Less is more

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Less is more is a saying that has become a catchphrase . The English equivalent is: less is more .

construction

At first glance, the phrase is a paradoxical and nonsensical statement, because less cannot be more. The contradiction, however, is a deliberately made mistake of meaning . In rhetoric , such a construction is called an oxymoron .

Actually, the phrase that “less is more” is meant to say that less is better than more. That would not be a paradoxical statement, because many situations are conceivable in which this statement is factually correct: Few decorations on a piece of furniture can be more appealing than many. Less poison is better than more of it for those who want to survive unscathed.

In this contradiction there is therefore the attraction of an oxymoron: the (unspoken) meaning of the utterance is plausible, the wording, however, is nonsensical. Anyone using an oxymoron assumes that both the actual meaning and the deliberately set mistake of meaning will be recognized by the recipient.

Origin and later use of the phrase

Who was the creator of this formulation is unknown. It is occasionally ascribed to Christoph Martin Wieland (1733 to 1813) . In the poem New Year's Wish , which appeared in 1774, the following lines can be found at the end to excuse a certain proliferation:

I can see that the people are amazed
How will this end? - Sorry
If it takes too long! I love in all things
The next way, although it's often twice as far
As the one that other wanderers make.
A good way is worth a detour,
And less is often more , as Lessing's prince teaches us.

You can see that Wieland did not use the phrase “and less is often more” in the sense in which it would be understood today. The connection between the individual lines of poetry and the others shows that Wieland did not want to form an oxymoron here, but rather an ellipse : the meaningful words do not form a pair of opposites, they have been left out. Accordingly, the last line should be read as follows: And less [to be fast] is often more [to guess], as [also] Lessing's prince teaches us.

The phrase less is more can also be found in the poem Andrea del Sarto , published by Robert Browning in 1855.

The expression less is more became popular among architects, designers and other artists of the early 20th century: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe had taken up the formulation to express his idea of ​​building, as he rejected decorative decorations and preferred simple, simple forms. In any case, Van der Rohe became a leading man in a group of artists that were later referred to as minimalists , and Mies van der Rohe's less is more over time became a watchword and a battle slogan. Occasionally the phrase was corrupted , for example to less is a bore . ("Less is boring").

Modifications

  • “Perfection is not achieved when nothing more can be added, but nothing can be left out” ( Antoine de Saint-Exupéry ).
  • "More is not less" ( Robert Venturi )
  • “[…] One would like to say: the simple is not always the best; but the best is always simple [...] "( Heinrich Tessenow )
  • "Make things as simple as possible - but not easier." ( Albert Einstein )
  • "Reduce to the max" (advertising message from Mercedes-Benz for the Smart )
  • "My motto to this day: Less, but better." ( Dieter Rams )
  • As an excuse for a letter that was too long, Blaise Pascal cited that he just didn't have time to be brief . In a postscript to his long letter it says: “Venerable fathers, my letters do not follow one another so quickly, nor are they so long. The little time I had is the cause of one as well as the other. I only made this letter a little longer because I didn't have the leisure to make it shorter. The reason why I was forced to hurry is better known to you than to me. ”( Blaise Pascal )
  • "Keep it simple." ( Alfred Eisenstaedt )
  • "Sophisticatedly simple" ( Arnold Zellner )

Opposite position

  • "If less is more, maybe nothing is everything." ( Rem Koolhaas )
  • "Less or more - what a bore" ( 1999: Tom Stark )
  • "LESS function IS MORE fun." ( 1995: Stiletto Studio, s )

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Roland Leonhard: The core of the matter. Proverbs explained. Rudolf Haufe Verlag, Planegg and Munich 2006, p. 157 (digitized version of this page from Google Books, accessed on July 2, 2016.)
  2. ↑ New Year's wish . in: Der Teutsche Merkur from 1774. Fifth volume. Hoffmanns Verlag, Weimar 1774, p. 1 to 6, here p. 4 (digitized version of this page about the Bielefeld University Library).
  3. ↑ Lessing's prince says in Emilia Galotti (1,4): “Not so honest, would be more honest”.
  4. ^ Full text of the poem on the Poetry Foundation homepage . (Last accessed July 2, 2016.)
  5. ↑ Less is a bore. For Robert Venturi's 90th birthday. Article on BauNetz from June 29, 2015 ( online , accessed July 2, 2016)
  6. ↑ Focus !: Provocative ideas for people who want to achieve something in Google Book Search
  7. ↑ The quote is actually in English. It reads: "More is not less". In: Venturi: Complexity and contradiction in architecture. 1966, p. 16
  8. ↑ A longer quotation in full; It reads: “It is true that the requirement that our commercial work should be formally purer also includes the requirement that it should be formally less or simple; but as far as we think of something like an ideal way of life, we will probably always find that greater simplicity plays a very important role for us; one would like to say: the simple is not always the best; but the best is always easy ; otherwise we will be less able to communicate about simplicity than about cleanliness; When we consider how largely our environment can be clean, we answer almost without hesitation that it should only be as clean as it is possible at all; on the other hand, when we demand simplicity, we have a bunch of fundamental concerns. ”Quoted from: The cleanliness or purity of commercial work , in: House building and the like. With 107 drawings and photographs of Heinrich Tessenow's own work , Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1916, pages 39 to 46, here page 45 f. (Digitized version of this page here in the Internet Archive .)
  9. ↑ Younger edition: The cleanliness or the purity of commercial work, in: Heinrich Tessenow. Written. Thoughts of a builder. Edited by Otto Kindt , Braunschweig and Wiesbaden: Vieweg, 1982, pp. 37 to 40, here p. 39 ( ISBN 3-528-08761-7 ). (Digital copy of this page on Google Books.)
  10. ↑ Quoted from Jochen Stöckmann: Less, but better. Lucky Strike Award for the designer Dieter Rams . The report was broadcast on November 15, 2007 in the Deutschlandradio Kultur program. The text of the broadcast can be found online here . (Last accessed on July 1, 2016.)
  11. ↑ Compare: Less, but better. Less but better. Published by Dieter Rams , Hamburg: Klatt, 1995.
  12. ↑ Lettres provinciales , 16th letter of December 4, 1656. - In Adolf Blech's Pascal edition, this letter, which Pascal says he made longer just because he “didn't have time” to make it shorter, includes at least 30 printed pages. Compare: Pascals's letters to a friend in the provinces. Translated from the French by Karl Adolf Blech, Preacher at St. Salvator in Danzig […], Berlin: Besser, 1841, pp. 335 to 365, here p. 364 (digitized version of this page here on Google Books).
  13. ↑ famousphotographers.net
  14. ↑ https://www.chicagobooth.edu/about/newsroom/press-releases/2010/2010-08-17 (last accessed on April 22, 2017).
  15. ↑ interview.de: The best things ever said by Rem Koolhaas
  16. ↑ goodreads.com: Rem Koolhaas> Quotes
  17. ↑ Tom Stark: LESS OR MORE - WHAT A BORE , Anabas-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main, 1999, ISBN 3-87038-317-8
  18. ↑ Qrt : “ Retail art with special waste”, announcement and brief review of the design sales exhibition “LESS function IS MORE fun.” As part of the “Spätverkauf” project by the artist group Funny Farm (Laura Kikauka and Gordon Monahan) in the kiosk of the Volksbühne Berlin (in (030) Magazin , No. 25/1995, [030] Media Verlag, Berlin, December 1995)