Date: Sun, 3 Aug 1997 00:05:22 EDT

From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU

Subject: Re: dumb question, I'm really sorry



James Arthurs writes,

|Duane Campbell wrote: "Who said, 'Less is more'?"



|Alan Baragona replied: "Believe it or not, my hardback Bartlett's

|attributes

|to Hesiod: 'Fools, they do not even know how much more is the half than

|the whole']".



I do not understand what the Browning quote has to do with the Campbell

question: it may express, by implication, a notion akin to that of "Less is

more" but it does not correspond to it textually, obviously. So, what does it

matter that Browning said what he said?

As the context above makes clear, the quote is attributed to Hesiod;

Browning's line was 'Less is more'.





For my part, I do not know with any certainty who said, 'Less is more' but my

immediate reaction to the question was "Buckminster Fuller".



Any further offers?

As noted, the line was Browning's, from "Andrea del Sarto" (1855), whence the

equally memorable "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp/Or what's a

heaven for?". My Bartlett's also includes that same troublesome Hesiod cross-

reference, as well as a Lessing line "Not so honest would be more honest", but

it also notes of "Less is more" that it was "a popular aphorism with the

architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe." --Larry