Simple Quotes

The following are 14 of the best quotes on the topic of Simplicity I've collected over the years. I hope they could inspire you-when problems seem a little too complicated to solve at times-as much as they did for me. And in the process... improve your design.

What has design got to do with simplicity?

Everything. Personally, at least.

In my years of practice designing there is one philosophy I always keep in mind-Simplicity. Don't make things more difficult than they already are. If you can explain things in five words, don't use ten. Design is essentially problem-solving. Devising a visual solution to communicate an intended message effectively. Why use ten effects to treat a graphic element when you can do it with one?

K.I.S.S. (a.k.a. Keep It Simple, Silly.)

14 Quotes on "Simplicity" by the Greatest Thinkers of All Time

• "The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak." ~ Hans Hofmann
• "The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials." ~ Lin Yutang
• "There is no greatness where there is no simplicity." ~ Leo Tolstoy
• "Simplicity, carried to an an extreme, becomes elegance." ~ Jon Franklin
• "The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply." ~ Kahlil Gibran
• "It is proof of high culture to say the greatest matters in the simplest way." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
• "The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters is simplicity; nothing is better than simplicity." ~ Walt Whitman
• "Simplicity is an exact medium between too little and too much." ~ Sir Joshua Reynolds
• "Simplicity and naturalness are the truest marks of distinction." ~ W. Somerset Maugham
• "Confusion and clutter are the failure of design, not the attributes of information." ~ Edward R. Tufte
• "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." ~ Leonardo da Vinci
• "Genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple." ~ C.W. Ceram
• "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." ~ Albert Einstein
• "Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge." ~ Winston Churchill