As simple as possible but no simpler

Make everything as simple as possible but no simpler.

This quotation is often attributed to Albert Einstein. It’s one of those aphorisms that sounds helpful, but isn’t really.

Einstein’s name gets attached to all kinds of wise sayings, so I thought I’d check on the trusty Quote Investigator blog.

It seems Einstein did say something like this, in a 1933 lecture where simplicity was a recurring theme (he was really restating the philosophical principle known as Occam’s Razor).

But what he actually said was rather longer, and was quoted in a general way by Roger Sessions, the composer, who wrote in 1950 that Einstein ‘said, in effect, that everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler!’ Remove the ‘in effect’ in the retelling, and you are left with ‘Einstein said’.

Many such instances exist of statements that get plucked out of context, rephrased, and misattributed.¹ They are modern proverbs.

I think this process says as much about simplification as the quote itself.

Whatever you actually say in a document, it will somehow get taken to mean whatever the reader can easily remember, or thinks it should have said, or what they think it probably says if only they could find the time to read it properly.

That’s what goes wrong with so many information documents. The headline frames the relationship, the product, and the apparent intent. The customer buys into this, and fills in the detail from their experience and imagination.

But should they read what Einstein actually said, or what’s actually in their mobile phone contract, or the pharmaceutical leaflet, it might not be what they expect.

1. If you need an attribution, use Einstein if it’s wise, Churchill if it’s rude, or Oscar Wilde if it’s funny; or if you’re American substitute Mark Twain.

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