From our newsletter Outside the Lines

Don’t Take My Word For It

Smart folks thinking out loud about why less can be more.

“Less is more.”
-Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, architect

“Less is only more where more is no good.”
-Frank Lloyd Wright, architect

“The less routine the more life.”
-Amos Bronson Alcott, reformer

“The more opinions you have, the less you see.”
-Wim Wenders, director

“The more you reason the less you create.”
-Raymond Chandler, writer

“Always do one thing less than you think you can do.”
-Bernard Baruch, businessman

“The more we have the less we own.”
-Meister Eckhart, philosopher

“To say more, is to say less.”
-Harlan Ellison, writer

“The more laws, the less justice.”
-Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman

“The more technique you have, the less you have to worry about it. The more technique there is, the less there is.”
-Pablo Picasso, artist

“I once tried thinking for an entire day, but I found it less valuable than one moment of study.”
-Xun Zi, philosopher

“The less you talk, the more you’re listened to.”
-Abigail Van Buren, journalist

“The more one pleases everybody, the less one pleases profoundly.”
-Stendhal, writer

“Inventing is a combination of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less material you need.”
-Charles Kettering, inventor

I think less is more when it comes to kissing in the movies.
-Julia Roberts, actress

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
-William Blake, writer (from Auguries of Innocence)