Crossing the Chasm
My AARP Membership Cometh Wherever I go, folks quote to me Einstein’s,
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.”
So I went on a quest to search for more of these today. Einstein headlines this short list where the real gem there in my mind is Whitehead’s crafty,
“Seek simplicity, and distrust it.”
Mr. Whitehead was clearly from the school of hard knocks when it comes to trust as I once learned.
More on the good and bad of simplicity is here as quotes, poems, and lyrics.
A quote that epitomizes the feeling of an inventor is by one of the fathers of computing Dennis Ritchie,
“UNIX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity.”
This chest-beating quote is surrounded by a set of more humble quotes here.
Finally in the quest for a simpler way to access more quotes on simplicity, and hopefully as a way to gain your trust in the event that you don’t agree with Mr. Whitehead, I worked up a simple hack to get the most out of your click:
4 Responses to “Fine Quotes on Simplicity”
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The original quotation reads: “The supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.” (Wikiquote; Wikipedia (Hypothesis), fn2)
Thanks Michael! That really gave me a good chuckle to make this Sunday morning seem even brighter. I wonder about the process that made the original quote became simplified?
Besides the Einstein quote, two more of my favorites are:
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
(Leonardo da Vinci)
and
“What is the simplest thing that could possibly work?” (Ward Cunningham, inventor of the wiki.)
Wikiguy is wise.