Marcus AureliusSourced
Very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life.
Source: Meditations 7.67, tr. George Long
Checked quotes about simplicity
5 quotes with a known source.
SenecaSourced
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
Source: Letters to Lucilius 2, tr. R. M. Gummere
Henry David ThoreauSourced
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.
Source: Walden, "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For" (1854)
Henry David ThoreauSourced
Our life is frittered away by detail… Simplify, simplify.
Source: Walden, "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For" (1854)
Leo TolstoySourced
There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.
Source: War and Peace, Book 14 (1869)
Famous, but not theirs
Quotes about simplicity that are usually credited to the wrong person.
Albert EinsteinNot theirs
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.
Actually: E. F. Schumacher, "Small is Beautiful", The Radical Humanist (1973).
Leonardo da VinciNot theirs
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Actually: Not in Leonardo's notebooks. The line appears in the 20th century, with no link to him.
H. L. MenckenMisquoted
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
The real words: Smoothed from Prejudices: Second Series (1920): "there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong."