"Simplicity of structure means organic unity, whether the organism be simple or complex; and hence in all times the emphasis which critics have laid upon Simplicity, though they have not unfrequently confounded it with narrowness of range." (George H Lewes, "The Principles of Success in Literature", 1865)
"The first obligation of Simplicity is that of using the simplest means to secure the fullest effect. But although the mind instinctlvely rejects all needless complexity, we shall greatly err if we fail to recognise the fact, that what the mind recoils from is not the complexity, but the needlessness." (George H Lewes, "The Principles of Success in Literature", 1865)
"Simplicity is the soul of efficiency." (Austin Freeman, "The Eye of Osiris", 1911)
"The complexity of a system is no guarantee of its accuracy." (John P Jordan, "Cost accounting; principles and practice", 1920)
"[Disorganized complexity] is a problem in which the number of variables is very large, and one in which each of the many variables has a behavior which is individually erratic, or perhaps totally unknown. However, in spite of this helter-skelter, or unknown, behavior of all the individual variables, the system as a whole possesses certain orderly and analyzable average properties. [...] [Organized complexity is] not problems of disorganized complexity, to which statistical methods hold the key. They are all problems which involve dealing simultaneously with a sizable number of factors which are interrelated into an organic whole. They are all, in the language here proposed, problems of organized complexity." (Warren Weaver, "Science and Complexity", American Scientist Vol. 36, 1948)
"A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its premises is, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the more extended its area of applicability." (Albert Einstein, "Autobiographical Notes", 1949)
"In products of the human mind, simplicity marks the end of a process of refining, while complexity marks a primitive stage." (Eric Hoffer, 1954)
"Nor does complexity deny the valid simplification which is part of the process of analysis, and even a method of achieving complex architecture itself." (Robert Venturi, "Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture", 1966)
"The ideas need not be complex. Most ideas that are successful are ludicrously simple. Successful ideas generally have the appearance of simplicity because they seem inevitable." (Sol LeWitt, "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art", 1967)
"Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it." (Alan Perlis, "Epigrams on Programming", 1982)
"The complexity of software is an essential property, not an accidental one. Hence, descriptions of a software entity that abstract away its complexity often abstracts away its essence." (Frederick P Brooks, "No Silver Bullet" , 1987)
"Organized simplicity occurs where a small number of significant factors and a large number of insignificant factors appear initially to be complex, but on investigation display hidden simplicity." (Robert L Flood & Ewart R Carson, "Dealing with Complexity: An introduction to the theory and application of systems", 1988)
"It is important to emphasize the value of simplicity and elegance, for complexity has a way of compounding difficulties and as we have seen, creating mistakes. My definition of elegance is the achievement of a given functionality with a minimum of mechanism and a maximum of clarity." (Fernando J Corbató, "On Building Systems That Will Fail", 1991)
"Crude complexity is ‘the length of the shortest message that will describe a system, at a given level of coarse graining, to someone at a distance, employing language, knowledge, and understanding that both parties share (and know they share) beforehand." (Murray Gell-Mann, "What is Complexity?" Complexity Vol. 1 (1), 1995)
"A dictionary definition of the word ‘complex’ is: ‘consisting of interconnected or interwoven parts’ […] Loosely speaking, the complexity of a system is the amount of information needed in order to describe it. The complexity depends on the level of detail required in the description. A more formal definition can be understood in a simple way. If we have a system that could have many possible states, but we would like to specify which state it is actually in, then the number of binary digits (bits) we need to specify this particular state is related to the number of states that are possible." (Yaneer Bar-Yamm, "Dynamics of Complexity", 1997)
"When the behavior of the system depends on the behavior of the parts, the complexity of the whole must involve a description of the parts, thus it is large. The smaller the parts that must be described to describe the behavior of the whole, the larger the complexity of the entire system. […] A complex system is a system formed out of many components whose behavior is emergent, that is, the behavior of the system cannot be simply inferred from the behavior of its components." (Yaneer Bar-Yamm, "Dynamics of Complexity", 1997)
"Complexity is that property of a model which makes it difficult to formulate its overall behaviour in a given language, even when given reasonably complete information about its atomic components and their inter-relations." (Bruce Edmonds, "Syntactic Measures of Complexity", 1999)
"People who pride themselves on their 'complexity' and deride others for being 'simplistic' should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth." (Thomas Sowell, "Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays", 1999)
"Complexity is the characteristic property of complicated systems we don’t understand immediately. It is the amount of difficulties we face while trying to understand it. In this sense, complexity resides largely in the eye of the beholder - someone who is familiar with s.th. often sees less complexity than someone who is less familiar with it. [...] A complex system is created by evolutionary processes. There are multiple pathways by which a system can evolve. Many complex systems are similar, but each instance of a system is unique." (Jochen Fromm, "The Emergence of Complexity", 2004)
"Simplicity is achieved in two general ways: minimizing the amount of essential complexity that anyone's brain has to deal with at any one time, and keeping accidental complexity from proliferating needlessly." (Steve C McConnell, "Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction" 2nd Ed., 2004)
"Complexity carries with it a lack of predictability different to that of chaotic systems, i.e. sensitivity to initial conditions. In the case of complexity, the lack of predictability is due to relevant interactions and novel information created by them." (Carlos Gershenson, "Understanding Complex Systems", 2011)
"Complexity has shown that reductionism is limited, in the sense that emergent properties cannot be reduced. In other words, the properties at a given scale cannot be always described completely in terms of properties at a lower scale. This has led people to debate on the reality of phenomena at different scales." (Carlos Gershenson, "Complexity", 2011)
"I think there is a profound and enduring beauty in simplicity; in clarity, in efficiency. True simplicity is derived from so much more than just the absence of clutter and ornamentation. It's about bringing order to complexity." (Jonathan Ive, 2013)
"Simplicity in a system tends to increase that system’s efficiency. Because less can go wrong with fewer parts, less will. Complexity in a system tends to increase that system’s inefficiency; the greater the number of variables, the greater the probability of those variables clashing, and in turn, the greater the potential for conflict and disarray. Because more can go wrong, more will. That is why centralized systems are inclined to break down quickly and become enmeshed in greater unintended consequences." (Lawrence K Samuels,"Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action", 2013)
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