c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
There are too many people who love me, and accept me, and never try and change me, and who don’t condemn me in the slightest, for me to waste even one moment of my life anymore worrying about what other people will think.
— Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing
When I date women now, I have learned to simply not care what they think about it. I’m the same person I always have been. Faithful. Dependable. Kind. Sweet. Funny. Awesome. And if they want to discount me because of something as insignificant and irrelevant as me experiencing attraction to men as well, then they don’t get me in their lives. They don’t deserve me.
— Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing
I was doing my little stand up shtick, the one I did for pretty girls, so they'd like me quickly and wouldn't try too hard to actually get to know me beyond my role as wisecracking Cameron, the orphan. Maybe it was a little like flirting, but also a kind of protection: Don't get too close; I'm just jokes with substance.
— Emily M. Danforth, The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Writing is the place where I can be as bold and compassionate and wise as I choose.
— Richard Bowes, Dust Devil on a Quiet Street
i have been told many times by family, friends, colleagues and strangers that I, a black African Muslim lesbian, am not included in this vision; that my dreams are a reflection of my upbringing in a decadent, amoral Western society that has corrupted who I really am. But who am I, really? Am I allowed to speak for myself or must my desires form the battleground for causes I do not care about? My answer to that is simple: ‘no one allows anyone anything.’ By rejecting that notion you discover that only you can give yourself permission on how to lead your life, naysayers be damned. In the end something gives way. The earth doesn’t move but something shifts. That shift is change and change is the layman’s lingo for that elusive state that lovers, dreamers, prophets and politicians call ‘freedom’.
— Diriye Osman, Fairytales for Lost Children
Any story dealing, however seriously, with homosexual love is taken to be a story about homosexuality while stories dealing with heterosexual love are seen as stories about the individual people they portray. This is as much a problem today for American filmmakers who cannot conceive of the presence of gay characters in a film unless the specific subject of the film is homosexuality. Lesbians and gay men are thereby classified as purely sexual creatures, people defined solely by their sexual urges.
— Vito Russo, The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies
Barriers were being torn down. Where Freddie Mercury was trying to keep his homosexuality from the front pages, Boy George was openly & outrageously gay.
— Pete Townshend
Rumors went round that I might be gay. In some ways, I was happy w/ this. Larry Rivers proved to me that a gay man could be wild, attractive, and courageous; in any case one's sexuality was becoming less of an issue every day. One of the great things about the British Mod movement was that being macho was no longer the only measure of manhood.
— Pete Townshend
I knew this id who very bravely and bossily came out of the closet when she was only fourteen years old. She told me then that we can't choose who we love. We just love the people we love, no matter what anyone else might want for you.
— Madeleine George, The Difference Between You and Me
...when I closed my eyes and saw her drinking tea and opened them and still could see her, and I wanted so much to see more.
— Emily M. Danforth
I’ve had librarians say to me, “People in my school don’t agree with homosexuality, so it’s difficult to have your book on the shelves.” Here’s the thing: Being gay is not an issue, it is an identity. It is not something that you can agree or disagree with. It is a fact, and must be defended and represented as a fact.To use another part of my identity as an example: if someone said to me, “I’m sorry, but we can’t carry that book because it’s so Jewish and some people in my school don’t agree with Jewish culture,” I would protest until I reached my last gasp. Prohibiting gay books is just as abhorrent…Discrimination is not a legitimate point of view. Silencing books silences the readers who need them most. And silencing these readers can have dire, tragic consequences. Never forget who these readers are. They are just as curious and anxious about life as any other teenager.
— David Levithan
Perhaps once one realised how deeply one could bond with a creature as foreign as a dragon, all forms of human love seemed more acceptable.
— Robin Hobb, Blood of Dragons
As we become the distant past, you become a future few of us would have imagined.
— David Levithan, Two Boys Kissing
There are those from religious backgrounds who resist and oppose LGBT equality; some very obsessively and publicly. They make bold accusations and negative statements about gay and lesbian people, their supposed "lifestyle" and relationships. But when a son, daughter, brother, sister or close friend comes out it is no longer an "issue" it becomes a person. They realise everything they'd said was painfully targeted at someone they love. Then......everything changes.
— Anthony Venn-Brown, A Life of Unlearning - one man's journey to find the truth
Well, as I was saying, it costs a lot to be authentic, madam. And one can't be stingy with these things, because you are more authentic the more you resemble what you've dreamed you are. - Agrado from "Todo Sobre Mi Madre
— Pedro Almodóvar
The difference between being content and being blissfully happy is unquantifiable, and only those who experience the latter can understand just how mediocre the former can be.
— Emma Shane, The Taste of Lavender
If you don't know for sure, then what's the big thing about trying stuff out?" Jamie said, looking not at me but looking out at that statue, just like Hennitz.I still didn't have any of the right words. "It's more like maybe I do know and I'm still confused too, at the same time. Does that make sense? I mean, it's like how you noticed this thing about me tonight, you saw it, or you already knew it - it's there. But that doesn't mean it's not confusing or whatever.
— Emily M. Danforth, The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Trauma or no, I would have been trans no matter what body I'd been born with. Tell the doctors that we exist for the health of humanity, which needs to find wholeness and belief in complexity. Girl in boy's body or boy inside a girl; call it fate or biology, will, or spiritual choice. But I was not born in the wrong body.-Scott Turner Schofield, "The Wrong Body
— Kate Bornstein S. Bear Bergman
To all my friends who constantly talk disparagingly about the supposed 'homosexual lifestyle' and stereotype gay people and the community, I'd like to get this straight. There are essentially two worlds – the 'gay scene' and the gay (or LGBTIQ) community. The 'scene' is like the tip of the iceberg; what is seen by others because it is visible on a street, suburb or pride parade. Like the ninety percent of the submerged iceberg, the community is larger and less visible. It consists of organisations, groups, support networks and also gay and lesbian singles and couples living 'normal' lives in the suburbs. Occasionally there is an overlap but not often. Some live, socialise and work in both. Many never enter each others worlds. The values, lifestyles and culture of these two worlds are as different as Asian culture is to western is to African is to Middle Eastern. Dig down even deeper below the surface and you find it is not a single community but diverse communities and subcultures that are separate but not necessarily divided. The common thing that binds them together is their experience of inequality, discrimination and their desire to make a better world for themselves, others and future generations. If you believe that all gays and lesbians are shallow and obsessed with sex, body image, partying, nightclubs and bars then you are obviously an observer from the outside or mixing in the wrong circles.
— Anthony Venn-Brown, A Life of Unlearning - a journey to find the truth
I've always loved being gay. Sure, Kenya was not exactly Queer Nation but my sexuality gave me joy. I was young, not so dumb and full of cum! There was no place for me in heaven but I was content munching devil's pie here on earth.
— Diriye Osman, Fairytales for Lost Children
I didn't set out to do a gay comic, but given the current political and religious climate in this country, I feel it is important as a gay person, and a Christian, to create stories with humor and honesty.
— Paige Braddock
‘Jane’s World’ has pushed the boundaries for mainstream comic strips: girls have kissed, punched each other, have been abducted by aliens, taken steamy showers together and turned into monkeys. Jane has been through a lot and I love her for it.
— Paige Braddock, A New Frontier
You are to be pitied more than I, perhaps. I soar above all your innumerable miseries, partaking of the nature of the angels; for, as you have said, my place is not in your narrow sphere. You have the earth, I have boundless space. Enchained here below by the thousand bonds of your gross, material senses, your spirits cannot plunge into that limpid Ocean of the infinite, where, lost for a day upon your arid shores, my soul drinks deep.
— Herculine Barbin, Herculine Barbin: Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth-century French Hermaphrodite
It is immensely gratifying to hear from fans from around the world where being a gay or lesbian teen, having feelings for someone of your own gender is simply not acceptable. We noticed that our show fills a huge void for large audiences in many different countries. That’s why our choice of format for the show, the web series, is such a fortunate one as it allows viewers in those countries to feel acknowledged. While the series is not exclusively dealing with gay and lesbian issues, the fact that we don’t sanitize it gives us truly global appeal, especially with the gay and lesbian community. In fact, demand is such that we are subtitling the show in French and perhaps other languages to even better reach those audiences.
— Otessa Marie Ghadar
Only in hindsight can we see the moments where our lives skewed off-course, where we traveled down the wrong path, where the worst lies we told were the ones we told ourselves.
— Emma Shane, The Taste of Lavender
If a couple of gay guys want to throw the gayest, most fabulous wedding of all time, the only way it should offend you is if you weren’t invited.
— Orlando Winters, Stop Being a F***ing Idiot
Yeah, I loved her. I couldn't help it. She was my brother.
— Julie Anne Peters, Luna
I seek a woman, the woman of my desires. Who won’t be scared by loyalty and truth, nor turn away from the darkness of a soiled past. – Decades
— Anne de Gandt
Straight Americans need an education of the heart and soul. They must understand - to begin with - how it can feel to spend years denying your own deepest truths, to sit silently through classes, meals, and church services while people you love toss off remarks that brutalize your soul.
— Bruce Bawer
Do you wanna go out for lunch? In celebration?” I askedand then touched my lips in thought. “Or we could swing by the storeand get something really good for dinner?”Wesley glanced at me sideways with a puzzled expression Icouldn’t figure out. He looked back at the road. “Maybe later,” he said, chewing on his thumbnail.“Why? Since we’re out, we might as well stop….”“We can’t right now. There are things I have to do first,” he said,looking at me with a grin.“What?” I asked, innocently walking into his trap, though Ishould’ve known better by now.“Like take you home and fuck you up, down, and sideways,” heanswered, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
— J.M. Colail, Wes and Toren
Conse­quently the Wolfenden recommendations will be indefinitely rejected, police prosecutions will continue and Clive on the bench will continue to sentence Alec in the dock. Maurice may get off.
— E.M. Forster
If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.
— Albert Einstein
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
— Clare Boothe Luce
Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Other Writings
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
— Henry David Thoreau
Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.
— John Maeda, The Laws of Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life
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, Let the Great World Spin
A common man marvels at uncommon things. A wise man marvels at the commonplace.
— Confucius
It is desirable that a man live in all respects so simply and preparedly that if an enemy take the town... he can walk out the gate empty-handed and without anxiety.
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Vices are simply overworked virtues, anyway. Economy and frugality are to be commended but follow them on in an increasing ratio and what do we find at the other end? A miser! If we overdo the using of spare moments we may find an invalid at the end, while perhaps if we allowed ourselves more idle time we would conserve our nervous strength and health to more than the value the work we could accomplish by emulating at all times the little busy bee. I once knew a woman, not very strong, who to the wonder of her friends went through a time of extraordinary hard work without any ill effects. I asked her for her secret and she told me that she was able to keep her health, under the strain, because she took 20 minutes, of each day in which to absolutely relax both mind and body. She did not even “set and think.” She lay at full length, every muscle and nerve relaxed and her mind as quiet as her body. This always relieved the strain and renewed her strength.
— Laura Ingalls Wilder
..things are never as complicated as they seem. It is only our arrogance that prompts us to find unnecessarily complicated answers to simple problems.
— Muhammad Yunus, Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty
I am not a genius, I am just curious. I ask many questions. and when the answer is simple, then God is answering.
— Albert Einstein
If you are a warrior, decency means that you are not cheating anybody at all. You are not even about to cheat anybody. There is a sense of straightforwardness and simplicity. With setting-sun vision, or vision based on cowardice, straightforwardness is always a problem. If people have some story or news to tell somebody else, first of all they are either excited or disappointed. Then they begin to figure out how to tell their news. They develop a plan, which leads them completely away from simply telling it. By the time a person hears the news, it is not news at all, but opinion. It becomes a message of some kind, rather than fresh, straightforward news. Decency is the absence of strategy. It is of utmost importance to realize that the warrior’s approach should be simple-minded sometimes, very simple and straightforward. That makes it very beautiful: you having nothing up your sleeve; therefore a sense of genuineness comes through. That is decency.
— Chögyam Trungpa
Complex things are easy to do. Simplicity's the real challenge.
— Robert James Waller, The Bridges of Madison County
One of the purest souls ever to live on this fallen planet was Nicholas Herman, known as Brother Lawrence. He wrote very little, but what he wrote has seemed to several generations of Christians to be so rare and so beautiful as to deserve a place near the top among the world's great books of devotion. The writings of Brother Lawrence are the ultimate in simplicity; ideas woven like costly threads to make a pattern of great beauty. 
— A.W. Tozer
Life is simple. You just have to stop trying to figure it out.
— Marty Rubin
The eastern sky was red as coals in a forge, lighting up the flats along the river. Dew had wet the million needles of the chaparral, and when the rim of the sun edged over the horizon the chaparral seemed to be spotted with diamonds. A bush in the backyard was filled with little rainbows as the sun touched the dew.It was tribute enough to sunup that it could make even chaparral bushes look beautiful, Augustus thought, and he watched the process happily, knowing it would only last a few minutes. The sun spread reddish-gold light through the shining bushes, among which a few goats wandered, bleating. Even when the sun rose above the low bluffs to the south, a layer of light lingered for a bit at the level of the chaparral, as if independent of its source. The the sun lifted clear, like an immense coin. The dew quickly died, and the light that filled the bushes like red dirt dispersed, leaving clear, slightly bluish air.It was good reading light by then, so Augustus applied himself for a few minutes to the Prophets. He was not overly religious, but he did consider himself a fair prophet and liked to study the styles of his predecessors. They were mostly too long-winded, in his view, and he made no effort to read them verse for verse—he just had a look here and there, while the biscuits were browning.
— Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove
Power of generalizing gives men so much the superiority in mistake over the dumb animals.
— George Eliot, Middlemarch
I hate American simplicity. I glory in the piling up of complications of every sort. If I could pronounce the name James in any different or more elaborate way I should be in favour of doing it.
— Henry James
None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Other Writings
In human character, simplicity doesn't exist except among simpletons.
— Tennessee Williams, Where I Live: Selected Essays
The game of love is complicated, but love is not complicated.
— Marty Rubin
My task is to simplify and then go deeper, making a commitment to what remains. That's what I've been after. To care and polish what remains till it glows and comes alive from loving care.
— Sue Bender, Plain and Simple: A Journey to the Amish
What’s the most difficult thing you can do? Live simply. ‘Cause in order to be self-sufficient, you got to get well near everybody else to work for you.
— M.C. Humphreys
Poor food and water for dinner, a bent arm for a pillow – that is where joy resides. For me, wealth and renown without honor are nothing but drifting clouds.
— Confucius, The Analects
If one bite fills you, you don't need two.
— Marty Rubin
It was a simple thing. All terror is a simplicity. ("Interval In Sunlight")
— Ray Bradbury, Long After Midnight
At times his arrogance did resolve itself into simplicity, though it was difficult, especially for strangers, to distinguish these occasions.
— Patrick White, Voss
Haven't you ever thought of livingunconsciously like bears, sniffing the earth,close to pears and the mossy dark,far from human voices and
— Nâzım Hikmet, Poems of Nazım Hikmet
Simplicity! He is as simple as a spider's web.
— Karen Essex, Pharaoh
Simplicity IS the new EDLP (every day low price)!
— Ted Rubin, Return on Relationship: Relationships Are the New Currency: Honor Them, Invest in Them, and Start Measuring Your ROR
My wants are so simple I don't even know what they are.
— Marty Rubin
Truth, simplicity and love. These are the three main aspects of Eden Fruitarianism which the acolyte seeks to embrace, expand and better understand.
— Mango Wodzak, The Eden Fruitarian Guidebook
Simplicity is the essence of genius.
— Sravani Saha Nakhro
Ever since Apple's first brochure proclaimed "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication," Jobs had aimed for the simplicity that comes from conquering complexities, not ignoring them. "It takes a lot of hard word," he said, "to make something simple, to truly understand the underlying challenges and come up with elegant solutions.
— Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs
Early on, Mike Markkula had taught Jobs to "impute" - to understand that people do judge a book by its cover - and therefore to make sure all the trappings and packaging of Apple signaled that there was a beautiful gem inside. Whether it's an iPod Mini, or a MacBook Pro, Apple customers know the feeling of opening up the well-crafted box and finding the product nestled in an inviting fashion. "Steve and I spend a lot of time on the packaging," said Ive. "I love the process of unpacking something. You design a ritual of unpacking to make the product feel special. Packaging can be theater, it can create a story.
— Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs
Simplicity within itself is just another complication.
— Anthony T. Hincks
You don't need more space. You need less stuff.
— Joshua Becker, The More of Less: Finding the Life You Want Under Everything You Own
Simplicity is a sign of being awake.
— Sir Kristian Goldmund Aumann
The art of art is simplicity.
— Sravani Saha Nakhro
The simplicity and the complexity are just the opposite ends of the same spectrum.
— Pearl Zhu, Digital Gaps: Bridging Multiple Gaps to Run Cohesive Digital Business
Real luxury is not working like a maniac to take an expensive vacation--it is living a life you enjoy every day.
— Kathy Gottberg, Rightsizing * a Smart Living 365 Guide to Reinventing Retirement
In walking, we acquire more of less.
— Robert Moor, On Trails: An Exploration
Not all things that are simple are all that simple. Certain simple things carry complex weight!
— Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
She tore off a piece of baguette; it was both crusty and soft, still warm in the centre. It was amazing how something so simple, so basic could be this delicious.
— Kathleen Tessaro, The Perfume Collector
Do you understand what’s going on here?”Hodgesaargh took another slow look at the scene. “No,” he said.“In that case’s not my job to understand this sort of thing,” said the falconer. “I wasn’t trained. Probably takes a lot of training, understanding this. That’s your job. And her job. Can you understand what’s going on when a bird’s been trained and’ll make a kill and still came back to the wrist?”“Well, no—”“There you are, then. So that’s all right. Cup of tea, was it?
— Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum
When you give your items away, don’t keep the excess of your pride.
— Bremer Acosta, Stoic Practice
To instruct others is to engage the simplicity of receiving eternal life
— Sunday Adelaja
Look for the little everyday pleasures and get excited about the privileges of simply being human.
— Sravani Saha Nakhro
I want to live simply. I want to sit by the window when it rains and read books I’ll never be tested on. I want to paint because I want to, not because I’ve got something to prove. I want to listen to my body, fall asleep when the moon is high and wake up slowly, with no place to rush off to. I want not to be governed by money or clocks or any of the artificial restraints that humanity imposes on itself. I just want to be, boundless and infinite.
— Unknown
Simple is never that simple.
— Philip Roth, American Pastoral
A woman to suck a dick... isn't a fact or mystery or complexity... it's simplicity. You just dial a number... to order a BIATCH.. .
— Deyth Banger
I know that scenario... that "You are going to die"... bullshit and bullshit I was next to you what did I fucking get?- Simple answers of so complex questions... So simple questions and so complex answers... I never mean that and I never wanted that to happen.
— Deyth Banger
Like all magnificent things, it’s very simple.
— Natalie Babbitt
Life can be simple, it ain't easy. So don't take the easy option. Challenge the resistance, challenge yourself, become great
— Tony Curl, Seriously Simple Stuff to Get You Unstuck
A beautiful sidenote is, once the toxins and dramas are removed, you purify your life. Simplify and purify. What better way to live your life? Simple and pure!
— Tony Curl, Seriously Simple Stuff to Get You Unstuck
Always Prefer to be Simple & Fair, that Leads toward Purity
— Arbab J. Edhi
Maybe the secret to happiness is simplicity.
— Amy Harmon, The Bird and the Sword
Life always refused simplicity.
— Julian Barnes, The Noise of Time
...it's really more intelligent to be able to simplify things than to complicate them. Even if some people think it makes you look stupid.
— Eugenia Cheng, How to Bake Pi: An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics
I'm a simple man. I like pretty dark-haired women and breakfast food.
— Ron Swanson
Simplicity is a kind of transparency in which subtle nuances can have outsize effects.
— David Byrne
Travellers scowl at us, and countrymen give us scornful names. 'Strider' I am to one fat man who lives within a day's march of foes that would freeze his heart, or lay his little town in ruin, if he were not guarded ceaselessly. Yet we would not have it otherwise. If simple folk are free from care and fear, simple they will be, and we must be secret to keep them so.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
When we focus on people and life instead of material possessions and mere wants, there's not much room for emotional hand-wringing. Instead, there's more space to weigh what we value in our lives and to acknowledge what really counts. Chapter 9 Simplicity Laura Ingalls in The Long Winter
— Erin Blakemore, The Heroine's Bookshelf: Life Lessons, from Jane Austen to Laura Ingalls Wilder
Modesty of a way of living,makes it worth while.Petra Hermans
— Petra Hermans, Voor een betere wereld
Where is it written that one should only care about big things?
— David Brin, The Postman
There's no seduction any more, diary. No subtlety. No tidy-yourself-up in this world. No need for personal pride. There's just the things you're prepared to do - for survival, for fulfillment, for whatever-the-hell-it-is you really need - and the things you're not.
— Simon Spurrier, Crossed: Wish You Were Here, Volume 2
Simplicity
— Petra Hermans
Listening to the siren song of more, we are deaf to the still small voice waiting in our soul to whisper, ‘You’re enough.
— Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way
Simplicity of appearance can cause hindrance to success when you are poor. But the same simplicity is admired in a rich and successful person.
— Shon Mehta, Modern Parables
The cake had been done by a lady friend of Mary's. It was simpler than it would have been had she been given more time
—  but I was finding more and more beauty in simplicity.
Good design is as little as possible. Less, but better, because it concentrates on the essential aspects,  and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.
— Dieter Rams, Weniger, Aber Besser/Less But Better
The Simplicity Is Hardest Things To Define The Purity Of Love.
— Yaganesh Derasari
When you're dead, you're dead, and that's that.
— Costas Taktsis, The Third Wedding
The Master, by residing in the Tao,sets an example for all beings.Because he doesn't display himself,people can see his light.Because he has nothing to prove,people can trust his words.Because he doesn't know who he is,people recognize themselves in him.Because he has no goal in mind,everything he does succeeds.
— Lao Tzu
Chess is a game with simple rules and pieces, a small sixty-four-space board, but there are more possible chess games than there are atoms in the universe.
— Austin Grossman, You
The tailor bird builds her nest in deep woods, she uses no more than one branch.The mole drinks off the river, it can only fill one belly.
— Zhuangzi, The Inner Chapters: The Classic Taoist Text
When we have simplicity we have so much more freedom in every single aspect of our lives. Maybe it's a classic case of less is more? Less stress, less worries, more time, more happiness.
— Evan Sutter, Solitude: How Doing Nothing Can Change the World
We had everything we needed. None of it was big. Most of it was simple. But what I knew in that moment was that the size of your home, your car, your wallet, doesn’t have one single thing to do with the size of your life. And my life...my life felt big, filled with love and with meaning.
— Mia Sheridan, Kyland
I wanted you see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.
— Harper Lee
Sounds simple, doesn’t it, this notion of simplicity? Simple things done simply by a simple person. But it’s not as simple as it seems.
— Fennel Hudson, A Waterside Year - Fennel's Journal - No. 2
Simplicity is NOT boring. Simplicity is not self-denial. It is an indulgence, providing you with a wealth of time and space.Simplicity IS discerning the essential from the unessential. Simplicity is having room for the unexpected. It is savoring life.Most of all, simplicity is freedom: It's freedom to choose what you want in your life because you're not letting in everything that shows up. It's freedom to do what you want because you're not already committed to more obligations than you can handle and the maintenance of more objects than you'll ever use.
— Victoria Moran, Shelter for the Spirit: Create Your Own Haven in a Hectic World
To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified.
— William James
Try to keep it simple.
— Samadara Ginige
Leaders can hold onto busyness like a weapon of protection.
— Angela Lynne Craig, Pivot Leadership: Small Steps...Big Change
Omit the non-essential.
— Per Mollerup, Marks of Excellence
Be young at heart. Remember back when you were young and what made you happiest then. Recapture the simplicity and wonder of youth and make it a state of mind.
— Susan Stovall, Simple Living A to Z
This stretch through the fogbound forest gradually lulled Grange into his favorite daydream; in it he saw an image of his life: all that he had he carried with him; twenty feet away, the world grew dark, perspectives blurred, and there was nothing near him but this close halo of warm consciousness, this nest perched high above the vague earth.
— Julien Gracq, A Balcony in the Forest
The first step in crafting the life you want is to get rid of everything you don't.
— Joshua Becker
Owning less is better than organizing more.
— Joshua Becker, Clutterfree with Kids
The best way to find out what we really need is to get rid of what we don't.
— Marie Kondō
Let your mind wander in simplicity, blend your spirit with the vastness, follow along with things the way they are, and make no room for personal views - then the world will be governed.
— Zhuangzi, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu
Even when the truth is in fact simple, simplicity is still relative.
— Criss Jami, Healology
A fast is not necessarily something we offer God, but it assists us in offering ourselves
— Jen Hatmaker
I am thinking by what long discipline and at what cost a man learns to speak simply at last.
— Henry David Thoreau, The Quotable Thoreau
Make art and live simply.
— Shawn Lukas
One who understands much displays a greater simplicity of character than one who understands little
— Alexander Chase
Simplicity is the spring of heart.
— maulikatma
Do not be a stupid, unless someone is paying you to be.
— M.F. Moonzajer, LOVE, HATRED AND MADNESS
The world becomes so much larger the smaller you live.
— Dayna Lovely
Quick now, here, now, always, as if we are in a condition of complete simplicity...
— Dean Koontz, Odd Apocalypse
Simplicity, is the best city to live in...
— Muhammad Zaki
I was a let-er-goer and she was a hanger-on-er, but that doesn't mean I don't lean into her territory every once in a while.
— Dee  Williams, The Big Tiny: A Built-It-Myself Memoir
Shouldn't you be asking for my name first?
— Kip Fulbeck, Part Asian, 100% Hapa
Simplicity, not cleverness, can be the source of happiness.
— Debasish Mridha
As I am both lazy and forgetful, I can't take proper care of too many things. That's why I want to cherish properly the things I love.
— Marie Kondō
That's the way progress works: the more we build up these vast repertoires of scientific and technological understanding, the more we conceal them.
— Steven Johnson, How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World
When we are able to do something so easily, we regard such thing as simplicity; but simplicity is complexity. Withing the things which are simple lay the things which are complex and within the things which are complex, lay the things which are simple
— Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
Simplicity is all but nothing that's there.
— Shawn Lukas
The core of beauty is simplicity.
Seek for illumination of self, and then the world, through the simple, humble, almighty, supreme virtue of love.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
The simple rhythms of nature are calling you. Let them wash away the clutter and distractions from your false life.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
It was simpler just to keep things simple.
— Bruce Crown, Forlorn Passions
She wasn't stupid. She just didn't want to put her neuron power into long sentences.
— Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake
We read a good novel not in order to know more people, but in order to know fewer. Instead of the humming swarm of human beings, relatives, customers, servants, postmen, afternoon callers, tradesmen, strangers who tell us the time, strangers who remark on the weather, beggars, waiters, and telegraph-boys--instead of this bewildering human swarm which passes us every day, fiction asks us to follow one figure (say the postman) consistently through his ecstasies and agonies. That is what makes one impatient with that type of pessimistic rebel who is always complaining of the narrowness of his life and demanding a larger sphere. Life is too large for us as it is: we have all too many things to attend to. All true romance is an attempt to simplify it, to cut it down to plainer and more pictorial proportions. What dullness there is in our life arises mostly from its rapidity; people pass us too quickly to show us their interesting side. By the end of the week we have talked to a hundred bores; whereas, if we had stuck to one of them, we might have found ourselves talking to a new friend, or a humorist, or a murderer, or a man who had seen a ghost.
— G.K. Chesterton, The Glass Walking Stick
True eloquence is irresistible. It charms by its images of beauty, it enforces an argument by its vehement simplicity. Orators whose speeches are "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," only prevail where truth is not understood, for knowledge and simplicity are the foundation of all true eloquence. Eloquence abounds in beautiful and natural images, sublime but simple conceptions, in passionate but plain words. Burning words appeal to the emotions as well as to the intellect; they stir the soul and touch the heart.
— Albert Ellery Bergh
It is a tremendous gift to simply and truly listen to another.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
It’s on the path of simplicity that love prefers to walk.
— Sean Patrick Brennan, The Papal Visitor
I want to be a simple man with simple thoughts Because it's hard to find them in the world....but easy to Believe
— Riyadh Razzaq
We are not what we own; we are what we do, what we think and who we love.
— Francine Jay, The Joy of Less, A Minimalist Living Guide: How to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify Your Life
Cultivate simplicity or rather should I say banish elaborateness, for simplicity springs spontaneous from the heart.
— Charles Lamb, The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb, 1796-1820
She was appalled by West Egg’s raw vigour that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that eroded its inhabitants along a short-cut from nothing to nothing. She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
It is this simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences—makes them, as the poets tell us, 'charm the crowd's ears more finely.' Educated men lay down broad general principles; uneducated men argue from common knowledge and draw obvious conclusions.
— Aristotle, The Rhetoric & The Poetics of Aristotle
When the peasants and their song had vanished from his sight and hearing, a heavy feeling of anguish at his loneliness, his bodily idleness, his hostility to this world, came over him...It was all drowned in the sea of cheerful common labor. God had given the day, God had given the strength. Both day and strength had been devoted to labour and in that lay the reward...Levin had often admired this life, had often experienced a feeling of envy for the people who lived this life, but that day for the first time...the thought came clearly to Levin that it was up to him to change that so burdensome, idle, artificial and individual life he lived into this laborious, pure and common, lovely life.
— Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
In your occupations, try to possess your soul in peace. It is not a good plan to be in haste to perform any action that it may be the sooner over. On the contrary, you should accustom yourself to do whatever you have to do with tranquillity, in order that you may retain the possession of yourself and of settled peace.
— Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
To get, simply release, and then gently invite.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
I longed only to turn back and climb and begin life all over again in a place where I might find the peace I'd once known in mountains of another time and another place, and I wondered-if I could slip out of camp unobserved-whether I just might be able to stay hidden and uncaptured until this war came to an end.
— Andrew Krivak, The Sojourn
He who despises simplicity will shout for a simple lifebuoy when drowning in the ocean of complexity!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
Beauty is not in complexity but it's in simplicity.
— Debasish Mridha
Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.
— Edsger W. Dijkstra
Everyday we have a high calling that we need to fulfill and everyday we can do it whether it's just to smile at somebody we little know.
— Lacey Sturm
The attributes of a great lady may still be found in the rule of the four S's: Sincerity, Simplicity, Sympathy and Serenity.
— Emily Post
Do you think the wren ever dreams of a better house?
— Mary Oliver, Blue Pastures
Something good happened to my writing when stopped being afraid to do something simple, for the fear that people might think I couldn’t do something more complex. Don’t be confused by the word simple. Simple is not easy, it is clear voiced, and fearlessly elegant.
— Carrie Newcomer
[The] structural theory is of extreme simplicity. It assumes that the molecule is held together by links between one atom and the next: that every kind of atom can form a definite small number of such links: that these can be single, double or triple: that the groups may take up any position possible by rotation round the line of a single but not round that of a double link: finally that with all the elements of the first short period [of the periodic table], and with many others as well, the angles between the valencies are approximately those formed by joining the centre of a regular tetrahedron to its angular points. No assumption whatever is made as to the mechanism of the linkage. Through the whole development of organic chemistry this theory has always proved capable of providing a different structure for every different compound that can be isolated. Among the hundreds of thousands of known substances, there are never more isomeric forms than the theory permits.
— Nevil Vincent Sidgwick
people notice the most beautiful dress every person can wear,......... a "smile
— Anne Stuart
Simplicity is boring, but i still love it.
— Sukant Ratnakar, Open The Windows: To the World around You
The most agreeable of all companions is a simple, frank man, without any high pretensions to an oppressive greatness; one who loves life, and understands the use of it; obliging alike at all hours; above all, of a golden temper and steadfast as an anchor. For such an one we gladly exchange the greatest genius, the most brilliant wit, the profoundest thinker.
— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Don't tell me about your effort. Show me your results.
— Tim Fargo
You don't get any points in life for doing things the hard way.
— Tim Fargo
health, social life, job, house, partners, finances; leisure use, leisure amount; working time, education, income, children; food, water, shelter, clothing, sex, health care; mobility; physical safety, social safety, job security, savings account, insurance, disability protection, family leave, vacation; place tenure, a commons; access to wilderness, mountains, ocean; peace, political stability, political input, political satisfaction; air, water, esteem; status, recognition; home, community, neighbors, civil society, sports, the arts; longevity treatments, gender choice; the opportunity to become more what you arethat's all you need
— Kim Stanley Robinson, 2312
Simplicity is no longer presented as a virtue. The value of complex and difficult language has been preached with such insistence that the public has begun to believe the lack of clarity must be a sign of artistic talent.
— John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization
Barley porridge, or a crust of barley bread, and water do not make a very cheerful diet, but nothing gives one keener pleasure than having the ability to derive pleasure even from that-- and the feeling of having arrived at something which one cannot be deprived of by any unjust stroke of fortune.
— Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
Dawes observed that the complex statistical algorithm adds little or no value. One can do just as well by selecting a set of scores that have some validity for predicting the outcome and adjusting the values to make them comparable (by using standard scores or ranks). A formula that combines these predictors with equal weights is likely to be just as accurate in predicting new cases as the multiple-regression formula that was optimal in the original sample. More recent research went further: formulas that assign equal weights to all the predictors are often superior, because they are not affected by accidents of sampling.
— Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
Life was simple before World War II. After that, we had systems.
— Grace Murray Hopper
It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won't stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get.
— Annie Dillard
Cling, therefore, to this sound and wholesome plan of life; indulge the body just so far as suffices for good health. ... Your food should appease your hunger, your drink quench your thirst, your clothing keep out the cold, your house be a protection against inclement weather. It makes no difference whether it is built of turf or variegated marble imported from another country: what you have to understand is that thatch makes a person just as good a roof as gold.
— Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
Why use long words when short ones will do? Not all readers have been to college or university.
— Ken Scott
Luxury Living Low Thinking Simple Living High Thinking
— Baba Tunde Ojo-Olubiyo
Spurn everything that is added by way of decoration and display by unneccesary labour. Relect that nothing merits admiration except the spirit, the impressiveness of which prevents it from being impressed by anything.
— Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
Simplicity is the key to beauty. Clarity is the key to perfection.
— David Nevue
There is a level of consciousness between sleeping and fully wakening when the worries of the day have not settled upon us; the body is stilled, and the senses wholly receptive. If the sun is bright, there is pure silence, or the birds are beginning to sing, this shining level of consciousness can come to be the nearest we will get to paradise this side of our quietus, Every day should begin so, This is no dream. This is the reality. The world outside is beautiful. We do our best to hide it. We cover it. We push it father back. The ugliness we make ourselves. We originate our own worries. We put on our own shackles; build our prisons. We can only glimpse the golden reality, briefly, through our tiny barred windows.
— John Wyatt, Shining Levels
Excess has impaired perspective in America.
— Jen Hatmakermaker
Minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of anything that distracts us from it.
— Joshua Becker, Simplify: 7 Guiding Principles to Help Anyone Declutter Their Home and Life
A condition of complete simplicity(Costing not less than everything)
— T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
Already he knew that to overdo a thing is to destroy it.
— Elizabeth Enright, The Four-Story Mistake
The way towards simplicity is through outrage.
— William Golding, Darkness Visible
Freedom is the realization that it is sufficient to simply be a human being.
— Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason
I beseech you, little brothers, that you be as wise as brother Daisy and brother dandelion; for never do they lie awake thinking of tomorrow, yet they have gold crowns like kings and emperors or like Charlemagne in all his glory.
— G.K. Chesterton, Saint Francis of Assisi
A lady once offered me a mat, but as I had no room to spare within the house, nor time to spare within or without to shake it, I declined it, preferring to wipe my feet on the sod before my door. It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.
— Henry David Thoreau
It is so dam difficult to be simple.
— Valquiria Oliveira
You can have a less chaotic, simpler life working with what you already have and transforming it into what you really need.
— Sandy Kreps, Fresh Start: 31 Days to Simplify, Declutter and Rein in the Chaos
The essential cultural discrimination is not between having and not having or haves and have-nots, but between the superfluous and the indispensable. Wisdom, it seems to me, is always poised upon the knowledge of minimums; it might be thought to be the art of minimums. Granting the frailty, and no doubt the impermanence, of modern technology as a human contrivance, the man who can keep a fire in a stove or on a hearth is not only more durable, but wiser, closer to the meaning of fire, than the man who can only work a thermostat.
— Wendell Berry, The Hidden Wound
Everything in excess Is opposed by nature.
— Hippocrates
From innumerable complexities we must grow to simplicity
—  we must become simple in our inward life and in our outward needs.
Mediocrity comforts the masses. Mediocrity is a likeable attribute.
— Shobhaa Dé
If we have a simple existence, we shall feel how happy and how fortunate we are. There are some people who are of the opinion that simplicity is almost tantamount to stupidity. But simplicity and stupidity are like the North Pole and the South Pole. One can be as simple as a child and, at the same time, one can have boundless knowledge, light and wisdom.
— Sri Chinmoy, The Wings of Joy: Finding Your Path to Inner Peace
I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing—to be clear. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might (if I were good enough) get me a Pulitzer prize. I would write merely clearly and in this way establish a warm relationship between myself and my readers, and the professional critics—Well, they can do whatever they wish.
— Isaac Asimov
A rose lay open in full bloomand, looking from my garden room,I watched the sun-baked flower fill with rain.It seemed so fragile,resting there,and such a silence filled the air,the beauty of the moment caused me pain."What more?" I thought. "There must be more."As if in answer then, I sawone weighty drop that caused my rose to fall.It trembled, then cascaded downto earth just staining gentle brownand, since then, I've felt different.That's all.
— Julie Andrews Edwards, Home: A Memoir of My Early Years
We aim at simplicity and hope for truth.
— Nelson Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking
Love the moment for its simplicity, it may give or take nothing from you, but in the blinking of an eye it will have change so many things forever.
— Steven Redhead, The Solution
Do you want to be happy?Then make your life as soulfully simple As sleeplessly breathing.
— Sri Chinmoy, The Wings of Joy: Finding Your Path to Inner Peace
Simplicity is the most difficult of all concepts.
— Brian Herbert, House Corrino