which it is established exceed the objections which lie against it?”

David Hume book Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Philo to Cleanthes, Part XII
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779)

Life , People , Lie , Intelligence

“It was the great multiplicity of the hadrons that led to the formulation of the quark model. Without some organizing principle such a large collecton of particles seemed unwieldy, and the possibility that they might all be elementary offended those who hold the conviction, or at leas the fond wish, that nature should be simple.”

Yoichiro Nambu (1921–2015) American physicist

"The confinement of quarks." https://www.jstor.org/stable/24950482?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents Scientific American 235, no. 5 (1976): 48–63.

Nature

“How are you doing, make a good, simple [and] true thing, for example… I believe I have found a good place for it. Namely, I spoke Mr. about you and he expressed his wish that you should show him something good..”

Anton Mauve (1838–1888) Dutch painter (1838–1888)

(translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018, version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Anton Mauve, in het Nederlands:) Hoe gaat het met je werk, maak vooral een goed eenvoudig [en] waar dingetje.. ..ik geloof er een goed plaatsje voor te hebben. namelijk ik sprak den Heer over jou en hij drukte de wensch uit dat je hem iets goeds moet laten zien..
Quote of Mauve in his letter to painter , 1866; as cited in Archive P.A. Scheen, collectie RKD Den Haag http://delamar.bntours.nl/!mad1832-bronnen.html
Like
1860's

“Religion has not tended to create seekers or searchers, has not tended to create honest, humble people who trust that God is always beyond them. We aren’t focused on the great mystery. Religion has, rather, tended to create people who think they have God in their pockets, people with quick, easy, glib answers. That’s why so much of the West is understandably abandoning religion. People know the great mystery cannot be that simple and facile.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 33

God , People , Religion , Understanding

“At present, we have a policy-response shaped by sophisticated climate science, brilliant technology and pop behaviourism, based on simple assumptions about carrot-and-stick incentives.”

David Fleming (1940–2010) British activist

All Party Parliamentary report into TEQs, p. 22 http://www.teqs.net/report/APPGOPO_TEQs.pdf

Science

“No matter how complete the despair, no matter how bitter the cynicism, a possibility beckons of a world more beautiful and a life more magnificent than what we know today. Though we may rationalize it, it is not rational. We become aware of it in moments, gaps in the rush and press of modern life. These moments come to us alone in nature, or with a baby, making love, playing with children, caring for a dying person, making music for the sake of music or beauty for the sake of beauty. At such times, a simple and easy joy shows us the futility of the vast, life-consuming program of management and control.”

Charles Eisenstein (1967) American writer

The Ascent of Humanity (2007)

Love , Life , Children , World

“I would be considerably more impressed with your god, dy Cabon," said Ista through her teeth, "if He could have arranged one life's worth of simple protection in advance, rather than three hundred lives' worth of gaudy vengeance afterward.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book Paladin of Souls

Source: Paladin of Souls (2003), p. 271

Life , God

“Some of the surveillance was ostensibly devoted to terrorism suspects. But great quantities of the programs manifestly had nothing to do with national security. The documents left no doubt that the NSA was equally involved in economic espionage, diplomatic spying, and suspicionless surveillance aimed at entire populations. Taken in its entirety, the Snowden archive led to an ultimately simple conclusion: the US government had built a system that has as its goal the complete elimination of electronic privacy worldwide. Far from hyperbole, that is the literal, explicitly stated aim of the surveillance state: to collect, store, monitor, and analyze all electronic communication by all people around the globe.”

Glenn Greenwald book No Place to Hide

Penguin Books 2015 edition, page 94.
No Place to Hide (2014)

People , Communication

“The trick… is to make sure that each limited mechanical part of the Web, each application, is within itself composed of simple parts that will never get too powerful.”

Tim Berners-Lee (1955) British computer scientist, inventor of the World Wide Web

Weaving the Web (1999)

Parting

“For Stalin to have complete centralized power in his hands, he found it necessary to physically destroy the second largest Soviet republic, meaning the annihilation of the Ukrainian peasantry, Ukrainian intelligentsia, Ukrainian language, and history as understood by the people; to do away with Ukraine and things Ukrainian as such. The calculation was very simple, very primitive: no people, therefore, no separate country, and thus no problem.”

James Mace (1952–2004) American historian of the Ukraine

Speech at the International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide in Tel Aviv (1982).

People , History , Problem , Country

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)

Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter XIV: "Recapitulation and Conclusion", page 490 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=508&itemID=F373&viewtype=image
Close of the first edition (1859). Only use of the term "evolve" or "evolution" in the first edition.
In the second http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=508&itemID=F376&viewtype=image (1860) through sixth (1872) editions, Darwin added the phrase "by the Creator" to read:

Life , Law , Beauty

“Nothing is as simple as we hope it will be.”

Jim Horning (1942–2013) computer scientist

Jim Horning's personal web page http://home.comcast.net/~jhorning4/index.html

Hope

“There was always something about Creative Commons and its name that bugged me, too. The name sounds like a variation of the once-powerful Common Cause political-action committee. A ring of days gone by — nostalgia. All I see here is making the very easy and simple U. S. copyright laws more complex for no apparent reason, except maybe as a protest.”

John C. Dvorak (1952) US journalist and radio broadcaster

"Creative Commons Humbug" in PC Magazine (18 July 2005) http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1838249,00.asp
2000s

Law , Nostalgia

“In conversing with persons who are not officially attached to Observatories or in other ways professionally cognizant of the technicalities of practical Astronomy but who nevertheless display great interest… these persons appear to regard the determination of measures like those of the distance of the Sun and Moon as mysteries beyond ordinary comprehension… [and] when persons well acquainted with the general facts of Astronomy are introduced into an Observatory, they are for the most part utterly unable to understand anything which they see…
The measure of the Moon's distance involves no principle more abstruse than the measure of the distance of a tree on the opposite bank of a river. The principles of construction of the best Astronomical instruments are as simple and as closely referred to matters of common school-education and familiar experience, as are those of the common globes, the steam engine, or the turning-lathe; the details are usually less complicated.”

George Biddell Airy (1801–1892) English mathematician and astronomer

Introduction
Popular Astronomy: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Ipswich (1868)

Education , School , Way , Understanding

“Words are the currency of love and friendship, of making and marketing, of peace and war. Nations are bound and loosed by them. Three or four simple words can move waves of emotion through the hearts of multitudes like great tides of the sea: "Lest we forget."”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

"Patriotism is not enough."
Speech at his inauguration as Lord Rector of The University of Edinburgh (6 November 1925), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), p. 78.
1925

Love , Friendship , War , Peace

“[S]hould we attempt to use sensible words to deal with these problems, they will be caught up immediately in the structures of the official arguments which accompany the official modern ideologies — arguments as sterile as the ideologies are irrelevant. Our society contains no method of serious self-criticism for the simple reason that it is now a self-justifying system which generates its own logic.”

John Ralston Saul (1947) Canadian author and essayist

Voltaire's Bastards (1992)

Problem

““How are you on the high wire?”
“Wire walking? It’s simple. Any child of ten can do it—with about fourteen years practice.”

Michael Kurland book The Unicorn Girl

Source: The Unicorn Girl (1969), Chapter 8 (p. 117)

“The circular-flow diagram offers a simple way of organizing the economic transactions that occur between households and firms in the economy. The two loops of the circular-flow diagram are distinct but related. The inner loop represents the flows of inputs and outputs. The households sell the use of their labor, land, and capital to the firms in the markets for the factors of production. The firms then use these factors to produce goods and services, which in turn are sold to households in the markets for goods…”

N. Gregory Mankiw (1958) American economist

N. Gregory Mankiw, Brief Principles of Macroeconomics. 2011, p. 24-25
2000s -

Way

“Well, the truth is, we can only make our pictures speak. But yet, my dear brother, there is this that I have always told you, and I repeat it once more, with all earnestness.... that I shall always consider that you are something other than a simple [art-]dealer in Corot, that through my mediation you have a part in the actual production of some canvases, which even in the deluge will retain their place.
Well, my own work, I am risking my life for it and my reason has half-foundered in it - that is all right - but you are not among the dealers in men so far as I know, and you can still choose your side, I think, acting with humanity, but what's the use?”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

In a letter from Auvers, Summer of 1890, to Theo (found on him on 29 July, after Vincent had shot himself); as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 652 ) p. 7
1890s

Life , Men , Truth , Art

“From the first the progress of man has been slowly but surely from the artificial to the natural, from the arbitrary and chimerical to the simple and scientific. Getting himself and his affairs more and more into natural currents and following them, this is the way man has progressed.”

John Burroughs (1837–1921) American naturalist and essayist

Source: The Light of Day (1900), Ch. II: From the Artificial to the Natural

Way , Nature

“I suppose Abraham Lincoln knew that was what would happen. He was very wise in the ways of men. He knew how people think and feel. Doubtless he knew that deeper than anything else in the hearts of men everywhere is the wish for simple freedom- freedom without any promises even of protection, of food, of security- just freedom. He knew that those people, so long bond, would leave even comfortable sheltered places where masters were kind, if they could only be free.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Source: What America Means to Me (1943), p. 194

Men , People , Food , Way

“Usually, a discovery is not made in the easiest but on a complicated way; the simple cases show up only later.”

Otto Hahn (1879–1968) German chemist

Gewönlich wird eine Entdeckung nicht auf den einfachsten, sondern auf einem komplizierten Wege gemacht; die einfachen Fälle zeigen sich erst später.
Vom Radiothor zur Uranspaltung. Eine wissenschaftliche Selbstbiographie (1962).

Way

“By the way, the Minnesota textbook (and most textbooks now) instead of calling men "homo sapiens," like we used to be called, they're now called "homo sapiens sapiens." Wow, what does that mean? Well, sapiens means "wise." So we're the wise, wise man. See, the Bible says, "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." And if you think your grandpa swung by his tail from a tree, you're a fool, plain and simple.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Garden of Eden

Men , Fools , Way , Thinking

“The Scriptures … tell us what man wanted to do when he created the city, what he was hoping to conquer, what he thought to establish. And this narrative of the origin of the city is essential, for we see there in its purest state, and expressed simply, the feelings of the builders. Such feelings are no longer evident in our modern day when the prodigious complexity of the world hides the simple plans of the never-changing human heart.”

Jacques Ellul book The Meaning of the City

Source: The Meaning of the City (1951), p. 7

World , Hope , Feeling , Change

“There can be help. There's always God," said Amy. "I'm ashamed. I'd forgotten about Him.” She was quiet for a time. When she lifted her head she looked older and resolute. “Don’t blame yourself too much, Cousin Caroline,” she said. “That’s as bad as taking no blame at all. I’m not going to blame everything on Ames; I was a little fool myself. I was old enough to know that things aren’t simple.”

Taylor Caldwell book A Prologue to Love

A Prologue to Love (1961)
1960s

God , Fools , Time , Help

“… That's all it takes to get you back to the late 18th century. Three grandfather's lifetimes. That's how close we are to it. And, yet, that world has disappeared so totally, it's like fairyland. Thatched cottages, meadows, happy peasants. A golden age. Garbage, all that. Nasty, brutish, and short - that's what life was all about. And dirty. And boring. And it had been like that for thousands of years! And then, suddenly, the whole complex polluted overpopulated phrenetic nonstop stressful high tech rat race that is the modern world… Life was suddenly no longer as simple as it had been. And the extraordinary thing is, none of that was planned.”

James Burke (science historian) (1936) British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer

Connections 2 (1994), 1 - Revolutions

Life , Age , World , Happiness

“The grace of God is to God himself as sunlight is to the sun — a means and a way leading us to the latter. It therefore shines within us in a simple, one-fold way and makes us deiform, that is, like God. This likeness constantly sinks away, dying in God and becoming and remaining one with him, for charity makes us become one with God and causes us to remain living in union with him.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Spiritual Espousals (c. 1340)

God , Way , Sun

“The essence of nightmare lies less in the simple experience of horrors than in the unpreventable fruition of horrors foreknown.”

Michael Shea book Nifft the Lean

Part 3, Chapter 17 (p. 208)
Nifft the Lean (1982)

“Arise, go! Sell all you possess. Give it directly, personally to the poor. Take up My cross (their cross) and follow Me, going to the poor, being poor, being one with them, one with Me.Little, be always little, simple, poor, childlike.Preach the Gospel with your life, without compromise. Listen to the Spirit; He will lead you.Do little things exceedingly well for love of Me.Love, love, love, never counting the cost.Go into the market place and stay with Me. Pray, fast. Pray always: fast.Be hidden. Be a light to your neighbor's feet. Go without fears into the depth of men's hearts. I shall be with you.Pray always. I will be your rest.”

Catherine Doherty (1896–1985) Religious order founder; Servant of God

"The Little Mandate" (c. early 1930s)

Love , Life , Men , Fear

“O love's a simple word to say
With nature aiding and abetting;”

Jan Struther (1901–1953) British writer

LONDON LOVERS, BETSINDA DANCES AND OTHER POEMS

Love , Nature

“The man with a job to offer or land to sell has been America's land interpreter. On him has fallen the burden of presenting its romance, adventure, and beauty. He has failed so often because the land was not enriched by that cultural development and by those associations which satisfy the immigrant's need. The method has been to build a good industrial plant and to let the village grow up about it, with little thought of satisfying the longings of men for religion, knowledge, recreation, or even so simple a thing as gardens. Some time ago a factory having some idle land wondered what it could do for Mr. Hoover and started factory gardens, giving each man a small plot. The management made a discovery. The gardens cut down labor turnover. The crops were worth very little money, but the men did not want to leave until they had their potatoes in.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

Men , Money , Religion , Beauty

“But every day I go to work I'm making a bet that the universe is simple, symmetric, and aesthetically pleasing—a universe that we humans, with our limited perspective, will someday understand.”

George Smoot (1945) American astrophysicist and cosmologist

as quoted by Joel Achenbachin The God Particle, At the Heart of All Matter http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/03/god-particle/achenbach-text, National Geographic, March 2008.

Understanding , Universe

“Haavelmo was the ﬁrst to recognize the capacity of economic models to guide policies. This paper describes some of the barriers that Haavelmo’s ideas have had (and still have) to overcome, and lays out a logical framework that has evolved from Haavelmo’s insight and matured into a coherent and comprehensive account of the relationships between theory, data and policy questions. The mathematical tools that emerge from this framework now enable investigators to answer complex policy and counterfactual questions using simple routines, some by mere inspection of the model’s structure.”

Judea Pearl (1936) Computer scientist

Judea Pearl, "Trygve Haavelmo and the emergence of causal calculus." University of California Los Angeles, Computer Science Department, CA. 2012.

Mathematics , Idea , Question

“There is a point at which everything becomes simple and there is no longer any question of choice, because all you have staked will be lost if you look back. Life's point of no return.”

Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961) Swedish diplomat, economist, and author

Markings (1964)

Life , Question

“The Bush Administration do have moral values. Their moral values are very explicit: shine the boots of the rich and the powerful, kick everybody else in the face, and let your grandchildren pay for it. That simple principle predicts almost everything that's happening.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 2000s, 2005, Interview by Steve Scher on KUOW, 2004

“I have a simple algorithm, which is, wherever you see paid researchers instead of grad students, that's not where you want to be doing research.”

Larry Page (1973) American computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur

Plenary speech, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_3OCq_vTWM AAAS Annual conference, San Francisco (February 2007).

“As I look back, I am forever grateful for the journey I traveled and to all the people who have helped me to grow on the way. Never could I have imagined where the invisible hand of destiny was leading me. Through it all, I have come to realize that only if we cling to our sacred ideals, not being diverted by either successes or failures, we may find that amazing powers, beyond our own, are there to test us, protect us, and empower us. I pray that this simple story of mine may inspire all my readers with hope. Our true home awaits us at the end of life’s perilous journey. It is a place of lasting peace, beckoning us to persevere until we, too, reunite with our lost love.”

Radhanath Swami (1950) Gaudiya Vaishnava guru

?
The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami (Tulsi Books, 2010)

Love , Life , People , Peace

“I am proud and honored to be joining President-elect Trump’s administration as his Secretary of Agriculture,” Perdue said Thursday. “Beginning as a simple Georgia farm boy, making sure Americans who make their livelihood in the agriculture industry are thriving is near and dear to my heart, and I’m going to champion the concerns of American agriculture and work tirelessly to solve the issues facing our farm families in this new role.”

Sonny Perdue (1946) 31st and current United States Secretary of Agriculture and 81st Governor of Georgia

January 2017

Family , Boy , Heart

“We believe as Democrats, that a society as blessed as ours, the most affluent democracy in the world's history, one that can spend trillions on instruments of destruction, ought to be able to help the middle class in its struggle, ought to be able to find work for all who can do it, room at the table, shelter for the homeless, care for the elderly and infirm, and hope for the destitute. And we proclaim as loudly as we can the utter insanity of nuclear proliferation and the need for a nuclear freeze, if only to affirm the simple truth that peace is better than war because life is better than death.”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

Democratic National Convention Address (1984)

Life , Death , War , Truth

“Mr. Grey said, that he was prepared to defend the country, not only against an invasion of a foreign enemy, wishing to inculcate their own dangerous principles, which were clearly most subversive of civil society, but he would defend it, at the risk of his life, against the subjects of any government, if it was the best that human wisdom could devise; he did not however think it was candid, or by any means conciliatory, in the right hon. gentleman, on every occasion that presented itself to introduce the words "just and necessary" war. He declared he was much obliged to an hon. gentleman who had done him the honour to remember his words. He had declared, and he would declare again, that he would rather live under the most despotic monarchy, nay, even under that of the king of Prussia, or the empress of Russia, than under the present government of France. He wished the chancellor of the exchequer had descended a little from his high and haughty tone of prerogative, and had informed the House, in plain, simple, intelligible language his real opinion of the legality of the measure which ministers had thought to pursue with respect to voluntary subscriptions. As for himself, he would insist, that to raise money without the authority of parliament, for any public purpose whatsoever, was illegal; and if right hon. gentleman should insist on contrary, it would give a deeper wound the constitution than any that it had received even from that right hon. gentleman.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Speech in the House of Commons (26 March 1794), reported in The Parliamentary History of England, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803. Vol. XXXI (London: 1818), pp. 94-95.
1790s

Life , Wisdom , Money , War

“What else do conservatives and libertarians profess in common? The answer to that question is simple: nothing. Nor will they ever. To talk of forming a league or coalition between these two is like advocating a union of ice and fire.”

Russell Kirk (1918–1994) American political theorist and writer

Libertarians: Chirping Sectaries (1981)

Question

“When a movie is this bad, it's hard to adequately describe its awfulness in words. The temptation exists to write something along the lines of: "Something this horrible has to be seen to be believed." Of course, that kind of advice would lead to e-mail death threats and other assorted nasty comments from those who spend money on The Devil's Rejects. … Aside from its poor production values, horrendous acting, and ignoble morality, The Devil's Rejects isn't engaging cinema. Even if the simple act of sitting in a movie theater watching people get hacked up for 90 minutes doesn't bother you, the dullness and repetition is likely to.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=934 of The Devil's Rejects (2005).
Half-star reviews

Death , Money , People

“See here, if a simple act of kindness or generosity, such as buying a loaf of bread for some poor working women, can mean that wholesale death and destruction will be avoided—why, a man would be a monster who had it in his power to alleviate all that suffering yet stood by and did nothing.”

Stephen R. Lawhead (1950) American writer

Source: The Skin Map (2010), p. 65

Death , Women , Suffering

““How did he get away with pushing a book like this? How is it anyone ever believed him?”
Gordon shrugged. “It was called ‘the Big Lie’ technique, Johnny. Just sound like you know what you’re talking about—as if you’re reciting facts. Talk very fast. Weave your lies into the shape of a conspiracy theory and repeat your assertions over and over again. Those who want an excuse to hate or blame—those with big but weak egos—will leap at a simple, neat explanation for the way the world is. Those types will never call you on the facts.””

David Brin book The Postman

Source: The Postman (1985), Section 3, “Cincinnatus”, Chapter 13 (p. 255)

Hate , Lie , Books , World

““I wonder,” he thought, “is it worth getting myself crushed in that crowd just to save my life? Is it worth getting all frustrated and angry, lowering myself to their level, pushing and shoving with all the rest, fighting like a common animal, just to stay alive?” He smiled ruefully. “It always comes to the simple question: what is more important, life or self-respect?””

George Alec Effinger (1947–2002) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Relatives (1973)., Chapter 8 (p. 123).

Life , Smile , Question , Animals

“Today, I would like to provide the American people with an update on the White House transition and our policy plans for the first 100 days. Our transition team is working very smoothly, efficiently, and effectively. Truly great and talented men and women, patriots indeed are being brought in and many will soon be a part of our government, helping us to Make America Great Again. My agenda will be based on a simple core principle: putting America First. Whether it's producing steel, building cars, or curing disease, I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here, in our great homeland: America – creating wealth and jobs for American workers. As part of this plan, I've asked my transition team to develop a list of executive actions we can take on day one to restore our laws and bring back our jobs. It's about time. These include the following: On trade, I am going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country. Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores. On energy, I will cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy – including shale energy and clean coal – creating many millions of high-paying jobs. That's what we want, that's what we've been waiting for. On regulation, I will formulate a rule which says that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated, it's so important. On national security, I will ask the Department of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a comprehensive plan to protect America's vital infrastructure from cyber-attacks, and all other form of attacks. On immigration, I will direct the Department of Labor to investigate all abuses of visa programs that undercut the American worker. On ethics reform, as part of our plan to Drain the Swamp, we will impose a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists after they leave the Administration – and a lifetime ban on executive officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government. These are just a few of the steps we will take to reform Washington and rebuild our middle class. I will provide more updates in the coming days, as we work together to Make America Great Again for everyone.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

A Message from President-Elect Donald J. Trump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xX_KaStFT8 (21 November 2016)
2010s, 2016, November

Women , Men , People , Disease

“When Reagan fired the striking air traffic controllers in 1981, he told America he was literally willing to kill us all if we didn't give in to his wealth-transfer plan. It was so shocking that it worked. The air controller's union broke- and so did a whole way of life. Thanks to Ronald Reagan, we are all miserable wage slaves, or schoolyard wretches being pressed and prepared for life in the office world. There is no other choice but that, or death. The way this country supplicated before Reagan's corpse, elevating him to a kind of Khomeini status with the seven-day funeral and the endless orations about his humanity, his intelligence, and how wonderfully simple life was under his reign, only reinforced the most disturbing conclusion that I was reaching as I wrote this book: that Americans have become the perfect slaves, fools and suckers, while a small elite is cackling all the way to the offshore bank.”

Mark Ames (1965) American writer and journalist

Postscript, p. 241-242
Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion, From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond (2005)

Life , Death , Books , World

“At first, I thought I had found in this second figure [a bronze Orpheus, Zadkine made shortly after his return from New York to Paris, in 1944] the perfect solution, but a surprise awaited me. One day my coal merchant delivered to me, here in my studio, some wood for heating; among these logs I found a rudimentary but completely mysterious wooden figure of a man. He seemed to be walking in great strides, his torso suggested by only two simple boards which, in their structure, were very much like an ancient lyre. I immediately began working on a new 'Orpheus', in which the [music-]instrument had truly become part of the man.”

Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967) French sculptor

c. 1960
Source: 1960 - 1968, Dialogues – conversations with.., quotes, c. 1960, pp. 154-155

Music , Parting , Perfection

“It’s a sad thing that the march of time and evolution of mores can rob one of the ability to laugh at simple domestic abuse.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

review of The Flying Sorcerers by David Gerrold and Larry Niven http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/exhibit-a, 2016
2010s

Sadness , Time

“A physical theory, like an abstract science, consists of definitions and axioms as first principles, and of propositions, their consequences; but with these differences:—first, That in an abstract science, a definition assigns a name to a class of notions derived originally from observation, but not necessarily corresponding to any existing objects of real phenomena, and an axiom states a mutual relation amongst such notions, or the names denoting them; while in a physical science, a definition states properties common to a class of existing objects, or real phenomena, and a physical axiom states a general law as to the relations of phenomena; and, secondly,—That in an abstract science, the propositions first discovered are the most simple; whilst in a physical theory, the propositions first discovered are in general numerous and complex, being formal laws, the immediate results of observation and experiment, from which the definitions and axioms are subsequently arrived at by a process of reasoning differing from that whereby one proposition is deduced from another in an abstract science, partly in being more complex and difficult, and partly in being to a certain extent tentative, that is to say, involving the trial of conjectural principles, and their acceptance or rejection according as their consequences are found to agree or disagree with the formal laws deduced immediately from observation and experiment.”

William John Macquorn Rankine (1820–1872) civil engineer

Source: "Outlines of the Science of Energetics," (1855), p. 121; Second paragraph

Law , Science

“The behavior of large and complex aggregates of elementary particles, it turns out, is not to be understood in terms of a simple extrapolation of a few particles. Instead, at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear, and the understanding of the new behaviors requires research which I think is as fundamental in its nature as any other.”

Philip Warren Anderson (1923) American physicist

Source: More Is Different (1972), p. 393 of [More is different, Science, 177, 4047, 4 August 1972, 393–396, https://www.tkm.kit.edu/downloads/TKM1_2011_more_is_different_PWA.pdf]

Behavior , Understanding , Nature , Thinking

“1. To us art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be explored only by those willing to take the risks.
2. This world of imagination is fancy-free and violently opposed to common sense.
3. It is our function as artists to make the spectator see the world our way not his way.
4. We favor the simple expression of the complex thought. We are for the large shape because it has the impact of the unequivocal. We wish to reassert the picture plane. We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth.
5. It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. (Rothko said this is the essence of academicism.)
6. There is no such thing as a good painting about nothing.
7. We assert that the subject is crucial and only that subject matter is valid which is tragic and timeless. That is why we profess spiritual kinship with primitive and archaic art.”

Adolph Gottlieb (1903–1974) American artist

June 13, 1943 edition of the New York Times, brief manifesto: Adolph Gottlieb with Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman.
1940s

Truth , World , Art , Way

“Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

St. 4.
The Day is Done (1845)

Feeling , Reading

“A simple way to determine whether the right to dissent in a particular society is being upheld is to apply the town square test: Can a person walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm? If he can, then that person is living in a free society. If not, it's a fear society.”

Natan Sharansky book The Case for Democracy

Pages 40-1.
The Case for Democracy (2004, with Ron Dermer)

Fear , Way , Personality

“But if they're so successful, why haven't parasites taken over the world? The answer is simple: they have. We just haven't noticed. That's because successful parasites don't kill us; they become part of us, making us perform all the work to keep them alive and help them reproduce…”

Daniel Suarez Daemon

Source: Daemon (2006), Chapter 31: Red Queen Hypothesis, Character: Sobol

World , Success , Help , Parting

“Yeah. Look at the space, Ian! Look at the space! Oh, great strike. But, look at this Ian. How bad is that? Simple, no? Ugh! Yes, he gets a bit lucky. That's a lovely strike by Toni Kroos. But is anybody going to close down? Is anybody going to be, make it hard to beat? Are they going to be organized, Brazil? Because at the moment it looks as if eleven players are just running around the field with no idea. Yeah.”

Steve McManaman (1972) English footballer

2010s, 2014 FIFA World Cup, Brazil v. Germany (2014)

Love , Idea

“[Alexander North] Whitehead is supposed to have said of [Bertrand] Russell: “Bertie thinks me muddleheaded and I think Bertie simple-minded.””

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“The Morality of Mr. Winters”, p. 18
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

Thinking

“What is Bresson's genre? He doesn't have one. Bresson is Bresson. He is a genre in himself. Antonioni, Fellini, Bergman, Kurosawa, Dovzhenko, Vigo, Mizoguchi, Bunuel — each is identified with himself. The very concept of genre is as cold as the tomb. And is Chaplin — comedy? No: he is Chaplin, pure and simple; a unique phenomenon, never to be repeated.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 150

“Principle of causality is fundamental to human thinking, and it has been observed experimentally that this assumption leads to complex hypothesis formation by human subjects attempting to solve comparatively simple problems involving a causal randomly generated events”

Brian R. Gaines (1938) British computer scientist

Introduction.
On the Complexity of Causal Models (1977)

Problem , Thinking

“If you want a simple model for predicting the unemployment rate in the United States over the next few years, here it is: It will be what Greenspan wants it to be, plus or minus a random error reflecting the fact that he is not quite God.”

Alan Greenspan (1926) 13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the United States

Slate, 6 February 1997; as cited by Orrin Judd at brothersjuddblog http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/014839.html, 14 August 2004

God , Error

“Let family worship be short, savory, simple, plain, tender, heavenly.”

Richard Cecil (clergyman) (1748–1810) British Evangelical Anglican priest and social reformer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 471.

Family

“From the first day we are told in words we can handle what has come to be prized as the foundation of community and culture. Though the teacher may call these first lessons “simple rules,” they are in fact the distillation of all the hard-won, field-tested working standards of the human enterprise.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1986)

Communication , Teachers

“The main key to the economics of the postwar world is a simple truism — that the rate of accumulation is equal to the rate of production less the rate of consumption. This is the "Bathtub Theorem." Production may be likened to the flow of water from the faucet, consumption to the flow down the drain. The difference between these two flows is the rate at which the water in the bathtub - the total stockpile of all goods - is accumulating.
War drains the economic bathtub in a great waste of consumption. The first problem of reconstruction is to rebuild the stockpile. It can be rebuilt only by widening the gap between production and consumption, or, in the case of a single country, by importing more than is exported. It is difficult for a ravaged country to increase either its production or its net imports. Unless it can obtain outside help, therefore, it must suffer a drastic restriction of consumption. Frequently the only way consumption can be restricted is by inflation. Here, therefore, is the key to the most fundamental problems of reconstruction.”

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

Preface
1940s, The Economics of Peace, 1945

War , World , Way , Problem

“A man, engaged in his simple reflections in everyday life, will comprehend neither the possibility, nor the benefits of self-sacrifice, but, when given ("qu'on lui donne", Fr.) a great cause to defend, and he will find only natural to sacrifice oneself for it.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 53.

Life , Nature

“Things are not quite so simple with 'pure' art as it is dogmatically claimed. In the final analysis, a drawing simply is no longer a drawing, no matter how self-sufficient its execution may be. It is a symbol, and the more profoundly the imaginary lines of projection meet higher dimensions, the better. In this sense I shall never be a pure artist as the dogma defines him. We higher creatures are also mechanically produced children of God, and yet intellect and soul operate within us in completely different dimensions.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote (July 1905); from: Diari 1898-1918, 2012 (citato), paragrafo 660; as quoted by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee Part Three', : 'Klee as a Secessionist and a Neo-Impressionist Artist' http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.nl/2015/05/paul-klee-ev.html
1903 - 1910

God , Children , Art , Soul