Quotes about simple
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“What time has ever been a simple time for those who are living it?”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Source: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Time

“I knew that the deepest of tragedies was simple: to love, and not to be loved in return.”

Jude Watson (1956) novelist

Source: Strings Attached

Love

“The physics are simple in theory, but in practice they are filled with the possibility for limitless error.”

Christopher Pike book The Last Vampire

Source: The Last Vampire

Error

“People were just too complex to reduce to simple personality traits.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

People, Personality

“Like all magnificent things, it's very simple.”

Natalie Babbitt book Tuck Everlasting

Source: Tuck Everlasting

“I wish to live without hate, whim, jealousy, envy, and fear. I wish to be simple, honest, frank, natural.. to face any obstacle and meet every difficulty unabashed and unafraid.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Hate, Fear, Jealousy, Nature

“But whathappened? The answer is simple: the lovers survive and flourish.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

Lovers

“Kids, the fiction is the truth inside the lie, and the truth of this fiction is simple enough: the magic exists.”

Stephen King book It

It (1986)

Truth, Lie

“In the end, the tortures tearing the Lisbon girls pointed to a simple reasoned refusal to accept the world as it was handed down to them, so full of flaws.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides

Source: The Virgin Suicides

World, Girl, Tear

“(I)f we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.”

J.M. Coetzee book Disgrace

Source: Disgrace

Fear

“Early on, he'd learned to enjoy simple things, things that couldn't be bought, and he had a hard time understanding people who felt otherwise.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

People, Understanding, Learning, Time

“I didn't answer, but, please—nothing is obvious with boys. For such simple creatures, they are quite baffling.”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

Boy

“Resorting to connecting the dots this morning because it was a long night & he needs to do something really simple to get started again.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Source: Traveling Light: Stories & Drawings for a Quiet Mind

Night

“There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistible. All you have to do is find it.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

Way

“A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

Love, Learning, Personality, Heart Touching

“She died--this was the way she died;
And when her breath was done,
Took up her simple wardrobe
And started for the sun.
Her little figure at the gate
The angels must have spied,
Since I could never find her
Upon the mortal side.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Source: Selected Poems

Angels, Way, Sun

“My grandmother used to say life was so much easier when you were simple-minded.
It’s taken me almost my whole life to understand what she meant.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Source: Still Mostly True

Life, Understanding

“Oh child, your language is so utterly simple and limited that it has the affect of extreme complication.
-Aunt Beast”

Madeleine L'Engle book A Wrinkle in Time

Source: A Wrinkle in Time

“One is happy as a result of one's own efforts, once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness — simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self denial to a point, love of work, and, above all, a clear conscience.”

George Sand (1804–1876) French novelist and memoirist; pseudonym of Lucile Aurore Dupin

On est heureux par soi-même quand on sait s'y prendre, avoir des goûts simples, un certain courage, une certaine abnégation, l'amour du travail et avant tout une bonne conscience.
Letter to Charles Poney, (16 November 1866), published in Georges Lubin (ed.) Correspondance (Paris: Garnier Freres, 1964-95) vol. 20, p. 188; André Maurois (trans. Gerard Hopkins) Lélia: The Life of George Sand (New York: Harper, 1954) p. 418
Variant: One is happy once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness: simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self denial to a point, love of work, and above all, a clear conscience.
Source: Correspondance, 1812-1876, Volume 5

Love, Happiness, Courage, Effort

“Absolutely nothing visible to the eye provides a reason for or even evidence of those terrifying shifts which can in a matter of moments reconstitute a simple path into an extremely complicated one.”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Source: House of Leaves

“A hundred people is rather a large handful for the four of us to take on," Malcolm pointed out. "Do you have any ideas about how we're going to handle that task?"
"Simple," Halt told him. "We'll surround them.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: Halt's Peril

People, Idea

“Falling in love was simple; one had only to yield. Digesting another person, however, and sustaining love, was bloody work, and not a soft job.”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist

Source: Midnight all Day

Love, Personality

“Your voice is wild and simple.
You are untranslatable
Into any one tongue.”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Source: The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

“O, to be sure, we laugh less and play less and wear uncomfortable disguises like adults, but beneath the costume is the child we always are, whose needs are simple, whose daily life is still best described by fairy tales.”

Leo Rosten (1908–1997) American writer

Life

“You just walk over there and into the office and say, 'Hey, be my prom date,'" he said. "It's that simple.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“The simple things come back to us. They rest for a moment by our ribcages then suddenly reach in and twist our hearts a notch backward.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Source: Let the Great World Spin

Heart

“Buy what you don’t have yet, or what you really want, which can be mixed with what you already own. Buy only because something excites you, not just for the simple act of shopping.”

Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) German fashion designer

“When the solution is simple, God is answering.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

God

“To every problem, there is a most simple solution.”

Agatha Christie book The Clocks

Source: The Clocks

Problem

“My wants are simple: a job that I like and a guy whom I love.”

Emily Giffin Something Borrowed

Source: Something Borrowed

Love, Guy

“Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.”

Milton Friedman book Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 1 "The Power of the Market", page 13
Context: The key insight of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is misleadingly simple: if an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it. Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.

“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Alexander Donald (7 February 1788)
1780s
Source: Letters of Thomas Jefferson

Books, World, Family

“It's simple, really," Alaric Wulf said. " Lucien Antonescu is the prince of darkness."

Jon nodded. "Yeah," he said. "We know. He's got a castle and stuff.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Insatiable

“The measure of mindfulness, the touchstone for sanity in this society, is our level of productivity, our attention to responsibility, our ability to plain and simple hold down a job.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Source: Prozac Nation

“Ragamuffins are simple, direct and honest. Their speech is unaffected. They are slow to claim, "God told me…" As they make their way through the world, they bear wordless, prophetic witness.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

God, World, Way

“The psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer has a simple heuristic. Never ask the doctor what you should do. Ask him what he would do if he were in your place. You would be surprised at the difference”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

“When you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few other things that get in the way, sooner or later you discover that simple, childlike, and mysterious secret known to those of the Uncarved Block: Life is Fun.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

The Tao of Who?
Source: The Tao of Pooh (1982)

Life, Secret, Way

“The greatest truths are the simplest things in the world, simple as your own existence.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Truth, World

“Cry about the simple hell people give other people- without even thinking. Cry about the hell white people give colored folks, without even stopping to think that they're people too.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

People, Color, Hell, Thinking

“Human beings, viewed as behaving systems, are quite simple. The apparent complexity of our behavior over time is largely a reflection of the complexity of the environment in which we find ourselves.”

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

Source: 1960s-1970s, The Sciences of the Artificial, 1969, p. 53.

Behavior, Time

“How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea.... All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Zorba the Greek

Source: Zorba the Greek (1946), Ch. 7

Happiness, Feeling, Wine, Heart

“Some of the greatest poetry is revealing to the reader the beauty in something that was so simple you had taken it for granted.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

At an interview with Stephen Colbert at Montclair Kimberley Academy on January 29th, 2010.
2010s

Beauty, Beauty

“My philosophy is pretty simple – any day nobody’s trying to kill me is a good day in my book.”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Source: Darkfever

Books

“It's strange how the simple things in life go on while we become more difficult.”

Richard Brautigan (1935–1984) American novelist, poet, and short story writer

Life

“It’s pretty simple, the ethical life. It’s just demanding.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

Life

“There are all sorts of dream interpretations, Freud's being the most notorious, but I have always believed they served a simple eliminatory function, and not much more - that dreams are the psyche's way of taking a good dump every now and then.”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

Dreams, Way

“Their plan had been very simple: to stay together for the rest of their lives.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: P.S. I Love You

“Because it's simple, I love you, and I don't want to keep pretending like I don't. -Rose to Dimitri”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Love

“Uncontradicting solitude
Supports me on its giant palm;
And like a sea-anemone
Or simple snail, there cautiously
Unfolds, emerges, what I am.”

Philip Larkin (1922–1985) English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian

Source: Collected Poems

Support, Solitude, Sea

“Go small, go simple, go now”

Larry Pardey

Cruising in "Seraffyn"

“Grief was like that. It gradually faded into a dull ache, until some simple sight or sound or scent hit him like a hammer blow.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Exiled Queen

“As I look back on my own life, I recognize this simple truth: The greatest opportunities were the scariest lions. Part of me has wanted to play it safe, but I’ve learned that taking no risks is the greatest risk of all.”

Mark Batterson (1969) American pastor and writer

Source: In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars

Life, Truth, Learning, Parting

“But the answer is simple. Love is a mix tape.”

Rob Sheffield (1966) American music journalist

Source: Love Is a Mix Tape

Love

“I love you," I told him. There. Nice and simple. "I knew you would find me."
He smiled at me. "I would never stop looking.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Breaks

Love, Smile

“I suppose like others
I have come through fire and sword,
love gone wrong,
head-on crashes, drunk at sea,
and I have listened to the simple sound of water running
in tubs
and wished to drown”

Charles Bukowski book The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Love, Water, Sea

“Beneath all of her thoughts and worries, beneath the complication of conflicting identities and needs, maybe it's as simple as loving the way some other person looks when they're sleeping.”

Joe Meno The Great Perhaps

Source: The Great Perhaps

Love, Way, Sleep, Personality

“You may think that what you’d like to recapture from your youth is your looks, your physical fitness, your simple pleasures, but what you really need is the fluidity of mind you once possessed.”

Robert Greene The 33 Strategies of War

Source: The 33 Strategies of War

Pleasure, Youth, Thinking

“Sometimes I think the human heart is just a simple shelf. There is only so much you can pile onto it before something falls off an edge and you are left to pick up the pieces.”

Jodi Picoult book House Rules

Source: House Rules

Thinking, Heart

“It's simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and say the opposite.”

Sam Levenson (1911–1980) American journalist

Stupidity, Thinking

“Ed?" Ritchie says later. We're still standing in the water. "There's only one thing I want."
"What's that, Ritchie?"
His answer is simple.
"To want.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

Water

“We don't go to the ocean for anything as simple as happiness, do we? We
go there to feel alive. Like life, the ocean holds chance and change, grief and terror and beauty. It promises mortality, not peace.”

Eileen Wilks Tempting Danger

Source: Tempting Danger

Life, Happiness, Peace, Beauty

“I learned that the world didn't see the inside of you, that it didn't care a whit about the hopes and dreams, and sorrows, that lay masked by skin and bone. It was as simple, as absurd, and as cruel as that.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

World, Dreams, Hope, Learning

“I believe that being happy is the only important thing. Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or torturous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.”

Joanne Harris (1964) British author

Happiness, Heart

“Why can’t you ever answer a simple question? (Wulf)
Ask me a simple question and you will get a simple answer. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Kiss of the Night

Question

“Man has gone long enough, or even too long, without being man enough to face the simple truth that the trouble with Man is Man.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

"The Trouble with Man is Man", The New Yorker; reprinted in Lanterns & Lances (1961).
From Lanterns and Lances‎

Truth

“It's actually very difficult to make something both simple and good.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

“I mistrust all frank and simple people, especially when their stories hold together”

Ernest Hemingway book The Sun Also Rises

Source: The Sun Also Rises

People

“As much as some people would like to believe, for their own peace of mind, that the appearance of evil in this world had a clean cause, the truth was never that simple.”

Marisha Pessl (1977) American writer

Source: Night Film

People, Truth, World, Peace

“Quite simple, my dear Watson”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author

“All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: Freedom; Justice; Honour; Duty; Mercy; Hope.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

United Europe Meeting, Albert Hall, London (May 14, 1947). Cited in Churchill by Himself, ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs (2008), p. 26 ISBN 1586486381
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Justice, Hope, Freedom

“And sometimes you do everything right and something bad just happens. It's as simple, and as scary, as that.”

Anna Quindlen (1952) journalist, Novelist

“Why could nothing with Kate be simple? Why couldn’t Jim ever just come by to tell me that he had bowled a perfect game or benched a personal best.
Maybe finally asked that weird tiger girl out.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Kate's Origin

Girl, Game, Personality, Perfection

“Love what is simple and beautiful.
These are the essentials.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Source: The Tao of Emerson the Tao of Emerson

Love, Beauty

“But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden money, nor the moonlight, nor right and wrong nor the breathing of someone who lay beside you in the moonlight.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Source: A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition

Money

“Be an encourager. Scatter sunshine. Who knows whose life you might touch with something as simple as a kind word.”

Debbie Macomber (1948) American writer

Life

“This Lullaby is only a few words, a simple run of chords, quiet here in this spare room, but you can hear it, hear it, wherever you may go, even if I let you down, this lullaby plays on…”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“The first symptom of true love in a man is timidity, in a young woman, boldness. This is surprising, and yet nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach each other and assuming each the other's qualities.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Love, Sex

“It's as simple as this. When people don't unload their opinions and feel like they've been listened to, they won't really get on board.”

Patrick Lencioni (1965) American writer

Source: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

People, Feeling, For Team

“Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

“Men are easy,' he said, fingers tapping on his mahogany desk. 'A man's plumbing is like his mind: simple, very few surprises. You ladies, on the other hand… well, God put a lot of thought into making you.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Men, God

“You fish, swim, eat, laze around, and everyone's so friendly. It's such simple stuff, but… If i could stop the world and restart life, put the clock back, i think I'd restart it like this. For everyone.”

Alex Garland book The Beach

Source: The Beach

Life, World, Thinking, Fish

“She was a nice little girl, simple and true, and tremendously frightened of sex. I told her it was beautiful. I wanted to prove this to her. She let me prove it, but I was too impatient and proved nothing.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Beauty, Sex, Girl

“There are no simple words. I don't know why I thought I could hide anything behind language.”

Patricia A. McKillip The Book of Atrix Wolfe

Source: The Book of Atrix Wolfe

“If he's choosing not to make a simple effort that would put you at ease and bring harmony to a recurring fight, then he doesn't respect your feelings and needs.”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

Source: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys

Feeling, Effort, Fight

“Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery or simple bad luck.”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

Source: God Knows (1984)

Bad luck, Way

“Simple dreams are the hardest to come true”

Melina Marchetta book Looking for Alibrandi

Source: Looking for Alibrandi

Dreams

“It has taken me years of struggle, hard work, and research to learn to make one simple gesture, and I know enough about the art of writing to realize that it would take as many years of concentrated effort to write one simple, beautiful sentence.”

Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American dancer and choreographer

Beauty, Art, Effort, Learning

“Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“Come, hunt with me, the invitation whispers in my heart. Leave the pain behind and let your life be your own again. There is a place where all time is now, and the choices are simple and always your own.
Wolves have no kings.”

Robin Hobb book Royal Assassin

Variant: Leave the pain behind and let your life be your own again. There is a place where all time is now, and the choices are simple and always your own.

Wolves have no kings
Source: Royal Assassin

Life, Pain, Time, Heart