Simplicity
Overview
 
Simplicity is the state or quality of being simple. It usually relates to the burden which a thing puts on someone trying to explain or understand it. Something which is easy to understand or explain is simple, in contrast to something complicated
Complexity
In general usage, complexity tends to be used to characterize something with many parts in intricate arrangement. The study of these complex linkages is the main goal of complex systems theory. In science there are at this time a number of approaches to characterizing complexity, many of which are...

. Alternatively, as Herbert Simon
Herbert Simon
Herbert Alexander Simon was an American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist, and professor—most notably at Carnegie Mellon University—whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, computer science, public administration, economics,...

 suggested, something is simple or complex
Complex
A complex is a whole that comprehends a number of intricate parts, especially one with interconnected or mutually related parts; for example, a complex of buildings.Complex may refer to:-Biology:...

 depending on the way we choose to describe it.

In some uses, simplicity can be used to imply beauty
Beauty
Beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction. Beauty is studied as part of aesthetics, sociology, social psychology, and culture...

, purity or clarity.
Quotations

Simplicity is the most deceitful mistress that ever betrayed man.

Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free.

Joseph Brackett, Simple Gifts|Simple Gifts (1848)

Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.

Plurality ought never be posited without necessity.

If you can’t reduce a difficult engineering problem to just one 8-1/2 x 11-inch sheet of paper, you will probably never understand it.

Ralph Brazelton Peck, as quoted by

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.

Albert Einstein, On the Method of Theoretical Physics (1933) Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson, p. 544.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit." Blessed are they who are stripped of every thing, even of their own wills, that they may no longer belong to themselves.

François Fénelon, p. 544.

God would behold in you a simplicity which will contain so much the more of His wisdom as it contains less of your own.

François Fénelon, p. 544.

He sows June fields with clover, and the worldBroadcasts with little common kindnesses.The plain good souls He sends us, who fulfillLife's homely duties in the daily pathWith cheerful heart, ambitious of no moreThan to supply the wants of friend and kin,Yet serve God's higher love to human hearts;Giving a secret sweetness to the home,The hidden fragrance of a kindly heart,The simple beauty of a useful life,That never dazzles, and that never tires.

Samuel Longfellow, p. 544.

 
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