Plainness Quotes

• Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.

  Laozi

  Inspirational, Selfish, Simple

  Tao-te Ching ch. 19 (translation byWing-Tsit Chan)

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• Plainness has its peculiar temptations and vices quite as much as beauty.

  George Eliot

  Beauty, Beautiful Women, Temptation

  "Middlemarch".

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• The truth is, the Science of Nature has been already too long made only a work of the Brain and the Fancy: It is now high time that it should return to the plainness and soundness of Observations on material and obvious things.

  Robert Hooke

  Time, Nature, Science

  Robert Hooke (1906). “Extracts from Micrographia: Or, Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon”

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• Simplicity in character, in manners, in style; in all things the supreme excellence is simplicity.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Character, Perfection, Simplicity

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (2012). “Kavanagh (Annotated Edition)”, p.46, Jazzybee Verlag

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• No education can be of true advantage to young women but that which trains them up in humble industry, in great plainness of living, in exact modesty of dress.

  William Law

  Christian, Religious, Humble

  William Law (2013). “A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life”, p.233, Courier Corporation

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• Modest plainness sets off sprightly wit,
  For works may have more with than does 'em good,
  As bodies perish through excess of blood.

  Alexander Pope

  Blood, Body, May

  Alexander Pope, William Warburton (1807). “The poetical works: with his last corrections, additions and improvements : with the life of the author ; embellished with superb engravings”, p.110

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• He will find one English book and one only, where, as in the "Iliad" itself, perfect plainness of speech is allied with perfect nobleness; and that book is the Bible.

  Matthew Arnold

  Book, Perfect, Speech

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• The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be.

  Laozi

  Inspirational, Trust No One, Order

  "Tao Te Ching". Ch. 57, 4th century BC.

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• The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.

  Alan Watts

  Life, Inspiring, Simple

  Alan Watts (2011). “Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life: Collected Talks: 1960-1969”, p.37, New World Library

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• No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Beauty, Beautiful, Truth

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• It is with books as with women, where a certain plainness of manner and of dress is more engaging than that glare of paint and airs and apparel which may dazzle the eye, but reaches not the affections.

  David Hume

  Book, Eye, Air

  David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.697, Delphi Classics

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• people who pay greater respect to a wealthy villain than to an honest, upright man in poverty, almost deserve to be enslaved; they plainly show that wealth, however it may be acquired, is, in their esteem, to be preferred to virtue.

  John Hancock

  Respect, Honesty, Men

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• Crocodiles are easy. They try to kill and eat you. People are harder. Sometimes they pretend to be your friend first.

  Steve Irwin

  Funny, Betrayal, I Hate You

  "My Steve". Book by Terri Irwin, 2012.

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• My life is simple, my food is plain, and my quarters are uncluttered. In all things, I have sought clarity. I face the troubles and problems of life and death willingly. Virtue, integrity and courage are my priorities. I can be approached, but never pushed; befriended but never coerced; killed but never shamed.

  Yi Sun-sin

  Life, Courage, Badass

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• Errors and exaggerations do not matter. What matters is boldness in thinking with a strong-pitched voice, in speaking out about things as one feels them in the moment of speaking; in having the temerity to proclaim what one believes to be true without fear of the consequences. If one were to await the possession of the absolute truth, one must be either a fool or a mute. If the creative impulse were muted, the world would then be stayed on its march.

  Jose Clemente Orozco

  Strong, Fear, Truth

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• The choice before us is plain: Christ or chaos, conviction or compromise, discipline or disintegration. I am rather tired of hearing about our rights and privileges as Americans. The time is come - it is now - when we ought to hear about the duties and responsibilities of our citizenship. America's future depends upon her accepting and demonstrating God's government.

  Peter Marshall

  God, Jesus, Tired

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• The attitude of kindness is everyday stuff like a great pair of sneakers. Not frilly. Not fancy. Just plain and comfortable.

  Barbara Johnson

  Attitude, Kindness, Sneakers

  Barbara Johnson (2000). “Leaking Laffs Between Pampers and Depends”, p.63, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• One ought not to be unkind to a woman merely on account of her plainness, any more than one had a right to take liberties with her merely because she was handsome

  Murasaki Shikibu

  Liberty, Handsome, Accounts

  Murasaki Shikibu (1935). “Blue trousers. The lady of the boat. The bridge of dreams”

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• Knaves will thrive when honest plainness knows not how to live.

  James Shirley

  Knavery, Knaves, Honest

  James Shirley (1793). “The Maid's Revenge. A Tragedy [in Five Acts, in Prose and Verse].”, p.38

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• Be neat, Philothea; let nothing be negligent about you. It is a kind of contempt of those with whom we converse, to frequent their company in uncomely apparel; but, at the same time, avoid all affectation, vanity, curiosity, or levity in your dress. Keep yourself always, as much as possible, on the side of plainness and modesty, which, without doubt, is the greatest ornament of beauty, and the best excuse for the want of it.

  Saint Francis de Sales

  Vanity, Curiosity, Doubt

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• If Beauty is excuse enough for Being, it sure takes Plainness then to feel the real necessity for—Doing.

  Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

  Real, Excuse, Enough

  Eleanor Hallowell Abbott (2012). “Little Eve Edgarton”, p.10, The Floating Press

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• It wasn't until I had performed by first autopsy that I realized that even the drabest human exteriors could contain the most beautiful viscera. After that, I would console myself for the plainness of my fellow bus-riders by dissecting them in my imagination.

  John B. S. Haldane

  Beautiful, Imagination, Firsts

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• She that would raise a noble love must find Ways to beget a passion for her mind; She must be that which she to the world would seem, For all true love is grounded on esteem: Plainness and truth gain more a generous heart Than all the crooked subtleties of art.

  Theresa Villiers

  Art, Passion, Love Is

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• My plainness of speech makes people hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth.

  Plato

  Hate, People, Hatred

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• The very essence of truth is plainness and brightness; the darkness and crookedness is our own. The wisdom of God created understanding, fit and proportionable to truth, the object and end of it, as the eye to the thing visible. If our understanding have a film of ignorance over it, or be blear with gazing on other false glitterings, what is that to truth?

  John Milton

  Truth, Ignorance, Eye

  John Milton, James Augustus St. John (1871). “The Prose Works of John Milton ...: With a Preface, Preliminary Remarks, and Notes”, p.387

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