Top 40 Simplicity Quotes (2023 Update)

1. “Avoiding complexity reduces bugs.”

— Linus Torvalds

2. “Simplicity is the key to brilliance.”

— Bruce Lee

3. “Simplicity is not a simple thing.”

— Charlie Chaplin

4. “Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.”

— Pablo Picasso

5. “Greatness of spirit is accompanied by simplicity and sincerity.”

— Aristotle

6. “Simplicity in character, in manners, in style; in all things the supreme excellence is simplicity.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

7. “The rule is to carry as little as possible.”

— Henry David Thoreau

8. “Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.”

— Edsger W. Dijkstra

9. “Simplify always – do not complicate.”

— Émile Coué

10. “Out of chaos, find simplicity, From discord, find harmony.”

— Bruce Lee

11. “Simplicity is a most complex form.”

— Duke Ellington

12. “Simplicity is the trademark of GENIUS.”

— Robin S. Sharma

Also featured in: Genius Quotes

13. “Do few things but do them well, simple joys are holy.”

— Francis of Assisi

14. “Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better.”

— Edsger W. Dijkstra

15. “When the subject is strong, simplicity is the only way to treat it.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Also featured in: Strong Quotes

16. “True refinement seeks simplicity.”

— Bruce Lee

17. “Simplicity is really hard.”

— Jonathan Ive

18. “Simplicity requires ruthlessness.”

— Tim Ferriss

19. “Avoid fragmentation: Find your focus and seek simplicity. Purposeful living calls for elegant efficiency and economy of effort-expanding the minimum time and energy necessary to achieve desired goals.”

— Dan Millman

20. “Simplicity is always the secret, to a profound truth, to doing things, to writing, to painting. Life is profound in its simplicity.”

— Charles Bukowski

21. “Nature has a great simplicity and therefore a great beauty.”

— Richard P. Feynman

22. “Three Tips: Simplify, Simplify, Simplify.”

— Jakob Nielsen

23. “Order and simplification are the first steps toward the mastery of a subject.”

— Thomas Mann

Also featured in: Firsts Quotes

24. “In the beginning was simplicity.”

— Richard Dawkins

25. “Let your capital be simplicity and contentment.”

— Henry David Thoreau

26. “Simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible.”

— Alan Kay

27. “Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage.”

— Henry David Thoreau

28. “Simplicity, suitability and proportion.”

— Elsie De Wolfe

29. “God made man simple, but how he changed and got complicated is hard to say.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

30. “Simplicity of approach is always best.”

— Charlie Chaplin

31. “The Rosary is my favorite prayer. A marvelous prayer! Marvelous in its simplicity and its depth. In the prayer we repeat many times the words that the Virgin Mary heard from the Archangel, and from her kinswoman Elizabeth.”

— Pope John Paul II

32. “If we are to love sincerely, and with simplicity, we must first of all overcome the fear of not being loved.”

— Thomas Merton

Also featured in: Firsts Quotes

33. “For us, with the rule of right and wrong given us by Christ, there is nothing for which we have no standard. And there is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.”

— Leo Tolstoy

34. “For effective communication, use brevity. Jesus said, ‘Follow me.’ Now that’s brief! He could be brief because of all that he was that he didn’t have to say.”

— Jim Rohn

Also featured in: Communication Quotes

35. “The art of art, the glory of expression, is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity, and the sunlight of letters is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity-nothing can make up for excess, or for the lack of definiteness.”

— Walt Whitman

36. “Even before string theory, especially as physics developed in the 20th century, it turned out that the equations that really work in describing nature with the most generality and the greatest simplicity are very elegant and subtle.”

— Edward Witten

37. “Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Also featured in: Good Morning Quotes

38. “I am struck by the simplicity of light in the atmosphere in the autumn, as if the earth absorbed none, and out of this profusion of dazzling light came the autumnal tints.”

— Henry David Thoreau

39. “Genuine simplicity of heart is a healing and cementing principle.”

— Edmund Burke

Also featured in: Healing Quotes

40. “I believe an appreciation for simplicity, the everyday – the ability to dive deeply into the banal and discover life’s hidden richness – is where success, let alone happiness, emerges.”

— Joshua Waitzkin

Also featured in: Appreciation Quotes

41. “K.I.S.S.”

— Keep It Simple, Stupid

Also featured in: Focus Quotes, Creativity Quotes, Design Quotes