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Simplicity   Listen
noun
Simplicity  n.  
1.
The quality or state of being simple, unmixed, or uncompounded; as, the simplicity of metals or of earths.
2.
The quality or state of being not complex, or of consisting of few parts; as, the simplicity of a machine.
3.
Artlessness of mind; freedom from cunning or duplicity; lack of acuteness and sagacity. "Marquis Dorset, a man, for his harmless simplicity neither misliked nor much regarded." "In wit a man; simplicity a child."
4.
Freedom from artificial ornament, pretentious style, or luxury; plainness; as, simplicity of dress, of style, or of language; simplicity of diet; simplicity of life.
5.
Freedom from subtlety or abstruseness; clearness; as, the simplicity of a doctrine; the simplicity of an explanation or a demonstration.
6.
Weakness of intellect; silliness; folly. "How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning?"






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Simplicity" Quotes from Famous Books



... was once more in a position to help my fellows, what could I want to give them but that which was the very bread and water of life to me—the Saviour himself? And how was I to do this?—By trying to represent the man in all the simplicity of His life, of His sayings and doings, of His refusals to say or do.—I took the story from the beginning, and told them about the Baby; trying to make the fathers and mothers, and all whose love for children supplied the lack of fatherhood and ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... pitched her voice to sing, Then glanced her dark eye on the king, And then around the silent ring; And laughed, and blushed, and oft did say Her pretty oath, By yea and nay, She could not, would not, durst not play! At length upon the harp with glee, Mingled with arch simplicity, A soft yet lively air she rung, While thus the ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... not, exist in the possessor of the face. The power of such a countenance lies not so much in what it actually represents, as in the suggestion it holds out to another. So often it is with a beautiful character. Analyze it carefully, and you will reduce it generally to absolute simplicity and absolute purity—two elements common enough in adulteration; but place it face to face with a more complex personality, and mirror-like it will take on a hundred delicate shades of ethical beauty, while at the same time preserving ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... no connected plot in it and hardly any action, but there is the same incisive character-drawing and clear etching of conditions that characterize the earlier work. It is a maturer effort and a more forceful political argument, hence it lacks the charm and simplicity which assign Noli Me Tangere to a preeminent place in Philippine literature. The light satire of the earlier work is replaced by bitter sarcasm delivered with deliberate intent, for the iron had evidently entered his soul with broadening ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... slender and very lean. He had a curious teetering gait, and he took ridiculously short steps in marching, as if he were a monkey who had not learned to feel at ease on his hind legs. His small, wilted, wrinkled face, and his expression of mingled simplicity and shrewdness, were also monkey-like. At Thurstane's reprimand he trotted close up to him with exactly the air of a circus Jocko who expects a whipping, but who hopes ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... simplicity the lesson may be broken up. For one thing, the husband has much to do in solving the problem. Does a man think always deeply of the responsibility he assumes when he takes a young wife away from the shelter of mother-love and father-love, ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller

... deductions are simplicity itself," said he. "It would be difficult to name any articles which afford a finer field for inference than a pair of glasses, especially so remarkable a pair as these. That they belong to a woman I infer ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... fortune in such cunning words, pretending to have heard all about it, that before long the Farmer found himself telling the whole story—all except the secret of blowing the conch, for, with all his simplicity, the Farmer was not quite such a fool as to ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... before seen anybody so handsome, or so finely dressed as the Count; and, in the simplicity of her coquetry, allowed her satisfaction to be quite visible. Nothing could be more clumsy than the gentleman's mode of complimenting her; but for this, perhaps, his speeches were more effective than others more delicate would have ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray

... them. I know that I can rely upon you." He then asked with great warmth of friendship what I was about, and inquired after my family, etc. In short, I never saw him display less reserve or more familiarity and unaffected simplicity; which he did the more readily, perhaps, because his ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... Euclidean geometry and the practically-rigid body of reality, we readily arrive at the following view, which was entertained by that acute and profound thinker, H. Poincare:—Euclidean geometry is distinguished above all other imaginable axiomatic geometries by its simplicity. Now since axiomatic geometry by itself contains no assertions as to the reality which can be experienced, but can do so only in combination with physical laws, it should be possible and reasonable—whatever may be the nature of reality—to retain Euclidean ...
— Sidelights on Relativity • Albert Einstein

... moment came, there was some little attempt at glory. Who does not know the way in which a lately married couple's little dinner-party stretches itself out from the pure simplicity of a fried sole and a leg of mutton to the attempt at clear soup, the unfortunately cold dish of round balls which is handed about after the sole, and the brightly red jelly, and beautifully pink cream, which are ordered, in ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... and began to burn their houses indiscriminately, and also a meeting-house which was built by them, except eight dollars, a convenient chapel where the early christian Tuscaroras such as Sacaresa and Solomon Longboard, both sachems, with many others, delighted to worship the Almighty in the simplicity of their faith. And after they had finished their destruction they went down in pursuit of the fleeing train of white people on the ridge road: by this time the Tuscaroras had stationed themselves at a log house, ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson

... and fear nothing, and gradually you will learn what little you need to know; and most of all, you will know yourself the best and the loveliest of women. Dear Ivy, I would not part with your sweet, unconscious simplicity for all the accomplishments and acquired elegancies of the finest lady in the world." (That's what men always say.) "You are not ignorant of anything you ought to know, and your ignorance of the world is an additional charm to one ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... these well-dressed young ladies (Eloquent took into account that it was Sunday) have held out helping hands to a total stranger with such absolute simplicity, so entirely as a matter of course? not as a young woman to a young man, but as one fellow-creature to another who had, literally, in this instance, ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... which, starting out from principles, evident of themselves, develops science by way of conclusions drawn, after the manner of the geometricians. The apparent severity and simplicity of this method are very seductive, and very dangerous, when we have to deal not with figures, but with men; when the varied, complex and delicate exigencies which accumulate when human nature comes into play do not exactly square with the formula; and, when instead of dealing with abstractions, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... was touched; and with a beautiful child-like simplicity, she received all the blessed truths that her 'white brother' taught her. Her affections were strongly drawn towards the character of Jesus the Merciful, as she always called the Savior; and she became sensitively alive to the guilt of ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... some sturdy cobbler holds out, and refuses to part with his stall, and the whole plan is disconcerted. Long may such impediments exist! But then we should conform to circumstances, and assume in our public works a certain sober simplicity of character, which should point out that they were dictated by utility rather than show. The affectation of an expensive style only places us at a disadvantageous contrast with other nations, and our ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... recent conduct; if he ate of the cake, he surely could not have put in poison himself, or directed others to do so; if, on the other hand, he had poisoned the cake, Cardan feared greatly that, in the simplicity of his nature, he would assuredly let his accusers know what he had done. And his mind was greatly upset by the prodigies of which he had recently had experience. For some reason or other he did not visit the accused in ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... the executive head of the provisional government which had been formed in Massachusetts, during one of the last of his lucid intervals. On behalf of the government he sent a letter to Lee, quite touching for its fairminded simplicity. The council had come into possesssion of a letter from Ireland making very unfavorable mention of Lee. It produced no impression upon the council. "On the contrary," says Otis, "we are at a loss to know which is the highest evidence of your virtues—the ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath

... to be fairly and cheerfully admitted that General Grant's conduct, with respect to all the circumstances of the surrender exhibited some extraordinary traits of magnanimity. He had conducted it with as much simplicity as possible, avoided sensation, and spared everything that might wound the feelings or imply the humiliation of a vanquished foe. Such conduct was noble. Before the surrender, General Grant had expressed to his own officers his intention not to require ...
— Lee's Last Campaign • John C. Gorman

... barbaric splendour in the costumes of both men and women, combined with some degree of graceful simplicity. The king was clothed in a softly-dressed deer-skin jacket, over which he wore a wolf-skin with the hair outside. A tunic of purple cotton, brought by Phoenician ships from the far East, covered him as far down as the knees, which were bare, while his ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... working. Also the obtaining of a working impulse in the cylinder for each revolution of the crankshaft should give a great advantage in regularity of rotation—which it undoubtedly does—and the elimination of the operating gear for the valves, inlet and exhaust, should give greater simplicity ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... The very simplicity of the picture gives it singular dignity and repose. Classic in its clearness of outline and paucity of detail, mediaeval in sentiment, since the great Norman church dominates the whole, its appeal is at once wistful and severe. And, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... with all the enthusiasm of a romantic girl's first love. She felt the most ardent attachment, and could not,—would not conceal it from the object of her adoration. She loved him with the genuine simplicity of a heart incapable of deceit; and, unpractised in the school of worldly prudence, unacquainted with the arts to which more experienced women resort for the purpose of enhancing their own charms, or fixing more firmly the affections of men, she had surrendered her whole soul to her lover ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... his general conduct, also, certain traits appeared, forcing themselves upon his mother's attention. He ceased to affect the dandy, but became more attentive to the cleanliness of his body and dress, and moved more freely and alertly. The increasing softness and simplicity of his manner aroused a ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... the King James version of the Bible, especially in one of its earlier printings, with a page of serious discourse of to-day and the effects of the tendency will be easily seen. It is part of the general tendency toward greater simplicity of expression which has developed the clear and simple English of the best contemporary writers out of the involved and ornate style of the period of Queen Elizabeth. An ornate and involved style needs a good deal of punctuation to make it intelligible, while a simple and direct style ...
— Punctuation - A Primer of Information about the Marks of Punctuation and - their Use Both Grammatically and Typographically • Frederick W. Hamilton

... It was the vice of the Pharisees, on whom Christ denounced the severest judgments. He, too, would denounce it with the most unsparing severity, whenever he fancied he detected it in rulers, or in venerated dignitaries of the church, or in the customs of conventional life. He sought simplicity and sincerity in all their forms. Truth alone should be his polar star, and this would be revealed by the "inner light," the peculiar genius of his whole system, which, if it led to many new views of duty and holiness, yet was the cause of many ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... Russia's foremost workers in the revolutionary movement, and one who, through beauty of character, simplicity of soul and great strategical ability, has been the idol of the Russian revolutionary youth for many years, is here as the delegate of the Russian Revolutionary Socialist party, to raise funds for a new uprising. He was right when he said, at the meeting ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various

... In one delicious village they wandered, after lunch at the inn, into the little church which stood embowered among blossoming trees. The old vicar left his garden and offered to show them its beauties, and Jean fell in love with the simplicity and the feeling of homeliness that ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... belongs to the category of musical philosophers, which is all the more strange, as her mind is full of simplicity. This caryatid has the limpid, innocent eyes of a child, and is unsophisticated and sincere like one. She is surrounded by a great throng of admirers, who are attracted by her beauty, and more still by the nimbus that makes a woman touched by ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... shelter, so out we went and got one of our ambulances, and a young doctor with his fiancee went off with her. There was a lot of argument about where the woman lived, until one young man said, "Well, get in somehow, or the baby will have arrived." There is a simplicity about these tragic times, and nothing matters ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan

... a singular condition of simplicity those days. It was due to the fact that I had had no confidant in school and had been brought up in a home where there was neither father ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... work all this out for ourselves; we must make our own place in society; we must frame our own creeds; we must live our own religion; for no longer can one man's religion be taken unquestionably by any other. As the world has been unified, so is the individual unit exalted. With all this, the simplicity of life is passing away. Our front doors are wide open as the trains go by. The caravan traverses our front yard. We speak to millions, millions speak to us; and we must cultivate the social tact, the gentleness, the adroitness, the firmness ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan

... to the memory of James Nicholson, late stuard of William and Mary College. Was born in the Town of Invenck, North Britton, ano 1711, died the 22nd of January, 1773. Frugality—industry, and simplicity of manners and independence of Soul Adorned his character ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... been preached, the strenuous life has been lauded, but, as William Barclay Parsons recently stated it:[1] "We need force, we need a vigorous force; we need that direction and avoidance of the unnecessary which is simplicity, but with either one alone there is something lacking. Instead of latent force and great energy without control, instead of quiet gentleness, of power of control without vigor to be controlled, what we need is ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards

... bee-keeper without further directions, will readily perceive how any operation, which in the common hives, is performed with difficulty, if it can be performed at all, is reduced to simplicity and certainty, by the control of the combs. If however, bee-keepers will be negligent and ignorant, no hive can possible make them very successful. If they belong to the fraternity of "no eyes," who have kept ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... native air, greatly enfeebled in body, and sorely afflicted in mind. The charge of theatrical affectation of illness has been brought against Grattan by the Unionists,—against Grattan who, as to his personal habits, was simplicity itself! It is a ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... Roundheads dour, with their pitiless creed, had failed to destroy its fragrant sanctity, which lingered in those foot-worn aisles like the memory of incense, the echo of a monkish prayer. Was it all a great delusion?—or were our fathers wise in their simplicity? In the past men had died for every faith; to-day it would be hard to find men having any ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... they arrived at a house built with equal elegance and simplicity, where nothing favored either of prodigality or avarice. The master of it was a philosopher, who had retired from the world, and who cultivated in peace the study of virtue and wisdom, without any of that rigid and morose severity so commonly to be found in men of his character. He had chosen to ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... ahorizontal curve: its secrecy in springs and latent humidity, revealed by rhabdomantic or hygrometric instruments and exemplified by the well by the hole in the wall at Ashtown gate, saturation of air, distillation of dew: the simplicity of its composition, two constituent parts of hydrogen with one constituent part of oxygen: its healing virtues: its buoyancy in the waters of the Dead Sea: its persevering penetrativeness in runnels, gullies, inadequate dams, leaks on shipboard: its properties ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... in a kind of ironic simplicity, and he seemed to me as I looked upon him like a man exalted out of all reason by some great joy. "It is but a gardener's wrangle—how best to ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... from foes, there was one proof of unimpeachable orthodoxy that was rarely disputed. He must be a good Catholic who could curse and swear. The Huguenot soldier would do neither.[278] So nearly, indeed, did the Huguenot affirmation approach to the simplicity of the biblical precept, that one Roman Catholic partisan leader of more than ordinary audacity had assumed for the motto on his standard the blasphemous device: "'Double 's death' has conquered 'Verily.'"[279] But the strictness ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... have presented these thoughts, read the poem again to the children. Call attention to its musical structure, its simplicity, the beauty of its expressions, and then read it a third time. It is one of those beautiful things which may well ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... picture of the senseless, corrupting luxury of the Samaritan magnates, on which the Tekoan shepherd pours his scorn, but which is simplicity itself, and almost asceticism, before what he would see if he came to London or New York. To him it seemed effeminate to loll on a divan at meals, and possibly it was a custom imported from abroad. It is noted that 'the older custom in Israel was to sit while eating.' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... scarcely less a stout brave presence and an emphasised character for the new generation than for the old; noted here as she is, in particular, for her fine old-time value of clearness and straightness. I see in her strong simplicity, that of an earlier, quieter world, a New York of better manners and better morals and homelier beliefs, the very elements of some portrait by a grave Dutch or other truth-seeking master; she looks out with some of the strong marks, the anxious honesty, the modest humour, the ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... generally liked, nor more useful to the vegetarian cook than the haricot bean. Whether on account of its refined flavour, its delicate colour, its size, or last, but not least, its cheapness, I do not hesitate to place it first. Like the potato, however, its very simplicity lays it open to careless treatment, and many who would be the first to appreciate its good qualities if it were placed before them well cooked and served, now recoil from the idea of habitually feeding off what they ...
— New Vegetarian Dishes • Mrs. Bowdich

... Jackson used the offices for partisan purposes, and few objected to the practice on theoretical grounds. The simplicity of the National Government made the habit less destructive than it otherwise would have been. The spoils system did not enter the army or navy, the only extensive technical departments of the United States. In other branches of ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... But her simplicity of belief and earnestness of purpose soon changed their thoughts on the subject and when, early in the year 1812, Mr. and Mrs. Newell sailed for Calcutta, many came together to wish them God-speed on their ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross

... it so much feeling and good sense, mixed with an amiable and girlish simplicity, as to render it particularly engaging. There is also something peculiarly gratifying to an Englishman in the reflection, that such disaster could not have befallen almost any British crew. It was evidently ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... few more hints might have preserved me from the painful process of what was called rubbing off one's horns. Again and again I had to say to myself, "That would have done very well at home, but it was a mistake for all that." My social rawness and simplicity stuck to me for many years, just as the Dessau dialect remained with me for life; at least I was assured by my friends that though I had spoken French and English for so many years, they could always detect in my German that I came from Dessau ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller

... 1st Rule. Simplicity of Conception.—From this rule we learn that the hypothesis must be simple in conception, and simple in its fundamental principles, and further, that the same characteristic of simplicity must mark each step ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... you cannot do better than to begin in front of this landmark, and drive down Commercial Street. Here for several smiling miles there is nothing—no ugly building large or small, no ruthless invasion of modernity to mar the mood of happy simplicity. Her beauty of beach, of sky, of river, Weymouth shares with other South Shore towns. Her perfection of ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery

... engines of destruction were intended for fighting at close quarters, and can be described here in a few lines because of their guileless simplicity. They consisted of conical explosive bombs on the ends of broom handles! A strong man could whirl one of them round his head, like a two-handed sword or battle-axe, and, when the momentum was sufficient, hurl it over the water for about seventy-five feet. On nose-diving into the sea and ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife

... still live all around us in Ireland, spread evenly through the four provinces, a world of the vanished past enduring among us into the present; and, so mightily did these old builders work, and with such large simplicity, that what they built will surely outlast every handiwork of our own day, and endure through numberless to-morrows, bridging the morning and evening twilight ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston

... consume, the sacramentarian theories of this day. 'O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?' Is it not like some malignant sorcery, that after the Evangelical revival of the last century and the earlier part of this, there should spring up again this old, old error, and darken the simplicity of the Gospel teaching, that Christ's work, apprehended by faith, without anything else, is the means, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... women, who seemed to be the principal, and who was called Oorattooa, stepped upon them, and taking up her garments all around her to the waist, turned about, with great composure and deliberation, and with an air of perfect innocence and simplicity, three times; when this was done, she dropped the veil, and stepping off the cloth, three more pieces were laid on, and she repeated the ceremony, then stepping off as before; the last three were laid on, and the ceremony was repeated in the same manner the third time. Immediately after ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... waking to terrible facts, who was struggling to comprehend a world that had caught her unawares. She had removed her hat and was carrying it loosely in her hand that had fallen to her side. Her hair swept back in two waves above the temples with a simplicity that made the head distinguished. Even the nurses' caps betrayed stray curls or rolls. Her figure was large, and the articulation was perfect as she walked, showing that she had had the run of fields in her girlhood. Yet she did not stoop as is the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... cousin, Richard Mallock of Cockington, had been asked, and had consented, to stand as Conservative candidate for the Torquay division of Devonshire. His local popularity, which was great, depended mainly on the engaging and somewhat shy simplicity of his manner, on his honesty, which was recognized by all, and on his generosity and sound sense as a landlord. These latter qualities had lately been made conspicuous by his administration of those parts of his property which were now, one after another, being quickly ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock

... in this," replied the old woman, "that the beard of thy understanding is not yet grown; and that the egg-shell of thy inexperience is still sticking to the head of thy simplicity; and that thy brains bear no adequate proportion to the skull enveloping them; and in fine, lest I seem to speak overmuch in parables, or to employ a superfluity of epithets, that thou art ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... There was a genial simplicity about the man; Suvaroff felt overcome with confusion. "What is the matter? Are you ill?" he ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... rendered more gay and cheerful by the reflections in the water, the green of the trees, the red of the houses, the tall windmills, showing their dark tops and white sails against the azure of the sky, and still more by an air of quiet simplicity not seen in any ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... with a smile as he put away his pocket-book, "if people would only settle their affairs in that way, a good part of the occupation of lawyers would be gone. Brevity is the soul of wit; and the fear of simplicity is the beginning ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman

... thoughts. She resented her commanding neighbor's casual manners. There was something puzzling and difficult to meet in her plainness of speech, which excluded the personal relation. It was like the cut and finish of her clothes—mysterious in their simplicity, and not to ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... experienced in a trolley. This confidence is quickly shattered. I doubt if there is anything in the world more "hair lifting" than the road over which that car conveys its startled occupants. Its very simplicity makes it the more horrifying; for, since the vehicle is light, no massive supports are deemed essential; and, as the car is open, the passengers seem to be traveling in a flying machine. I never realized what it was to be ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard

... the retreat of the Hurons to Isle St. Joseph, the principal authorities are the Relations of 1649 and 1650, which are ample in detail, and written with an excellent simplicity and modesty; the Relation Abrge of Bressani; the reports of the Father Superior to the General of the Jesuits at Rome; the manuscript of 1652, entitled Mmoires touchant la Mort et les Vertus des Pres, etc.; the unpublished letters of Garnier; and a letter of Chaumonot, written on the ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... should be a modification or transformation of its predecessor. No form should be entirely destroyed. It is also essential that the series should be developed so that each step should show either an evolution into greater manifoldness and variety, or a return to greater simplicity."—Froebel's Pedagogics, page 225. ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... present to you an annual report on the state of the Union, I found my thought dominated by an immortal sentence of Abraham Lincoln's—"Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us dare to do our duty as we understand it"—a sentence immortal because it embodies in a form of utter simplicity and purity the essential faith of the nation, the faith in which it was conceived, and the faith in which it has grown to glory and power. With that faith and the birth of a nation founded upon it came the hope into the world that a new order would prevail throughout the affairs of mankind, an ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson

... the field in which he was to manifest his greatest achievements. But there is just as little doubt that all the elements of character which exalted his military gifts and instincts into an almost antique nobility, simplicity, and grandeur—his dignity, purity, dutifulness, his profound religious devotion, and sense of humor—came to him from his mother, who was descended from an ancient patrician family of the little republican commonwealth, the once famous ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... appearance had changed, but he could not help penetrating his disguise. It was the man who had called himself Count von Weimer—an Alsatian whose sympathies were so strongly French, and who had come to Cornwall for peace. The simplicity, and yet the audacity, of ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking

... of ears of grain, we follow the same calling; the latter produce food for the stomach, the former food for the mind. Thus I understand their explanation and welcome it as an example of gracious simplicity. ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... marked ability in this body is Dr. Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford. He is the third son of William Wilberforce, the celebrated philanthropist, but by no means inherits the simplicity of character and singular absence of all personal ambition which made his father so widely beloved and respected. He is known as the leading exponent of High-Church views, and has been heard in the House of Lords on every question directly or indirectly affecting the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... was the son of a Leicestershire weaver, and he was himself a weaver by trade. He had thoughts and he could express them. And so he traveled and preached in the marketplaces, at crossroads, on church-steps—just the religion of friendship: simplicity, industry, directness, truth. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... an idea for the tenderest handling. My feeling is, while giving Mrs. BUCKROSE every credit for such an inspiration, that she should have been a little sterner with herself over the treatment, and thus avoided a certain stickiness that may irritate those who prefer the simplicity of nature to a not quite sufficiently concealed art. But, as I began by saying, it all depends on the individual palate; and, anyhow, the book has the historic excuse of being a very little one, which you can read, with pleasure or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various

... in the nature of Ludwig much the same simplicity and gentleness that characterized Andreas—which common qualities, no doubt, had much to do with the strong friendship that there was between them; and all his neighbors, remembering how good a son he ...
— An Idyl Of The East Side - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier

... airy temple that his dismal figure had thrown its shadow there. He pointed to some scattered stones, the remnants of a former structure, and to flowers such as young girls delight to nurse in their gardens, but which had now relapsed into the wild simplicity of nature. ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... ignorance and simplicity of our travelling' lady, we give the following,—and what will the North say to this new argument in favor of slavery? namely, a truckle-cart! a black boy riding!! two white boys giving him a ride!!! and three girls, one of them black! arm in arm!! ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams

... was threatened with mischief from hostile elements about him which he could not control; for around John Knox all was peace. He thanked God for having granted him grace, that by his means the Gospel was preached throughout Scotland in its simplicity and truth: he now desired nothing more than to depart out of this miserable life; and thus, without pain, in November 1572, after bearing the burden and heat of the day, he ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... declared. "I prefer anything which does not make too great a strain upon the intellect. Besides, it is the very simplicity of this country which makes ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... grew, Eve's courage redoubled; the greatness of her husband's nature, his inventor's simplicity, the tears that now and again she saw in the eyes of this dreamer of dreams with the tender heart,—all these things aroused in her an unsuspected energy of resistance. Once again she tried the plan that had succeeded so well already. She wrote to M. Metivier, ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac

... great merits of "Don Quixote," and one of the qualities that have secured its acceptance by all classes of readers and made it the most cosmopolitan of books, is its simplicity. There are, of course, points obvious enough to a Spanish seventeenth century audience which do not immediately strike a reader now-a-days, and Cervantes often takes it for granted that an allusion will be generally ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... and simplicity which recall some of the French sentimental novelists of the eighteenth century, and especially ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... very fast, and was not always delivered with strict accuracy, a rumour got abroad that the Queen was walking in the Palace Garden when the messengers came to tell her she had succeeded to the Crown. A great deal was made of the poetic simplicity of the surroundings of the interesting central figure—the girl in her tender bloom among the lilies and roses, which she resembled. We can remember a brilliant novel of the time which had a famous chapter beginning with an impassioned apostrophe ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... it seemed that he was looking into features exemplifying all the wholesome virtues of those men who built the Republic. It was a face of rugged strength and unassuming simplicity. Its lines bespoke perils faced without fear and privations endured without complaint. Here in a pocket of wilderness which the nation had forgotten survived many others of those unaltered pioneers. But in the expression that death had made ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... 'Mr. Gibson's skill is most admirable when we consider that it is allied to poetic feeling of the utmost simplicity and depth.' ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

... L1,500, and a City remembrancer could do the same for L1,200. The scheme proposed by the mayor and sheriffs on this occasion affected no less than one hundred and sixty-three places of employment, and was simplicity itself, being nothing more than that they themselves and their successors should forego one-third of the value of any place that became vacant during their year of office, and that this third should be ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe

... genius in all childhood. But the creative joy that makes it great in its simplicity dies a natural death or is killed, and genius dies with it. In favored spirits, neither few nor many, the joy and the might survive; for you must know that unless it be accompanied with imagination, memory is cold and lifeless. The forms it brings before ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various

... which has been so well illustrated by the late Professor Sekiya's model of the motion of an earth-particle during the Japanese earthquake of January 15th, 1887. The motion in this case was so complicated that the model was, for simplicity, made in three parts, the first of which alone is represented in Fig. 7.[10] It is clear that in such an earthquake, Mallet's method would utterly fail in ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison

... tender sympathy stole over him; a loving mercy to himself as well as others stole into his heart. He thought of HER as she had nestled at his side, hand in hand, upon the moonlit veranda of her father's house, before his hard convictions had chilled and affrighted her. He thought of her fresh simplicity, and what had seemed to him her wonderful girlish beauty, and lo! in a quick turn of the path he stood breathless and tremulous before the house. The moonbeams lay tenderly upon the peaceful eaves; the long blossoms of the Madeira ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... medium size, has light-brown hair and beard, which are closely trimmed. His features are sharp, well cut, his eye bright, and his general expression calm and thoughtful. His manner is reserved, and to all but his intimate friends cold. He dresses with great simplicity, but with taste, and in the style of the day. His habits are simple, and he avoids publicity in all things. Standing as he does at the head of the mercantile interests of the country, he affords a fine example of the calm and dignified manner in which a ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... rest of the stuff of Europe. It leads one to consider the flux and reflux of civilization as something much more comparable to a pulse than to a growth. It makes us remember that rhythm which is observed in all forms of energy. It makes us doubt that mere progress from simplicity to complexity which used to be affirmed as the ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc

... careful always to play each in its right place; they carry their simplifying process to the length of using their chosen harmonies in regular order, one after the other, two bars each—it may come right and it may not, and when it does not the resulting complexities ruin the simplicity. This sort of thing might become unbearable, but I know how to escape from people of the corporal's class without being rude. I do not tell them I have another engagement—that is not accepted because, as ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... Waller, than with the 'well of English undefiled.' I cannot help differing. There are touches of nature about the old bard of Woodstock, that, to me, are worth all the turns of laborious wit in Cowley, and all the ornate and artificial simplicity of his courtly competitor. The description, for instance, of his ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... to them, to give, them a chance of becoming wise by foresight. The nearest thing to having experience of one's own, is to have other people's affairs brought before us in a shape that is interesting; this is sure to happen from your pen; our affairs and management will have an air of simplicity or importance that will not fail to strike; and I am convinced you have conducted them with as much originality as if you had been conducting discussions in politics or philosophy; and what more worthy ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... believed Mr. Crawford to be the first intellect of the age, and Mr. Macon the most honest man. The strict honesty of Macon captivated him, as it did most men. His home-spun ideas, his unaffected plainness of dress, and primitive simplicity of manner, combined with a wonderful fund of common sense, went home to the heart of Randolph, and he ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... steadily in the face for about thirty seconds. His countenance was as calm as that of a reposing infant. I think it was simplicity, rather than mischief, with perhaps a youthful playfulness, that led him to this outbreak. I have often noticed that even quiet horses, on a sharp November morning, when their coats are beginning to get the winter roughness, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... before seen the gown, and she asked the Vicomtesse where she got the pattern. The Vicomtesse said that the gown had been made by Leonard, a court dressmaker, and it was of the fashion the Queen had set to wear in the gardens of the Trianon when simplicity became the craze. Antoinette is to have it copied, so ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... there can be no danger possible," he said, in perfect simplicity of good faith. "For me—well, I have said it. I cannot imagine love coming near me in any shape, by degrees or unawares. It is a strange defect in my nature, but I am glad of it since it makes this pleasant ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... could, with this child of nature, it dawned upon her that she had hitherto been mistaken in her estimate of the Russian character. She began to understand the inward sense of that brotherly love, that apostolic spirit, which binds together every class of the immense Empire—to revere their simplicity of soul and calm god-like faith. She revised her former narrow Lutheran views and openly confessed that she was quite wrong in declaring, as she once did, that what the Little White Cows needed was "more soap and less salvation." The magic of love! It softened, not for the first time, her heart towards ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... furnishings. They surrounded themselves with troops of slaves. Instead of plain linen clothes they and their wives wore garments of silk and gold. At their banquets they spread embroidered carpets, purple coverings, and dishes of gilt plate. Pomp and splendor replaced the rude simplicity of an earlier age. ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... moment he felt a mad impulse to cast himself at the other's feet—and to say he knew not what. It was an emotion that so deeply stirred him, rather than a coherent thought, and he was aware in some vague way of his own unworthiness and smallness in the presence of this other man who possessed the simplicity of a child and ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... for his speech, for his skill in arms, for his horsemanship, for his soldiership, for his statesmanship, for his learning, he was beloved for his friendship, his generosity, his steadfastness, his simplicity, his conscientiousness, his religion. Amongst the lamentations over his death printed in Spenser's works, there is one poem by Matthew Roydon, a few verses of which I shall quote, being no vain eulogy. Describing his ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... added, but for want of room, anecdotes which show the quick decision and vivacity of her mind. Her face was in harmony with this combination. Her brow is as ideal and the eyes and lids as devout and modest as the Italian picture of the Madonna, while the lower part of the face has the simplicity and childish strength of the Indian race. Her picture presents the finest specimen of Indian beauty we have ever seen. Such a Woman is the sister and friend of all beings, as the worthy Man ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... the impulse to personal effort which has fallen upon us, the greatness of the work that is to be done, the simplicity of the means to be employed, and the cooperation of the better kind of working men themselves, I cannot but think that the promoters of this scheme have only to hold up their hands in order to collect as many voluntary teachers as they ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

... its transparent spirit-world can appear to be shallow. This fervid faith disappeared with the progress of time as necessarily as the dew of morning disappears before the rising sun, and thus the Latin religion came subsequently to wither; but the Latins preserved their simplicity of belief longer than most peoples and longer especially than the Greeks. As colours are effects of light and at the same time dim it, so art and science are not merely the creations but also the destroyers of faith; and, much as this ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... was the simple old clergyman: "You are going to London to join the Church, John; Golly is going there, too, as hospital nurse. There's a pair of you! He! he! Look after her, John, and protect her Manx simplicity." Before John could recover himself, Golly was at his side executing the final steps of a "cellar-door flap ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte

... nearer; every day was a pain past and a nearer joy. Welcome to the nipping frost and the northern winds; welcome the hail, the rain, the sleet—it brought him nearer. How she prayed for him with the loving simplicity of a child. If Heaven would but spare him, would save him from all dangers, would send him sunny skies and favorable winds, would work miracles in his behalf, would avert all accident by rail and road, would bring him back to her longing, loving arms—ah, if the kind, dear Heaven would do this. ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay

... regarded her with a rather hesitant air, as if he were at once puzzled and fearful,—puzzled by her simplicity, and fearful of grieving ...
— Mere Girauds Little Daughter • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... they treated diseases of every kind—though it does not appear that they were subject to many—with roots and herbs. Josephus says they were long-lived, and that many of them lived over a hundred years. This he attributes to their 'regular course of life,' and especially to 'the simplicity of ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... hopeless odds, to reestablish it. In 1867 the entire administration was reorganized; the supreme power, both military and civil, being restored to the Mikado. Soon afterward the Shinto cult, officially revived in its primal simplicity, was declared the Religion of State; and Buddhism was disendowed. Thus the Empire was reestablished upon the ancient lines; and all that the literary party had [375] hoped for seemed to ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... in the comparative simplicity of a republic, I am apt to be struck with even the ordinary circumstances incident to an aristocratical state of society. If, however, I should at any time amuse myself by pointing out some of the eccentricities, and some of the poetical characteristics of the latter, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... means of checking the overaction of this government; to resist its tendency to concentrate all power here, and to prevent a departure from the Constitution; or in case of one, to restore the government to its original simplicity and purity. State interposition, or to express it more fully, the right of a State to interpose her sovereign voice, as one of the parties to our constitutional compact, against the encroachments of this government, is the only ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... no children here," I said to myself, as I began to grow more excited, and the more so I grew, the less able I was to make out that which later on appeared to be simplicity itself. ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... and his gallantry, are no longer discovered, or believed no longer to exist, in the ranks of life to which he belongs, it will be worse for all of us than for the fame of his creator. Nor, when faith is lost in that possible combination of eccentricities and benevolences, shrewdness and simplicity, good sense and folly, all that suggests the ludicrous and nothing that suggests contempt for it, which form the delightful oddity of Pickwick, will the mistake committed be one merely of critical misjudgment. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... branches, and many a gross abuse couched under its shadow. But these might have been scared away without mutilating the tree till it was reduced to a stump. He desired, doubtless, to bring back the Church to the condition in which he supposed it had been when born. But one cannot reduce an adult to the simplicity and innocence of childhood by stripping off all his clothes, and denying him the ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... reply; "but, you see, special knowledge of this kind is the stock-in-trade of the medical jurist, and has to be acquired by special study, though the present example is one of the greatest simplicity. But let us consider it point by point; and first we will take this set of footprints which I have inferred to be a fisherman's. Note their enormous size. They should be the footprints of a giant. But the length of the stride shows that they were ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman

... means; and this is especially the case with communities, because the stakes played for are the highest, freedom or empire, and, when all are acting together, each man irrationally magnifies his own capacity. In fine, it is impossible to prevent, and only great simplicity can hope to prevent, human nature doing what it has once set its mind upon, by force of law or by any other deterrent ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... which Locke had already foreshadowed, with respect to the question of the substance of the soul. Hume enunciates two opinions. The first is that the question itself is unintelligible, and therefore cannot receive any answer; the second is that the popular doctrine respecting the immateriality, simplicity, and indivisibility of a thinking substance is a "true atheism, and will serve to justify all those sentiments for which ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... are remarkable for their simplicity. Indeed, in some cases he would seem to have applied himself to making trials the result of which could not have been seriously questioned. The following, quoting from Dr. Phipson's translation, will ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon

... strengthening of the sun's warmth. As I walked, or rather, trotted along, it did just that, and in the growing warmth of the day the sweet fragrances of the many various grasses rose to the surface, delighting my odor perceiving sensors with their earthy simplicity. ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn

... before he had split wood and lighted fires and swept corridors to earn two years of higher education. Pierson's mother, defeated in her wish that her son should go East to college, had tried to mitigate the rigors of Battle Field's primitive simplicity by herself fitting up his quarters. And she made them the show-rooms ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... raptures of millinery, and with the rainbow range in their delicately floating, delicately clinging draperies. But their hats, their gowns, always express sentiment, even when they cannot always express simplicity; and the just observer is obliged to own that their calm faces often express, if not simplicity, sentiment. Their beauty is very, very great, not a beauty of coloring alone, but a beauty of feature which is able to be patrician without being unkind; and if, as some American ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... privilege of wearing out their wretched lives in the brutal treadmill,—to barter their blood for a scanty crust of black bread and beg in vain; then, finding the world against them, turn their hands against the world,—become recruits to the great army of crime. From the child-like simplicity, where man saw and adored the Deity in all his works, heard his laughter in the ripple of the stream, his voice in the thunder-storm and saw his anger in the writhen bolt, to the present age of skepticism, where ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... accompany the Prince. I did not answer; she squeezed my hand, saying, "Ah! Madame Campan, what a blow I receive!" She embraced the child and me with tears. She knew how much I loved and valued the goodness and the noble simplicity of her disposition. I endeavoured to reassure her by saying that I should bring back the Prince to her; but she persisted, and said she understood the order, and knew what it meant. She then retired to her private room, holding her handkerchief to her eyes. One of the under-governesses ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... one class and a small one, were fated to remain unheard, even by the Student of Poetry, until the process of regeneration had run its course, and, we may say, the Poetic Revival gone to seed again: seeing that the virtues of simplicity and directness the new poets began by bringing once more into the foreground, are those ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... establishment in the palace, spoken to him of his apprehension of the increasing power of the party who, having reverted to the opinions of the Stoic philosophers, were ever denouncing the luxury and extravagance of modern ways, and endeavouring, both by example and precept, to reintroduce the simplicity ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty

... and telling the Gentile converts that, unless they were circumcised, they could not be saved. In this way they were filling them with alarm, lest they might be omitting something on which the welfare of their souls depended, and they were confusing their minds as to the simplicity of the gospel. To quiet these disturbed consciences it was resolved by the church at Antioch to appeal to the leading apostles at Jerusalem, and Paul and Barnabas were sent thither to procure a decision. This was the origin of what is called the Council ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker

... the Falls. Her gustativeness predominated so largely over her ideality, that she reminded me of a young lady who, after describing to me a supper of which by her own account she had largely partaken, said, with a candour almost shocking in its simplicity...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... realize the extreme simplicity of a poor man's kitchen. A Dutch oven, a kettle, a gridiron, a saucepan, two or three dumpy cooking-pots, and a frying-pan—that was all. All the crockery in the place, white and brown earthenware together, was not worth more than twelve ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... the possibility of failure; a twin-engine airplane has twice as many engine problems as a single-engine airplane." By analogy, in both software and electronics, the rule that simplicity increases robustness (see also {KISS Principle}). It is correspondingly argued that the right way to build reliable systems is to put all your eggs in one basket, after making sure that you've ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10

... originated in our times, but long before, in the days of our ancestors. It is likely that they did not hold to strict accuracy, and thus was formed a custom for their posterity, according to their own simplicity and their peculiar method. Yet all these lived more or less in peace, and we also live in peace with one another; and the disagreement in regard to the fast confirms the agreement in the faith.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} Among these were the elders [i.e., bishops of earlier date] ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... structure of the Cherokee language or dialect, that the syllabic alphabet is also in the nature of a grammar; so that those who know the language by ear, and master the alphabet, can at once read and write. Owing to the extreme simplicity of this system, it can be acquired in a few days. Some have learned it even in one day. Thus it happened that the Cherokees, who were at the beginning of one year ignorant and illiterate, had become in the course ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris

... terms. These you have absolutely rejected; and that, though in saucy terms enough, yet in such a manner as makes me admire you the more. Your pretty chit-chat to Mrs. Jewkes, the last Sunday night, so innocent, and so full of beautiful simplicity, half disarmed my resolution before I approached your bed: And I see you so watchful over your virtue, that though I hoped to find it otherwise, I cannot but confess my passion for you is increased by it. But now, what shall I say farther, Pamela?—I will make you, though a party, ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... Lessing says: "The superstition in which we have grown up does not lose its power over us when we see through it; not all who laugh about their chains are free"; or again, "We are soon indifferent to the good and even to the best, when it becomes regular"; "The genius loves simplicity, while the wit prefers complexity"; "The characteristic of a great man is that he treats the small things as small, and the important things as important"; "Whoever loses his mind from love would have lost it sooner ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... righteousness that is not always found in books. Their individual value, as they go out into the world, is to set right values on social customs and decrees; to establish the law of freedom in the home; to lead men and women out of the thraldom of ignorance, vulgarity, hearsay, and "style," into simplicity of living and a sane scale of household expense. The university leader of the future is the man who shall set laws over household accounts and who shall rule over such simple things as what best to eat and buy. He shall be an economist ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... of people, and yet to do it so (apparently) artlessly. This struck me so forcibly that it was not till later I began to realise with a sigh—if one himself is a writer, a sigh of envy—that Nene has a directness, a simplicity, a principle of internal growth or dramatic life of its own, which, alas! most of us ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... too many eatables on your expeditions. Dr. Kane says his party learned to modify and reduce their travelling-gear, and found that in direct proportion to its simplicity and to their apparent privation of articles of supposed necessity were their actual comfort and practical efficiency. Step by step, as long as their Arctic service continued, they went on reducing their sledging-outfit, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... much in other matters for White Fang to learn. Life in the Northland was simplicity itself when compared with the complicated affairs of Sierra Vista. First of all, he had to learn the family of the master. In a way he was prepared to do this. As Mit-sah and Kloo-kooch had belonged to Grey Beaver, sharing ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... yet carried out her plans of decoration—though there were few servants, no great display of splendid plate, no extravagance in the dinner itself, no magnificence in the ladies' dresses, for at this time simplicity was the fashion—yet everything pleased him, because of the perfections of his hostess. Madame de Sainfoy laid herself out to flatter him, to put him in a good humour with himself. Rather to the disgust of various old neighbours who had not dined at Lancilly for more ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... a handful of gold from his pocket. "For the poor of your parish, mon pere, if you will be good enough to accept it for them," said he, with great charm and simplicity of manner. The old priest flushed with pleasure, saying that he had many poor, and was constantly distressed because he could do so little. This would be a Godsend. I glanced at the Italian, and saw that his weary, ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... two systems, both seductive from their apparent simplicity, and both simple only by mutilation, that the Philosophy of the Conditioned, of which Sir William Hamilton is the representative, endeavours to steer a middle course, at the risk of sharing the fate of most mediators in a quarrel,—being repudiated ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel

... extreme simplicity of her dress she looked out of place standing on that bridge at that hour; he was thinking that she had not lost her distinction ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... year and upwards, all the teasing accomplishments of life are taught, and Mrs. Jorrocks, in her own mind, had already appropriated her to James Green, while Mr. Jorrocks, on the other hand, had assigned her to Stubbs. Belinda's dress was simplicity itself; her silken hair hung in shining tresses down her smiling face, confined by a plain tortoiseshell comb behind, and a narrow pink velvet band before. Round her swan-like neck was a plain white cornelian necklace; and her ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... when he had returned to his home in the back street of Twybridge, and was endeavouring to spend the holidays in a hard 'grind'. He loathed the penurious simplicity to which his life was condemned; all familiar circumstances were become petty, coarse, vulgar, in his eyes; the contrast with the idealised world of his ambition plunged him into despair: Even Mr. Gunnery seemed an ignoble figure when compared with the Professors ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... then, and introduced some gentlemen to me; and while they were talking Mr. Lawrence turned away. In a few moments he was back again with a lovely-looking young girl on his arm, blushing and yet self-possessed, with the same exquisite simplicity of manner he has himself. "My cousin Alice Wilton asks me to introduce her to you, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... commonest events and objects, as a test to prove that nature is always interesting from its inherent truth and beauty, without any of the ornaments of dress or pomp of circumstances to set it off. Hence the unaccountable mixture of seeming simplicity and real abstruseness in the Lyrical Ballads. Fools have laughed at, wise men scarcely understand them. He takes a subject or a story merely as pegs or loops to hang thought and feeling on; the incidents ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... nature of things; that the basis of all wit is truth; and that no thought can be valuable of which good sense is not the groundwork. Boileau has endeavoured to inculcate the same notion in several parts of his writings, both in prose and verse. This is that natural way of writing, that beautiful simplicity which we so much admire in the compositions of the ancients, and which nobody deviates from but those who want strength of genius to make a thought shine in its own natural beauties. Poets who want this strength ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... in the dreadful conflict—a service which had actually made them, within the last twelve hours, the foremost topic of conversation in London—so absolutely was fear swallowed up in joy—that, in the mere simplicity of her fervent nature, the poor woman threw her arms round my neck, as she thought of her son, and gave to me the kiss which ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey

... and ever fresh incidents, the young Castelfrancan passed a singularly calm and uneventful life. Untroubled, apparently, by the storm and stress of the political world about him, he devoted himself with a whole-hearted simplicity to the advancement of his art. Like Leonardo, he early won fame for his skill in music, and Vasari tells us the gifted young lute-player was a welcome guest in distinguished circles. Although of humble origin, he must have possessed a singular charm of manner, and ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook

... grammar, in which, among other innovations designed to simplify the study of the language for "boys just initiated," he proposed to substitute for the name of "ablative" that of "quale-quare-quidditive case." The mixture of amiable simplicity and not unamiable pedantry to which this stroke of nomenclature testifies was further illustrated in his practice of diversifying his sermons to his village flock with Hebrew quotations, which he always commended to their attention as "the immediate language of the Holy Ghost"—a practice which ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill

... given to Mary of Guise when she spoke, on the whole, the plain truth; and generally with the entire conduct of the prophet and of the Congregation. Dr. M'Crie justly remarks that Knox "found it difficult to preserve integrity and Christian simplicity amidst the ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... simplicity the red man rose and began to run slowly. For some time he kept it up, but as his mind reverted to the object of his race his patience began to ooze out. He could calculate pretty well the rate at which ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne

... shares in addition would be offered. What stock could support itself against such a flood as that? When the bottom was reached, and the time was ripe, the pool would gather in the harvest. It was a beautiful plan; the more beautiful because of its simplicity! ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... and the church. The energy with which he entered into the controversies of the time attracted public notice, and the burgesses of Cambridge chose him for their representative in both the parliaments called by the king in 1640. He carried with him to the house the simplicity of dress, and the awkwardness of manner, which bespoke the country farmer; occasionally he rose to speak, and then, though his voice was harsh, his utterance confused, and his matter unpremeditated, yet he seldom failed to command respect and attention ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... the drive. Then the man saw him and pulled up, though it is doubtful if he got any order or, indeed, any word. Julia had been looking back, but from the other side; and because she had been looking back and remembering much happiness and simplicity here, she was so grieved for one at least who dwelt here that her eyes were ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... kindness and encouragement, responsive to his own look of veneration. We must not take upon us to affirm that this was a mistake, although the Face may have looked no more kindly at Ernest than at all the world beside. But the secret was, that the boy's tender and confiding simplicity discerned what other people could not see; and thus the love, which was meant for all, became ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... another charming church, looking the very haunt of peace, good will to men. I can quite believe that even the devil might come a long way to gaze at some of these old New England churches. You can't think what a feeling of pure delight they give to the mind, in spite of, or because of, their simplicity. The green banks where they are built might be vast altars with elms for the altar candlesticks, and the smooth sward for the altar cloth. The devil may have heard all this, and wanted to see for himself if it were true. I don't know how he escaped from Rowley, as he left ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... potent than brevity and simplicity. His answer brought the blood to her face as no long dissertation could have brought it; it was so direct, so personal, so compounded of ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... when we remember the men and the age from which it comes, tempts one to form such a conception of Cartwright as, indeed, the portrait prefixed to his works (ed. 1651) gives us; the offspring of an over-educated and pedantic age, highly stored with everything but strength and simplicity; one in whom genius has been rather shaped (perhaps cramped) than developed: but genius was present, without a doubt, under whatsoever artificial trappings; and Ben Jonson spoke but truth when he said, 'My son Cartwright writes all like a man.' ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley

... solicit the reader's attention to the simplicity, the pathos and the beauty of this personification ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... lined with fruit-trees, and numerous little gardens are strewn here and there,—true country gardens with everything in them; flowers, onions, cabbages and grapevines, currants, and a great deal of manure. The village has a primitive air; it is rustic, and has that decorative simplicity which we artists are forever seeking. In the far distance is the little town of Soulanges overhanging a vast sheet of water, like the buildings ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... he had to learn, as well as what he had to teach, always dwarfed merely personal considerations to their narrowest dimensions in his mind. Hence his impulsive candor, the clearness of his views, and the straightforward simplicity of his speech at once attracted notice, and although so young, he went speedily to the front in the local management of his party. In the article already quoted from, he tells us that after 1834 the managers left ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... The simplicity of Peter Junior's story, and the ingenuous manner in which it had been told, called for a different cross-examination from that which would have been adopted if this same counsel had been called upon to cross-examine the Swede. He made no effort to entangle ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... with quivering nostrils; a deep dimple accentuated the chin; the bluish-black tint of the shaven skin, softened with rice-powder, contrasted with the clear rose and white of the upper part of his cheeks. Always dressed with meticulous neatness and simplicity, following English rather than French taste; in manner punctiliously observant of the strictest conventionality, scrupulously, even excessively polite; in talk measuring his phrases, using only the most select terms, and pronouncing certain words as if the sound itself ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... the frizzle of red hair, which shone round their little sickly faces. Very soon she had begun to haunt them in her eager way, to try and penetrate their peasant lives, which were so full of enigma and attraction to her, mainly because of their very defectiveness, their closeness to an animal simplicity, never to be reached by any one of her sort. She soon discovered or imagined that Hurd had more education than his neighbours. At any rate, he would sit listening to her—and smoking, as she made him do—while she talked politics and ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... cookery, and one that appears to be fully the equal in all respects and superior to many of its predecessors. Simplicity is sought to be blended with science, economy with all the enjoyments of the table, and health and happiness with an ample household liberally. Every purse and every taste will find in Mrs. Dodds' book, material within its means of grasp for efficient ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells

... an authoritative definition of Democracy. Then we shall know where, collectively, we are. Of course you may say that it has been defined for all time by Abraham Lincoln. But thrilling in its clear simplicity as his slogan epigram may be, a complex political and social system cannot be fully dealt with in fifteen words. I thought I knew what it was until a tidy few millions of friends and myself were knocked silly by recent events in Russia. Here, where the privates of a regiment hold a mass ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... were in mourning, yet dressed with elegant simplicity, befitting their rank and position in society. The Chevalier Le Gardeur de Tilly had fallen two years ago, fighting gallantly for his King and country, leaving a childless widow to manage his vast domain and succeed him as sole ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... were now covered with admirable tapestry, representing mythological subjects. The Cure dared scarcely glance at this tapestry; it was enough for him to perceive that the goddesses who wandered through these shades wore costumes of antique simplicity. ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy

... unsubstantial forms supply The place of Beauty, Strength, Simplicity. Each varied colour, of the brightest hue, The green, the red, the yellow, and the blue, In every part the dazzled eyes behold, Here streak'd with silver, there enrich'd with gold; While fancied forms upon the ceiling sprawl, And shapeless ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe

... name is, according to him, a work of fiction, written by some Spanish De Foe, who had read the common narratives of the conquest of Mexico, but who had no personal knowledge of the scene in which his story is laid. What first excited Mr. Wilson's suspicions was the charming simplicity and apparent truthfulness which, in common with all readers of Bernal Diaz, he has found to be the distinguishing characteristics of the narrative. "A striking feature," he tells us, "in Spanish literature, is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... hear those voices. He hurls at you this book of his own deeds that it may smite you into acquiescent admiration. Casanova, at the end of a long life in which he had tasted all the forbidden fruits of the earth, with a simplicity of pleasure in which the sense of their being forbidden was only the least of their abounding flavours, looked back upon his past self with a slightly pathetic admiration, and set himself to go all over those successful adventures, in love and in other arts, firstly, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons



Words linked to "Simplicity" :   simmpleness, naivety, simple mindedness, complexity, naturalness, chasteness, effortlessness, restraint, ease, easy, easiness, naivete, difficulty



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