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Simplicity   /sɪmplˈɪsəti/  /sɪmplˈɪsɪti/   Listen
Simplicity

noun
1.
The quality of being simple or uncompounded.  Synonym: simpleness.
2.
A lack of penetration or subtlety.  Synonyms: simple mindedness, simpleness.
3.
Absence of affectation or pretense.  Synonym: simmpleness.
4.
Freedom from difficulty or hardship or effort.  Synonyms: ease, easiness, simpleness.  "They put it into containers for ease of transportation" , "The very easiness of the deed held her back"
5.
Lack of ornamentation.  Synonyms: chasteness, restraint, simpleness.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Simplicity" Quotes from Famous Books



... Norton, whom Ruskin said was the only American he met who was a gentleman. I can see the tall, handsome, erect Thayer, with musical voice, gracious manners and buoyant walk, whom the boys called "the captain." I can see again Dean Everett, who blended the wisdom of a Nestor with a transparent simplicity who blended granite strength of character with a Christ-like tenderness. And I can see again that trio of famous Harvard professors, James, Royce and Palmer—the first distinguished by his buoyancy of spirit, the second by his serenity and the third by his refinement. And then I can see that famous ...
— Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro Culture - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 20 • William H. Ferris

... exciting lust, so I fetched it. We had luncheon and champagne, she laughed,. talked, objected to sit down with me, but at last was thoroughly at home with me, and for the first time talked freely of her mistress, whom she feared. She disclosed a deal of simplicity and a very great deal of vulgarity, for she was an utter vulgar peasant girl; but I didn't mind anything ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... struggling to comprehend a world that had caught her unawares. She had removed her hat and was carrying it loosely in her hand that had fallen to her side. Her hair swept back in two waves above the temples with a simplicity that made the head distinguished. Even the nurses' caps betrayed stray curls or rolls. Her figure was large, and the articulation was perfect as she walked, showing that she had had the run of fields in her girlhood. Yet she did not stoop as is the habit of country girls; nor was ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... considerable extent, and shall be felt in coming years, not perniciously, but beneficially; not as a curse, but as a blessing; and posterity will bear testimony that I was right. I desire to thank God that He enables me to disregard 'the fear of man which bringeth a snare,' and to speak His truth in its simplicity ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... very good shift too," said Sir Humphrey as he and his brother stood looking round the fairly roomy cabin, whose fittings were of Quakerish simplicity, but ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn

... enough to have killed him, all his friends said; but it did not. He lived to be a man, and—what is rarer—to keep the faith, the simplicity, the tender-heartedness, the vivid fancy of his childhood. He lived to see many Christmas trees "at home," in that old country where the robins are redbreasts, and sing in winter. There a heart as good and gentle as his own became one with his; and once he brought ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... characteristics of these Boer farmers and their wives, and to learn what a curious race they are. Mrs. Keeley told me a great deal of their ideas, habits, and ways, in which low cunning is combined with extreme curiosity and naive simplicity. Many of the fathers and sons in the neighbourhood had slunk off to fight across the border, sending meanwhile their wives and daughters to call on Mrs. Keeley and condole with her in what they termed "her trouble," and to ascertain at the same time all the circumstances of the ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... otherwise. Living as he did, dying as he did, with the ruin of so many lives involved in his fate, that last journey should have been taken in simplicity and quietness. The lesson his death conveys is too solemn for display, too mournful for anything but stillness. The elements of a great man left Vermont only a few years ago; New York has sent back the ruins. Let them rest ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... is not to our present purpose to comment on this plan which the author with his characteristic simplicity seriously pressed upon the attention of statesmen. It is easy to criticise it in the light of subsequent history, and to see that, if the impossible had happened and the experiment had been tried and succeeded, it might have caused more suffering ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... you if you refuse it. Once in America a clever and candid woman said to me, at the close of a dinner, during which I had been sitting beside her, "Mr. Roundabout, I was told I should not like you; and I don't." "Well, ma'am," says I, in a tone of the most unfeigned simplicity, "I don't care." And we became good friends immediately, and esteemed each ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... suggestions of the horrors of hell— which were certainly literally understood by his hearers—it is pertinent to quote in connection with them his own assertion, that "he who knows how to interpret allegorically will see that the inner sense excels the simplicity of the letter as ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... There was sincerity in the man's actions. It was not acting. When the light first broke he turned his eyes full into the radiance. It was the act of a child and, so it struck the officer, of the same trust and simplicity—and likewise the same effect. He drew away quickly: ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... It has freshness and charm and its sentiment seems to me to be exactly right—the sentiment of an eager and attractive young girl relating the feelings of her heart in the tenderest and prettiest style as far removed from preciosity as it is from a silly simplicity. All the stories have the essential merits of brightness and lightness, and most of them have that peculiar kind of ingenuity which is one of Mr. PAIN's strong points. Suddenly they land you at a point which is nowhere near to that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various

... to discourage the latter. They would sympathize with every measure which tends to the rapid formation of capitals. They would be enthusiastic promoters of peace, liberty, order, security, the union of classes and peoples, economy, moderation in public expenses, simplicity in the machinery of Government; for it is under the sway of all these circumstances that saving does its work, brings plenty within the reach of the masses, invites those persons to become the formers of capital who were ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... time to time that summer and she seemed, and I think she was, happier than ever she had been before in her whole life. Making over her garden, selecting the "essential books," choosing the best pictures for her rooms, even reforming the clothing of the boys, all with an emphasis upon perfect simplicity—her mind was completely absorbed. Occasionally Richard appeared upon the stage, a kind of absurd Greek chorus of one, who remarked what a wonderful woman this was and poked fun at himself and at the new house, and asserted that Mary could be as simple as ever she liked, he insisted ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson

... business of his own at Cetinale other than procuring funds for his patron, that in fact he had brought his niece in the hope of securing for her husband the banker Chigi, a good match even then in point of fortune. There was in Maria Dovizio such dewy freshness and sweetness, such absolute simplicity and purity as could not fail to appeal to any man with eyes to see; but Chigi was blind, being enamoured of another woman and she of a very different type, the improvisatrice Imperia, accounted the most talented ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... have you," he said, with dead simplicity, as one states a bare, essential fact. Then Bonbright was visualized before him, and rage flooded once more. "He sha'n't keep you!... You're mine—you were mine first.... What is he to you? I'm going to take you away from him.... ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... were sure of growing obsolete. However, the authors of those days were not likely to make these obvious reflections; and indeed seem to have aimed at no one perfection. From the Conquest to the reign of Henry the Eighth it is difficult to discover any one beauty in our writers, but their simplicity. They told their tale, like story-tellers; that is, they related without art or ornament; and they related whatever they heard. No councils of princes, no motives of conduct, no remoter springs of action, did they investigate or learn. We have even little ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole

... more, ladies Sighed and looked again —unutterable things Sign, dies and makes no Sight, out of, out of mind —, loved not at first Seigniors, grave and reverend Silence is the perfectest herald of joy —in love bewrays more woe —, ye wolves —, come then, expressive Siloa's brook Simplicity a child Sin, fools make a mock at —of the world —, wages of, is death —, no, for a man to labor in his vocation Single blessedness Sinned against, more Sinning, more sinned against than Sins, charity shall cover the multitude of Sion hill delight thee more Sires, ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various

... have to show you!" And an instant later the old man's admonitions are entirely forgotten, and his artless nature—dull now to everything but the childish glee in which he shares— is all the sweeter and more lovable for its simplicity. ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley

... devant ton pere!"—"Daughter of Day, but born before thy father!" GIBBON betrayed none of the force and magnitude of his powers in his "Essay on Literature," or his attempted "History of Switzerland," JOHNSON'S cadenced prose is not recognisable in the humbler simplicity of his earliest years. Many authors have begun unsuccessfully the walk they afterwards excelled in. RAPHAEL, when he first drew his meagre forms under Perugino, had not yet conceived one line of that ideal beauty which one day ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... night expressway to Youngerstun. His suspicions, sharply keyed from life on Omega, would not let him rest. There had to be a catch to all this splendid simplicity. Perhaps he ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley

... consequence of his age and the gradual approach of infirmity, his utterance is not so clear as it used to be, yet you can always understand immediately his whole meaning. He uses the plainest language of every-day colloquy. His style is impressive from its doric simplicity. You never entertain a doubt of his sincerity; and although you may not always agree with him in opinion, you have, at least, the satisfaction of knowing that his propositions are the true result of his feelings or his thoughts; ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

... farthest removed from nature: and it is the consequence of this interchange which has taken place,—this imitation of the manners of the higher orders by the lower classes of the peasantry—that we shall in vain look for any thing in France like a simple national poetry. The truth, the simplicity, the nature, which ought to form it, are not to be found amongst any classes of the French people. The poetry of France, both ancient and modern, that of Ronsard and Marot, in earlier days; and that of Boileau, Racine, Corneille and ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... life," she continued. "The obligation of obeying the doctor, of seducing men in order to snatch their secrets from them, made me hate them with a deadly aggressiveness.... But you came. You, who are so good and generous! You who sought me with the enthusiastic simplicity of a growing boy, making me turn back a page in my life, as though I were still only in my teens and being courted for the first time!... Besides, you are not a selfish person. You gave with noble enthusiasm. I believe that if we had known each other ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... whose roofs the two walked as they descended the mountains, were unlovely and unclean, wives of many husbands, and afflicted with goitre. The men were woodcutters when they were not farmers—meek, and of an incredible simplicity. But that suitable discourse might not fail, Fate sent them, overtaking and overtaken upon the road, the courteous Dacca physician, who paid for his food in ointments good for goitre and counsels that ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... proprieties of conduct which are among the best securities of the young. While she looked in her lover's face with confidence, and held his arm with the grasp of one who is sure of a right to do so, there was an air of childish simplicity in her manner which was wholly at variance with wild passions and improper fancies. While the hunter maintained her on his arm, and looked down into her eyes with love, his glance was yet as respectful, as unexpressive of presumption, as her own. Had the ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... the little fellow with a tender smile. He was so small, so full of happy life and engaging simplicity. Then he had such a wonderful picture face, with its fringe of curling hair which thrust its way out from under the thick, arctic helmet of fur which was part of his outer clothing. For a moment, as he bundled over the snow like a brown woolly ball, Steve wondered ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... was informed that it was a common-place trick for gangs of pickpockets to throw unwary passengers down with violence, pretend to pity and give them aid, pick their pockets while helping them up, and then decamp with all possible expedition. But said I, with great simplicity, to my informer, 'Will not the gentleman come back?'—'What! The man who ran off?'—'Yes.'—'Back! No, no: you will never see his face more, I promise you, Sir; unless you will take the trouble to visit Newgate, or ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... called at the big house on Fifth Avenue, which had for so long been identified as the home of Simon Harley. It bore his impress stamped on it. Its austerity suggested the Puritan rather than the classic conception of simplicity. The immense rooms were as chill as dungeons, and the forlorn little figure in black, lost in the loneliness of their bleakness, wandered to and fro among her retinue of servants like a butterfly beating its wings against ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine

... incumbrance; anonymity makes them stiff, pompous, and over-magisterial. With others, however, the effect is just the reverse. If they sign, they become self-conscious, stilted, and even pretentious; it is only when they are anonymous that they recover simplicity and ease. It is as if an actor who is the soul of what is natural under the disguises of his part, should become extremely artificial if he were compelled to come upon the stage in his own proper clothes and speaking only in ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... had made all these reasonings before and found no very good reply to them; so I put on all the simplicity I could. "In that case, sir," said I, "I would just have to ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson

... each other fifty or sixty years ago present a striking contrast when placed side by side with those of the present day. The native simplicity, the artless manners, and the honest motives of all betokened a purity of heart and life that was truly charming. We mourn the absence of these marks of genuine piety, when at the present day, we see artistic display, formality, stiffness, and a "putting on" of studied courtesies and civilities ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... as Phaedrus, the Aesopian fabulist. A great mistake it was, on the part of Doctor S., that the second book in the Latin language which I was summoned to study should have been Phaedrus—a writer ambitious of investing the simplicity, or rather homeliness, of Aesop with aulic graces and satiric brilliancy. But so it was; and Phaedrus naturally towered into enthusiasm when he had occasion to mention that the most intellectual of all races amongst men, viz., the Athenians, had raised a mighty statue to ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... rites, which were performed with great solemnity. The god-parents gave to each child sixteen yards of white percale and a string of blue beads. Mea, nevertheless, felt somewhat disappointed, for in the simplicity of her soul she thought that after the baptism her skin would at once turn white, and great was her astonishment when she observed that she remained as black as before. Nell comforted her, however, with the assurance that now she possessed a ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... morning costume was light and graceful, and her whole toilet showed just enough of neglige to add interest to the simplicity of her personal attire. Her dark, jetty hair contrasted strongly with the pure white of her dress, and there was not an ornament upon her person, save those that nature had lavished there in prodigal abundance. She had never looked more lovely ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray

... dining room, long and dark and dignified, where maids were already moving noiselessly about the business of dinner. Here in the hall was the pleasant shade and coolness, the subtle drifting scent of early summer flowers, space, and the simplicity of dark polished floors and sombre rugs. The whole house seemed empty, lovely, silent, after the confusion of the terrace and the heat ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... Earlier and later pictures are but a few inches of face to several feet of figure and costume, and more insignificant than the latter because seldom so well done; and I suspect the same would generally be the case now, only that the present simplicity of costume gives the face ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Suzanne had arranged photographs, books, flowers in the little salon, had put cushions here and there, and thrown pretty coverings over the sofa and the two low chairs. The room had an air of cosiness, of occupation. It was a room one could sit in without restlessness, and Domini liked its simplicity, its bare wooden floor and white walls. The sun made everything right here. Without the sun—but she could not think of Beni-Mora ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... Jerusalem, and frequented the society of those who had acted, and were acting the chief parts in the transaction. I lay down this point positively; for had the ancient attestations to this valuable record been less satisfactory than they are, the unaffectedness and simplicity with which the author notes his presence upon certain occasions, and the entire absence of art and design from these notices, would have been sufficient to persuade my mind that, whoever he was, he actually lived in the times, and occupied the situation, in which he represents himself ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley

... almost perfection in its way; but there was something of that ostentatious simplicity whereby the parvenu endeavours sometimes to escape from the vulgar glitter of his wealth. The chairs and tables were of unpolished oak, and of a rustic fashion. There were no pictures, but the walls of the dining-room ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... story. In fact, before the day was over, he knew all the history of her innocent life, and was struck with amazement at the variety and depth of her scholastic acquirements and the extraordinary power of her mind, which, combined with her simplicity and total ignorance of the ways of the world, produced an affect as charming as it was unusual. Needless to say that every hour he knew her he fell more deeply in ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... impartiality which was so marked among the writings of our forefathers, we are seldom content with the simple narration of fact, but must rush off into an almost declamatory description of them; my meaning will be plain to all who have studied Thucydides. The dignity of his simplicity is, I think, marred by those who put in the accessories which seem thought necessary in all present histories. How few writers of the present day would not, instead of [Greek text which cannot be reproduced] rather write, "Night fell upon this horrid scene ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler

... "'Simplicity itself, ma'am,' I answered. 'She could hardly have done less. And from Eaton Square to Pimlico, what is it but a step? . . . Or, you may put it down to a brain-wave. Yes, ma'am. And ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... several pretty girls present, but she outshone them all, and, what interested me still more, I could not avoid observing that in acquiring the easy politeness which distinguishes people of quality, she had preserved her Norwegian simplicity. There was, in fact, a graceful timidity in her address, inexpressibly charming. This surprised me a little, because her husband was quite a Frenchman of the ancien regime, or rather a courtier, the same kind of ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft

... earl as he sat was the family escutcheon emblazoned above the mantelpiece. A child might read the simplicity of its proud significance—an ox rampant quartered in a field of gules with a pike dexter and a dog intermittent in a plain parallelogram right centre, with the motto, "Hic, haec, hoc, ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... and his successor were sportsmen and gave hunting-parties, those of the marshal being as much in royal style as possible. M. Grevy preferred republican simplicity. When he was allowed, as Speaker of the House, to live in Marie Antoinette's apartments in the Chateau of Versailles, he might have been seen any day sauntering about the streets with his hands in his pockets, or smoking his cigar at the door of a cafe. He had a brougham, but he rarely used it. ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... confessed, that the grandee loved the estaminet where he could play billiards with the first comer; that he had a passion for the gambling-house; that he was a loose and disorderly nobleman: but, in whatever company he found himself, a certain kindness, simplicity, and politeness distinguished him always. He bowed to the damsel who sold him a penny cigar, as graciously as to a duchess; he crushed a manant's impertinence or familiarity as haughtily as his noble ancestors ever did at the Louvre, at Marli, or Versailles. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... haunting presence, mild in its manliness and gentle in its strength, of a princely benefactor common to all, has displaced the grim phantoms of old chieftains and reigns in their stead. It hovers over the dearly loved Highland home with its fitting touch of stateliness in the middle of its simplicity, over the forest where a true sportsman stalked the deer, over the streams and lochs in which he fished, and the paths he trod by hill and glen. We are made to remember that Balmoral was the Prince Consort's property, that he bought it for his possession, as Osborne was the Queen's, and that ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler

... in the numerous "signs" here recorded. At first sight, it may be thought that extreme folly is their salient quality. Yet if we take a wide view the case is reversed; we are surprised, not at the unintelligibility of popular belief, but at its simplicity, and at the frequency with which we can discern the natural process of unsystematic conjecture. Such judgments are not to be treated with derision, as subjects of ridicule, but to be seriously examined, as revealing the ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various

... human being," said Waife, greatly affected. "And, mark my words, a mantle of charity so large you will live to wear as a robe of honour. But hear me, sir! Mr. Hartopp also is a man infinitely charitable, benevolent, kindly, and, through all his simplicity, acutely shrewd; Mr. Hartopp, on hearing what was said against me, deemed me unfit to retain my grandchild, resigned the trust I had confided to him, and would have given me alms, no doubt, had I asked them, but not his ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... tone, after a quick glance toward the many windows through which the bulwarks of Protestantism might be gazing. But all was dark, both without and within, and the Father gave his blessing to both of us, fervently, but with an apostolic simplicity. Then he left us, and I watched his tall form, crowned with silvery hair, as he passed down the cherry-tree avenue. Later in the evening the moon came out, and I saw a Mackinac boat skimming by the house, its white sails swelling ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... nature of the forces which operate to produce this astounding result, Herschel puts forward a theory of singular simplicity and directness. ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous

... Rushing River Camp she was almost inclined to be glad that Nick was not there. She admired Theo's splendid red hair and dazzling skin. She saw that, though the young woman's clothes were simple, their simplicity was Parisian and expensive; and she saw also that Theo was a flirt—a "man-eater," as she put it to herself, her dark eyes meeting the green eyes ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... buildings, the Palace of Horticulture, with its glorious roof of glass, and the Festival Hall, closely related in outline, and yet very different in detail. And the garden itself, with its dark, pointed trees standing against the wall, and with its simplicity of design, made an agreeable approach to the great arched entrance under the Tower of Jewels. "Those banners down there, shielding the lights, are a stroke of genius, both in their orange color and their shape. And those orange-colored streamers, how they ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry

... changed her dress, she was morally sure Miss Nason would appear in a gown fit for a state dinner. But when she was dressed and went out on the porch where her guests were, she found Miss Blanch attired in a white muslin, severe in its simplicity. It was a pleasant surprise, and then the matter of dress no longer troubled her, for at no time during their stay did Alice feel any reason to consider herself poorly clad in comparison. Of the conversation that evening, so little was said that ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... complete, and it would be difficult to divine any reason for disliking it, even amongst the most ignorant. "A Spring Evening" is neither so striking nor so immediately attractive; its charm is none the less real. An insinuating and gentle picture, whose delicacy and simplicity I like. ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... vain to contend with him: he was too determined, and had taken this oath in the simplicity of his heart, that it might not be possible for him to recede. I therefore accepted the money: but I endeavoured, having received it to satisfy his oath, to persuade him to take a part of it back again. My efforts were fruitless. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... other is the effort of expiring humanity to relieve itself from pain. The sculptor's chisel and the painter's brush have often been called upon to represent scenes of death in all its various forms and manifestations. Yet have they never attained the simplicity, the impressiveness, the vivid naturalness of the story told by the figure which lies ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.

... contravenes man's reason. Truth courts investigation—the more disrobed, the more beautiful. Science reveals, that there is no mystery in truth. Its simplicity is often disfigured with unnatural and ridiculous superstitions, and these sometimes are so prominent as to conceal it. They certainly, with many, bring it into disrepute. The more intellectual pluck these off and cast them away. They see and know the truth. Yonder birds obey an instinct: the chill ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... away in the starlit gloom of the bay; a voice would respond in cautious tones, and our serang, putting his head down the open skylight, would inform us without surprise, "That Rajah, he coming. He here now." Karain appeared noiselessly in the doorway of the little cabin. He was simplicity itself then; all in white; muffled about his head; for arms only a kriss with a plain buffalo-horn handle, which he would politely conceal within a fold of his sarong before stepping over the threshold. The old sword-bearer's ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad

... Nyack were honest in those days, paid their debts, were happy in their very simplicity, and had no thought of sending to Paris either for ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... weather-worn as his apparel, with a long hooked nose, prominent chin, a wide mouth exceedingly straight and pinched, with a melancholy or contemplative twist at the corners, and a pair of black staring eyes, that beamed a good-natured, humble, and perhaps submissive, simplicity of disposition. His gait, too, as he stumbled along up the hill, with a shuffling, awkward, hesitating step, was like that of a man who apprehended injury and insult, and who did not possess the spirit to resist them. The fact, moreover, of his sustaining on his own shoulders ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... away, Margot," she ordered clearly, "You can't stay here and talk so to me—" the childish simplicity of her phrases was absurdly inadequate to express her scorn, "You do not know that I have a vairee bad temper—I make myself proud, proud, proud when I lose it —but it will make you vairee unhappy if I do—I say and I do most dreadful ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke

... grow particularly angry at him because, as she thought, "he hadn't nothing to say fer himself." Sadly to his disadvantage, she compared his simplicity and honest diffidence with the bold self-assertion and easy familiarity of the young fellows with whom she had come in contact during the winter. Their impertinences had offended her grievously at the time, but, woman-like, she permitted herself ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... and trembling, after all. He believed in the magic powers of the witch of Brandon; and he asked Torfrida, in his simplicity, whether she was not cunning enough to defeat her spells by ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... composition. Two of them are within the gate, one on the top of it, and this latter is on the whole the best, though all are beautiful; uniting the intense northern energy in their figure sculpture with the most serene classical restraint in their outlines, and unaffected, but masculine simplicity of construction. ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... and gave him a smile of kindness and encouragement, responsive to his own look of veneration. We must not take upon us to affirm that this was a mistake, although the Face may have looked no more kindly at Ernest than at all the world besides. But the secret was, that the boy's tender and confiding simplicity discerned what other people could not see; and thus the love, which was meant for ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... the tunnel. There was no one in sight. He noted the elaborate terra-cotta decorations of the walls, and marveled at the bad taste which had lost sight of this opportunity for artistic simplicity. But through the opening before him he could see the fountain playing in the center of the court. The central figure of the group, a naiad, beckoned with a hand from which the water fell in a shower. The effect was not so unpleasing. ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin

... moved most of all by the unimpaired simplicity of heart with which his mother could take up past relations, and open her meagre life to the high visitations of grace and fashion, without a tinge of self-consciousness or apology. "I shall never be as genuine as that," ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... major part of them resemble their countrymen. The mistaken character which the lady formed of Thomson from his Seasons is well known. He let part of the secret out in his Castle of Indolence; and the more he let out, the more honour he did to the simplicity and cordiality of the poet's nature, though not always to the elegance of it. Allan Ramsay knew his friends Gay and Somerville as well in their writings, as he did when he came to be personally acquainted with them; but Allan, who had bustled up from a barber's shop into a bookseller's, was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 407, December 24, 1829. • Various

... be set on fire, and that any one possessing this baneful secret could destroy the world? The plausibility with which the idea was presented, the bare directness of the style, added to its convincing power. It sounded too real to be invention, was told with too frank a simplicity to be all imagination. People could not decide where truth and fiction blended, and the name of ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes

... "The simplicity is beyond question." Blount returned the list of stockholders and fell back upon the pencil-sharpening. "It is quite elementary, as you say; but there is another phase of the transaction which seems to have escaped you. Are you aware that the present arrangement ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... conditions. To describe, again, the play of a number of reciprocal forces, we have to find what mathematicians call an 'independent variable': some one element in the changes on which all other changes will depend. That element, roughly speaking, ultimately comes out to be 'labour.' The simplicity of the system gave an impression both of clearness and certainty, which was transferred from the reasoning to the premises. The facts seemed to be established, because they were necessary to the system. ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... should have by this time a fine accumulation of simplified knowledge for diffusion in public schools; a store of practical experience in how to promote social advancement most rapidly, a progressive economy and ease of administration, a simplicity in theory and visible benefit in practice, such as should make every child an eager ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... to Mr Rugg his fixed resolution. He told Mr Rugg that his partner was a man of great simplicity and integrity, and that in all he meant to do, he was guided above all things by a knowledge of his partner's character, and a respect for his feelings. He explained that his partner was then absent on an enterprise of importance, and that it particularly behoved ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... general quality of style in Bacchylides is his perfect simplicity and clearness. Where the text is not corrupt, there are few sentences which are not lucid in meaning and simple in structure. This lucidity is partly due, no doubt, to the fact that he seldom attempts imagery of the bolder kind, and never ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... wide the sitting-room door and announced the visitor, the sounds ceased, but the musician sat with her hands resting upon the gilded strings for a moment, her eyes turned in inquiry toward the door, then rose and with the simplicity of a child came forward to place her hand in that of Mr. Graham. Mother Clemm who sat near the window with a piece of sewing in her lap also arose, and with gentle dignity came forward to be introduced and to do her part in making ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... not pleased, but she could not object; so she mentioned a shop. Katy's heart gave a bound of relief. She thought No. 6, with a wash-stand, might be very comfortable. Its bareness and simplicity had the charm of novelty. Then there was something very interesting to her in the idea of a ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge

... good judgment and the dramatic habit of things altogether excluded the simple physics of Democritus. Indeed, as things then stood, Democritus had no right to his simplicity, except that divine right which comes of inspiration. His was an indefensible faith in a single radical insight, which happened nevertheless to be true. To justify that insight forensically it would have been necessary to change the range of human vision, making it telescopic ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... Philadelphia was not far behind New York in extravagance, notwithstanding Quaker traditions, while Boston, rich in solid wealth, was more conservative in displaying it, and retained in appearance at least something of Puritan simplicity. ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... one hand full of curds or butter which he has stolen. We speak of idolizing a child, and when Hindu women worship this image they are unconsciously generalizing the process and worshipping childhood, its wayward pranks as well as its loveable simplicity, and though it is hard for a man to think of the freaks of the butter thief as a manifestation of divinity, yet clearly there is an analogy between these childish escapades and the caprices of mature ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... most trivial features of the land. I believe every one was glad to say farewell to Chiloe; yet if we could forget the gloom and ceaseless rain of winter, Chiloe might pass for a charming island. There is also something very attractive in the simplicity and humble politeness of the ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... was called. There was not a young gallant for ten miles round who would not have gone to Jerusalem to win her, and not a week passed but some nosegay or languishing sonnet was conveyed into the Rose's chamber, all of which she stowed away with the simplicity of a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... of piety," I retorted. "In fact, I hardly noticed her clothes at all, except to think that their simplicity gave her a sort of ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd

... rest of their days on the Kentish downs. There is a great variety of characters in this play, which are excellently distinguished and supported; and some of the scenes have as much wit as can be desired in a perfect comedy. The simplicity of its plan must naturally bring to our mind the old species of comedy described by Horace, in which, before it was restrained by a public edict, living characters were exposed by name upon the stage, and the audience made merry at their expense without any intricacy ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... slave-owners, who, occupied with the welfare of those around and dependent upon them, know little of the world beyond; in the same way as in England, a Christian family may be an example of patriarchal simplicity and of apostolic zeal and love, and yet beyond the circle of their action, though not very far from its circumference, the greatest distress and perhaps cruelty may abound. How many of the dark spots on our community ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... of the name of Cheshire at an expense, exclusive of the old materials, of 245l. 10s. the height of the spire from the ground 61 yards. In this church, in which for many years he officiated as curate, is interred the Rev. W. Bickerstaffe, a man of great simplicity of manners, and urbanity of disposition; who by his laborious and minute researches materially assisted ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts

... I do love thee, meek simplicity! For of thy lays, the lulling simpleness Goes to my heart, and soothes each small distress, Distress, though small, yet haply great to me! 'Tis true, on lady fortune's gentlest pad, I amble on; yet, though I know not why, So sad I am!—but should a friend and I Grow cool and ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... in watchfulness against every attempt that may be used, either violently and suddenly, or gently and imperceptibly, to effect a revolution in the spirit and genius of our government; and should there be among us characters to whom the simplicity of it is offensive, let our attention and perseverance be such as to preclude the ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... would have saved me, and she would not speak it." ... Whether that word would have saved them is a question—it was their only chance—and he would not speak it; that word revolted his conscience, it would have been false. I know nothing grander than the sublime simplicity of that refusal. ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... front, the narrow brim closely turned up all round. The high collar of the jacket alone sheltered her neck. Her gloves, though worn, were obviously of good kid; her boots—strangest thing of all in a work-girl's daily attire—were both strong and shapely. This simplicity seemed a declaration that she could not afford genuine luxuries and scorned ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... watch the gay parasols, but furtively studying my Jew. Yes, in that odd figure, so strangely seated on the pavement, I had chanced on the very features, the haunting sadness and mystery of which I had been so long in quest. I wondered at the simplicity with which he was able to maintain a pose so essentially undignified. I told myself I beheld the East squatted broodingly as on a divan, while the West paraded with parasol and Prayer-Book. I wondered that the beadles were unobservant of him. Were they content with his abstention from ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... village two interesting examples of the simplicity of Indian thought took place. Smith wrote a message to Jamestown, the settlement of the whites, sending it by one of the Indians, and receiving an answer. On his reading this and speaking of what he had learned from it, the Indians looked on it as the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... us, it will be simply perfect!" they told each other when they settled down for the night in their hard little cots. They said that many times in the days that followed. The utter joy of work and freedom and simplicity had no ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various

... widow, who kept a school for young children in Lichfield. He told me she could read the black letter, and asked him to borrow for her, from his father, a bible in that character. When he was going to Oxford, she came to take leave of him, brought him, in the simplicity of her kindness, a present of gingerbread, and said, he was the best scholar she ever had. He delighted in mentioning this early compliment: adding, with a smile, that 'this was as high a proof of his merit as he could conceive.' His next instructor in English was a master, whom, when he ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... and to the tents, since those who had been in for an early swim could not sit down to breakfast in their wet bathing suits. But no one took any great length of time to dress, since here the utmost simplicity ruled in clothes. ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart

... to find them. It was Ibsen's revelation of a new world, in which moral values were real and convincing, that thrilled the nineteenth century, and thrills us yet. Can any one read sedately that scene in Ghosts in which Mrs. Alving shows with bewildering simplicity that, however respectable the Pastor's morality may ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell

... part of my intelligence: but, I fear, the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou shalt accompany us to the place; where we will, not appearing what we are, have some question with the shepherd; from whose simplicity I think it not uneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither. Pr'ythee, be my present partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare

... empire. But, if his fortune was great, his genius was transcendent; decision flashed upon his counsels; and it was the same to decide and to perform. To inferior intellects his combinations appeared perfectly impossible, his plans perfectly impracticable; but, in his hands, simplicity marked their development, and success vindicated their adoption. His person partook the character of his mind,—if the one never yielded in the cabinet, the other never bent in the field. Nature ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... about the sketch. It proved to be the work of a young Englishman then residing in the neighborhood. I obtained his address and sought his dwelling. He was scraping an old palette as we entered, and advanced with it in one hand, while he saluted me with the air of a gentleman and the simplicity of an honest man. He wore a linen blouse, his collar was open, his hair long and dark, his complexion pale, his eye thoughtful, and a settled expression of sweetness and candor about the mouth made me feel, at a glance, that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... isolation, almost infantine in her natural simplicity, a single enjoyment was sufficient to satisfy all the passions of her age. Father, mother, lover, and companion; liberties, amusements, and adornments—they were all summed up for her in that simple lute. The archness, the liveliness, ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... inflamed me. I shut the door, and made the little hussy witness of my ardour with my sweetheart. Sara looked on attentively, playing the part of astonishment to perfection, and when I had finished she said, with the utmost simplicity, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... saw that now) Scotch face; the worn voice, unused to sustained utterance, gasping for breath in the middle of a line, and sometimes failing to be ready in time ("I lost the run of it," he explained to us in the middle of a temporary breakdown); the quaint simplicity of the words, "Kind, kind and gentle is she, kind is ma Ma-ary"; the thunder of applause that greeted the close; the immediate and unassailable popularity of the Captain. If I have described it as I saw it, you will understand why I shall ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young

... littered with the debris of restoration. Then follow the cloister and the refectory, and down below them on the second floor of the Merveille is the Salle des Chevaliers. Besides the wonderful Gothic halls with their vaulted roofs and perfect simplicity of design, there are the endless series of crypts and dungeons, which leave a very strong impression on the minds of all those whose knowledge of architecture is lean. There is the shadowy crypt of Les Gros Pilliers down below ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home

... and legislators were deeply impressed with the contrast between an inland and a maritime city: in the former, simplicity and uniformity of life, tenacity of ancient habits and dislike of what is new or foreign, great force of exclusive sympathy and narrow range both of objects and ideas; in the latter, variety and novelty of sensations, expansive imagination, toleration, and occasional ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... could do without them. In taking up his pen he did not set up for a philosopher, wit, orator, or moralist, but he became all these by merely daring to tell us whatever passed through his mind, in its naked simplicity and force, that he thought any ways worth communicating. He did not, in the abstract character of an author, undertake to say all that could be said upon a subject, but what in his capacity as an inquirer after truth he happened to know about it. He was neither ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... monsters as these shamelessly peer over the surrounding buildings. We see bulbous protuberances stuck on the fronts of buildings and we are told they are 'new art' motives. I have seen the 'new art' in other countries, but it is not so ugly as with us; it has fancy and it has simplicity. It is only in our own country that by a sad privilege we may behold the newest and most diverse styles of architectural ugliness. Not ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... of "The Seven Who Were Hanged" is thus far his most important achievement. The keen psychological insight and the masterly simplicity with which Andreyev has penetrated and depicted each of the tragedies of the seven who were hanged place him in the same class as an artist with Russia's greatest masters of fiction, ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev

... appetite for his breakfast, but now he let his coffee stand long un-tasted. There were several things about this note that touched him—the childlike simplicity and directness, the generous courage, even the imperfection and crudity of the literature. However he saw it afterward, he saw it then in its true intention. He respected that intention; through all the sophistications in which life had wrapped ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... Thompson up the winding stair and was shown the dormitories, the walls decorated as gaily as if for a bride, but otherwise of a severe if comfortable simplicity. Every cot was as neat as a new hospital's in the second year of the war, and there was an immense lavatory ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... Charles Darwin's system. We shall have some idyllic young naturalist bringing up Dr. Erasmus Darwin's note on Trapa natans, {181a} and Lamarck's kindred passage on the descent of Ranunculus hederaceus from Ranunculus aquatilis {181b} as fresh discoveries, and be told, with much happy simplicity, that those animals and plants which have felt the need of such or such a structure have developed it, while those which have not wanted it have gone without it. Thus, it will be declared, every leaf we see around us, every structure of the minutest insect, will bear witness ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler

... you have everything done for you. When I was a girl we used to camp out in the Maine woods, and we girls took turns cooking and washing dishes, while the boys gathered wood for the fires, caught fish and looked after the horses. To take a crowd of servants along would rob the life of all its simplicity." ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs

... gospels have come down to us, which are full of stories, most of them absurd and some of them worse, about the infancy of Jesus Christ. Their puerilities bring out more distinctly the simplicity, the nobleness, the worthiness of this one solitary incident of His early days, which has been preserved for us. How has it been preserved? If you will look over the narratives there will be very little difficulty, I think, in answering that question. Observing the prominence that is ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... remain. The reason was that, though older than I, she was yet young, and young girls seldom take much notice of children, whereas your aunt was of an age when women admire their innocence and engaging simplicity. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... The Surveillant's care; eventually I could also draw on my account with Norton-Harjes in Paris; meantime he had quelques sous which might well go into chocolate and cigarettes. The large lady had a pleasant quietness about her, a sort of simplicity, which made me extremely desirous of complying with B.'s suggestion. Incidentally I was feeling somewhat uncertain in the region of the stomach, due to the unique quality of the lunch which I had just enjoyed, and I brightened at the thought of anything as solid as chocolate. ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... Yaouma, how I envy you! If you but knew the ill they have done me. They have half killed me, killing all the legends and all the memories that were mine. They made me blush at my simplicity. I felt shamed to have been so easily fooled by such gross make-believes. And now, what have I gained by this revelation? My soul is a house after the burning, black, ruined, empty. Nothing is left but ruins, ruins one might laugh at. [In tears] I am parched with thirst, I hunger, ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux

... Henrietta was in the utmost confusion, dreading lest the grossness of her mother should again send off Cecilia in anger: but Cecilia, who perceived her uneasiness, and who was more charmed with her character than ever, from the simplicity of her sincerity, determined to save her that pain, by quietly hearing her harangue, and then quietly departing: though she was much provoked to find from the complaining hints every instant thrown out, that Mrs Belfield was still internally convinced ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... pointed out that inspectors could do nothing but see that the regulations were carried out. He took up the position that it was the regulations which needed reform. His plea was irrefutable in its moderation and simplicity: but it was beyond the comprehension of an English Home Secretary apparently, for all the abuses pointed out by Oscar Wilde still flourish. I can't help giving some extracts from this memorable indictment: memorable for its reserve and sanity and ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... but she was not mocking him, and, marvelling at her simplicity and honest innocence, he relaxed into a smile. "Not very likely, my dear," he said. "In other days a pleasant underground cell in the Lollards' Tower would have been ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable

... noble, enthusiasm for the rescue of his Bavarian subjects from Jesuit obscurantism, he imagined that similar measures might also be advantageously taken in the Tyrol, where the mountaineers, true to their ancient simplicity, were revolted by the severity of the cure, attempted too by a physician of whose intentions they were mistrustful. Bavaria was overrun with rich monasteries; the Tyrol, less fertile, possessed merely a patriarchal clergy, less ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... good idea," he said. "Democratic simplicity is the right thing at home, of course; but when you go abroad and mix with crowned heads, you want to show them that you know ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... Hye Way is simplicity itself. Copland, taking refuge near St. Bartholomew's Hospital during a passing shower, engages the porter in conversation concerning the "losels, mighty beggars and vagabonds, the michers, hedge-creepers, fylloks and luskes" ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer

... to his name at the roll-call when the great of earth are summoned in the morning of the last great reveille. Till then [apostrophizing Lincoln's portrait which hung above the President's head], till then, farewell, gentlest of all spirits, noblest of all hearts! The child's simplicity was mingled with the majestic grandeur of your nature. You have handed down unto a grateful people the richest legacy which man can leave to man—the memory of a good name, the inheritance of a great example! [Loud ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... will meet with anywhere. Art never has fathomed them, and may never be able to do so. Often have I stood dumbfounded before some simple day-labourer with whom I worked. Art does not affect me, as this kind of grand simplicity in life does. I keep muttering to myself: there must be a meaning to our lives somewhere, or else we must sunder this social fabrication and create a meaning; and so my ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... Day, and "this" was an Indian basket of holly and mistletoe, conspicuous, among many costly floral offerings, by its simplicity. The card which accompanied it read, "To her Ladyship, from the Candy Man," but this Mrs. Pennington ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard

... may be asked, is this to be done? I have hinted elsewhere in my writings that sublimity is, so to say, the image of greatness of soul. Hence a thought in its naked simplicity, even though unuttered, is sometimes admirable by the sheer force of its sublimity; for instance, the silence of Ajax in the eleventh Odyssey[1] is great, and grander than anything he could ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus

... Avilion's bowery hollows, Ida's peak, The lily-laden Lotos land, the fields Of amaranth! What may vagrant Fancy seek More than thy rich song yields, Of Orient odour, Faery wizardry, Or soft Arcadian simplicity? ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various

... respects, the one perfectly Human Voice I had heard among my fellow-creatures for a long time. And then the "style," the treatment and expression,—yes, it is inimitable, best—Emersonian throughout. Such brevity, simplicity, softness, homely grace; with such a penetrating meaning, soft enough, but irresistible, going down to the depths and up to the heights, as silent electricity goes. You have done very well; and many will know it ever better by degrees.—Only one thing farther ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... as in those quaintly carved and coloured imageries of the Middle Age—the martyrdom of the youthful Saint Firmin, for instance, round the choir at Amiens—comes the full contrast, with a quite medieval simplicity and directness, between the insolence of the tyrant, now at last in sight of his prey, and the outraged beauty of the youthful god, meek, surrounded by his enemies, like some fair wild creature in the snare of the hunter. Dionysus has been taken prisoner; he is led on to ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... organization and practice in peace is most essential. Infantry may suddenly be increased without much deranging its action in the field, but cavalry cannot be hurried into an increased augmentation. In tactics simplicity in every evolution and rapidity in execution are the most important principles. This simplicity of drill, I think, might be assisted if our squadrons were divided into four divisions, zuges, or pelotons. When squadrons have 48 files in the front rank there might be four of these, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various

... quiet for the moment the gaseous brain of the turbulent woman. She accepted the kindness, and, the singing over, did not refuse to look on the same holy page with her daughter's friend, while the ploughman read, with fitting simplicity, the parable of the Prodigal Son. It touched something in both, but a different something in each. Strange to say, neither applied it to her own case, but each to her neighbour's. As the reader uttered the words "was ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... Tartarus. There is in each, besides all else, a certain remarkable directness of glance, an intrepid and penetrating quality of vision, which defies analysis. Occasional turgidity of phrase and unidiomatic handling of language do not conceal the simplicity of the process by which Mr. Carlyle pierces through obstruction down to the abstrusest depths. And the important fact is that this abstruseness is not verbal, any more than it is the abstruseness of fog and cloud. His epithet, or ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley

... that had pierced his cheek and broken three of his teeth at the battle of Moncontour had left a livid scar that lost itself in his long white beard. His forehead was high and bald, and his eyes were of a steely keenness under their tufted brows. He was dressed with Calvinistic simplicity entirely in black, and just as this contrasted with the King's suit of sulphur-coloured satin, so did the gravity of his countenance contrast with the stupidity ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... rather than a woman. There was a hardy, masculine freedom in the pliable motion of her straight back, a ripple with muscles that played easily beneath the close bodice, in her arms, and her finely turned ankles and legs, that were bared below the knee. The very simplicity of her costume helped to mark the Greek severity of her figure. She wore a short skirt of some coarse hempen stuff, covered with a thick apron made of sail-cloth, her feet thrust into black sabots, while the upper part of her body ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... retorts, tubes, cylinders, crucibles, and other apparatus of chemical research. An electrical machine stood ready for immediate use. The atmosphere felt oppressively close, and was tainted with gaseous odors which had been tormented forth by the processes of science. The severe and homely simplicity of the apartment, with its naked walls and brick pavement, looked strange, accustomed as Georgiana had become to the fantastic elegance of her boudoir. But what chiefly, indeed almost solely, drew her attention, was the aspect of ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... model. The soffite is more beautiful than any thing of either style separate. There is a little error in the inscription; it should be Horatius Walpole posuit. The urn is of marble, richly polished; the rest of stone. On the whole, I think there is simplicity and decency, with a degree ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... your politics and policies are summed up in the one intention to do well for yourself, great simplicity is given to your theories, if not ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... life's work; and in 1776 published the "Wealth of Nations," which at once achieved a permanent reputation. The author was appointed, in 1778, Commissioner of Customs for Scotland, and died on July 17, 1790. Adam Smith was a man of vast learning and of great simplicity and kindliness of character. His reasonings have had vast influence not only on the science of Economics but also on practical politics; his powerful defence of free trade, and his indictment of the East ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... our unreasonable motions; a goat, when we conquer wantonness; a turtledove, when we keep chaste; unleavened bread, when we feast on the unleavened bread of sincerity." And it is evident that the dove denotes charity and simplicity of heart. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas



Words linked to "Simplicity" :   easiness, simple, easy, effortlessness, complexity, naturalness, difficulty, plainness, quality, naiveness, simple-minded, naivety, naivete



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