#implicit

In writing, I search for believability, simplicity and emotional impact. ↗

— Hal David

#i #impact #search #simplicity #writing

The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one's preconceived ideas. In the event, one is always bewildered by their simplicity, their grandeur of design, and by that element of the bizarre which seems inherent in them. ↗

— Jean Cocteau

#always #bear #bewildered #bizarre #design

We have lost contact with reality, the simplicity of life. ↗

— Paulo Coelho

#life #lost #reality #simplicity

In many ways, it was much, much harder to get the first book contract. The hardest thing probably overall has been learning not to trust people, publicists and so forth, implicitly. ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#book #contract #first #forth #get

Men have defined the parameters of every subject. All feminist arguments, however radical in intent or consequence, are with or against assertions or premises implicit in the male system, which is made credible or authentic by the power of men to name. ↗

— Andrea Dworkin

#assertions #authentic #consequence #credible #defined

Simplicity is a great element of good breeding. ↗

— Fanny Kemble

#element #good #good breeding #great #simplicity

Simplicity is a state of mind. ↗

— Charles Wagner

#simplicity #state

For us to deem a work of architecture elegant, it is hence not enough that it look simple: we must feel that the simplicity it displays has been hard won, that it flows from the resolution of demanding technical or natural predicament. Thus we call the Shaker staircase in Pleasant Hill elegant because we know--without ever having constructed one ourselves--that a staircase is a site complexity, and that combinations of treads, risers and banisters rarely approach the sober intelligibility of the Sharkers' work. We deem a modern Swiss house elegant because we not how seamlessly its windows have been joined to their concrete walls, and how neatly the usual clutter of construction has been resolved away. We admire starkly simple works that we intuit would, without immense effort, have appeared very complicated. (p 209) ↗

— Alain de Botton

#complexity #complicated #construction #design #elegance

[Donald] Keene observed [in a book entitled The Pleasures of Japanese Literature, 1988] that the Japanese sense of beauty has long sharply differed from its Western counterpart: it has been dominated by a love of irregularity rather than symmetry, the impermanent rather than the eternal and the simple rather than the ornate. The reason owes nothing to climate or genetics, added Keene, but is the result of the actions of writers, painters and theorists, who had actively shaped the sense of beauty of their nation. Contrary to the Romantic belief that we each settle naturally on a fitting idea of beauty, it seems that our visual and emotional faculties in fact need constant external guidance to help them decide what they should take note of and appreciate. 'Culture' is the word we have assigned to the force that assists us in identifying which of our many sensations we should focus on and apportion value to. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#design #emotional #japan #simplicity #value

I find that to be a fool as to worldly wisdom, and to commit my cause to God, not fearing to offend men, who take offence at the simplicity of truth, is the only way to remain unmoved at the sentiments of others. ↗

— John Woolman

#commit #fearing #find #fool #god