Vol. 06 · Misquoted ·Book ·245 of 348
"Simplify, simplify."
They never said that.
What people say
"Simplify, simplify."
What was actually said
"Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify." Henry David Thoreau — Walden, "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For" (1854)
Why it stuck
Stripped of the preceding sentence, the couplet loses its motive. Thoreau's point is that the detail does the damage; the repetition is a corrective, not a slogan.
Know another line by heart?
Play the duel and see how many you can spot. Or browse the whole shelf.