Simple Idea

Famous quotes containing the words simple and/or idea:

    The Americans never use the word peasant, because they have no idea of the class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved among them; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization.
    Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)

    Enthusiastic partisans of the idea of progress are in danger of failing to recognize ... the immense riches accumulated by the human race.... By underrating the achievements of the past, they devalue all those which still remain to be accomplished.
    Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–1990)