A Quote by Paul Dickson

A system tends to grow in complexity instead of simplicity, until the resulting unreliability becomes intolerable.

Paul Dickson

Quote Topics

Becomes Complexity Grow Instead Intolerable Simplicity System Tends Unreliability Until

Quote Author

Paul Dickson
Writer

Complexity and intelligence grow from simplicity, not from greater complexity.

Brian Eno

For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn't give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

...the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.

Alfred North Whitehead

The general problem with ambitious systems is complexity. [...] it is important to emphasize the value of simplicity and elegance, for complexity has a way of compounding difficulties.

Fernando J. Corbato

Simplicity and purity are the two wings by which a man is lifted above all earthly things. Simplicity is in the intention - purity in the affection. Simplicity tends to God, - purity apprehends and tastes Him.

Thomas a Kempis

Artistic simplicity is more complex than artistic complexity for it arises via the simplification of the latter and against its backdrop or system.

Yuri Lotman

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

Code wants to be simple... I had to give up the idea that I had the perfect vision of the system to which the system had to conform. Instead, I had to accept that I was only the vehicle for the system expressing its own desire for simplicity. My vision could shape initial direction, and my attention to the desires of the code could affect how quickly and how well the system found its desired shape, but the system is riding me much more than I am riding the system.

Kent Beck

I would rather sustain the penalties resulting from over-conservatism than face the consequences of error, perhaps with permanent capital loss, resulting from the adoption of "New Era" philosophy where trees really do grow to the sky.

Warren Buffett

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.

Henry David Thoreau

First, unreliability is not the sole preserve of fictional narrators. Second, the pleasure of patting oneself on the back for seizing on instances of unreliability and ignorance is, as the late Frank Kermode may or may not have pointed out, considerable.

Geoff Dyer

The complexity of C++ (even more complexity has been added in the new C++), and the resulting impact on productivity, is no longer justified. All the hoops that the C++ programmer had to jump through in order to use a C-compatible language make no sense anymore - they're just a waste of time and effort. Now, Go makes much more sense for the class of problems that C++ was originally intended to solve.

Bruce Eckel

Simplicity is complexity resolved

Constantin Brancusi

An immune system of enormous complexity is present in all vertebrate animals. When we place a population of lymphocytes from such an animal in appropriate tissue culture fluid, and when we add an antigen, the lymphocytes will produce specific antibody molecules, in the absense of any nerve cells. I find it astonishing that the immune system embodies a degree of complexity which suggests some more or less superficial though striking analogies with human language, and that this cognitive system has evolved and functions without assistance of the brain.