Leonardo de Vinci said, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication"?

Question

Is simplicity the ultimate sophistication? No one would buy a simple cell phone compared to a complex cell phone. No one wants to wear the same style clothes as the other person and no one has the discipline to keep life simple. Does this mean they are not sophisticated?
Also, isn't a sophisticated person someone who studies complex and abstract ideas. What are your opinions?

A lot of intellects believed the same idea, but I don't see why

1. William Hazlitt said "Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought.
2. Henry David Thoreau said "Our lives are frittered away by detail; simplify, simplify."
3. Thomas Aquinas believed God is infinitely simple.
4. Albert Einstein stated "Things should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
5. Quakers practice the Testimony of Simplicity
6. Occam's razor is about simplicity as a meta-scientific criterion by which to evaluate competing theories

Answer 1

Good point. I am more inclined to agree with H.L. Menken:

"For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong."

Although a sophisticated person can make the most complex ideas seem simple; perhaps that is da Vinci's point?

Answer 2

Simplicity Is The Ultimate Sophistication

Answer 3

Someone asked a similar question recently. You say no one would buy a simple cell over a complex one: if the option of all the complexity were available in one, simple tool, would people buy it? The success of blackberries and other technologies indicates that people want it all, will buy it all, if it works simply and gives them what they want easily. Having a universal remote, for example, is better than having 10 remotes to lose.

DaVinci is talking about how perfect simplicity is, how beautiful and elegant things can be when they're not bogged down by details. Simple phrases that can encapsulate huge ideas--such as, "the pen is mightier than the sword," are beautiful in their simplicity. Women who wear hints of perfume instead of bathing in it are sophisticated; a man who gives one perfect rose is more sophisticated than a man who sends a roomful. It's the beauty of minimalism and lack of clutter. This is not to imply there is no complexity going on--it's just that the complexity has been distilled to the point that it can be said and done simply.

Answer 4

Being simple is not owning the cheapest things or wearing the same style of clothes all the time. For me, simpliicity is sophistication if being simple means doing away with less. Example, you could have a hi-tech cellphone but you only have 1, not 2 or 3. It also means you may have only several set of clothes but you can mix and match them and wear them like you're always wearing something new. It's how you carry your being simple that makes you sophisticated.

Answer 5

You're missing the point. Cellphones are complex because cellphone manufacturers don't want to spend the money to make them simple, because if they were, no one would buy the new model.

It's why you havent seen a new design for a toaster, or a better way to turn on and off the lights in your house.

E=MC^2 is incredibly powerful exactly because it has five characters in it, and from it came nuclear power.

Leonardo was right. The more we complicate things, the more they fail to work, are hard to use, and are less applicable.

Answer 6

I think it was more of a caution than it was a standard against which all should be measured. Do not TRY to make things complicated in your pursuit of sophistication. Do not overlook the possibility that simplicity is the most sophisticated option.

Answer 7

The statment that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication is correct for it recognizes that in even the most frivilous materials form follows function. But wer we do forgo flamboyance and to focus "simply" and function the most ultimate sophistication would have been achieved.

Answer 8

That's not the simplicity he was talking about. He'd be referring more to not owning a cellphone at all. He's saying you don't have to own complex things or act like you're more than you are or take more than you need to take to be sophisticated. People in lavish houses with ten cars and fancy dinner parties are less sophisticated than, say, a humble philosopher who knows himself and simply that.

Answer 9

simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication means that simplicity is a source of good lifestyle and give us freedom from complexity as the more the thing simpler the more we find it easy and as we know that the word sophisticate means style and cool so simplicity does not suggest us to be booring but do style in limits means we do not hide our own beauty through makeup and whatever and we have to be natural as possible as we can because if you want beauty in your life so you have to adopt simplicity....

Answer 10

I'm not an expert, but maybe what he means is being able to appreciate not only the more complex things but the simple things also.

Or maybe he means that once you reach a certain level of sophistication, every thing is simple to you.