Samuel Beckett Quotes

If I have learned anything as a scientist, it is that one should not make things complicated when a simple explanation will do.

In my view, the argument from parsimony is really no argument at all - it typically functions only to shut down more interesting discussion. If history is any guide, it's never a good idea to assume that a scientific problem is cornered.

The simplest explanation is always the most likely.

No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary, i.e., the fewer assumptions an explanation of a phenomenon depends on, the better the explanation

What can be explained by the assumption of fewer things is vainly explained by the assumption of more things.

When multiple explanations exist, the simplest is usually correct.

A simple style is like white light. Although complex, it does not appear to be so.

sometimes the most simple conclusion is also the most correct

It really comes down to parsimony, economy of explanation. It is possible that your car engine is driven by psychokinetic energy, but if it looks like a petrol engine, smells like a petrol engine and performs exactly as well as a petrol engine, the sensible working hypothesis is that it is a petrol engine.

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem

If we have a simple existence, we shall feel how happy and how fortunate we are. There are some people who are of the opinion that simplicity is almost tantamount to stupidity. But simplicity and stupidity are like the North Pole and the South Pole. One can be as simple as a child and, at the same time, one can have boundless knowledge, light and wisdom.

What I definitely learnt from Michael Jackson is that simple is almost always better. As a songwriter, as an artist period.

I think we definitely want to focus on the simplicity aspect because it's something that's built into the culture even here at Twitter. Constraints inspire creativity.

For her, choices were simple; either there was an action she could take to improve the situation, in which case she took it, or there was not, and everything else said on the subject was so much meaningless noise.

The main thing is that everything become simple, easy enough for a child to understand.

I love to be alone with life. I love to study simple things: the light as it filters in a window; the music of a room full of people chatting; a horizon.

To say more while saying less is the secret of being simple.

[Richard Feynman] truly believed that if you couldn't explain something simply, you didn't understand it.

Always run to the short way; and the short way is the natural: accordingly say and do everything in conformity with the soundest reason. For such a purpose frees a man from trouble, and warfare, and all artifice and ostentatious display.

Genius: The capacity to see and to express what is simple, simply!

The usefullest truths are plainest; and while we keep to them, our differences cannot rise high.

You can't believe how hard it is for people to be simple, how much they fear being simple. They worry that if they're simple, people will think they're simpleminded. In reality, of course, it's just the reverse. Clear, tough-minded people are the most simple.

And this shows that people want to be stupid and they do not want to know the truth. And it shows that something called Occam's razor is true. And Occam's razor is not a razor that men shave with but a Law, and it says: Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. Which is Latin and it means: No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary. Which means that a murder victim is usually killed by someone known to them and fairies are made out of paper and you can't talk to someone who is dead.

It is very hard to be simple enough to be good.

Simplicity is simple. Perhaps this sounds redundant. But it's true, and it's important.