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Attributed to Albert Einstein, although this may be an editor's paraphrase of a lecture he gave.Colin Chapman, the founder of Lotus Cars, urged his designers to "Simplify, then add lightness".Antoine de Saint Exupéry's "It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away".Johan Cruyff's "Playing football is very simple but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is".Bjarne Stroustrup's "Make Simple Tasks Simple!".Shakespeare's "Brevity is the soul of wit".Leonardo da Vinci's "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication".The principle most likely finds its origins in similar minimalist concepts, such as:
KEEP IT SIMPLE QUOTE SOFTWARE
Navy and United States Air Force, and in the field of software development. The acronym has been used by many in the U.S. Hence, the "stupid" refers to the relationship between the way things break and the sophistication available to repair them. The principle is best exemplified by the story of Johnson handing a team of design engineers a handful of tools, with the challenge that the jet aircraft they were designing must be repairable by an average mechanic in the field under combat conditions with only these tools. While popular usage has transcribed it for decades as "Keep it simple, stupid", Johnson transcribed it as "Keep it simple stupid" (no comma), and this reading is still used by many authors.
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The acronym was reportedly coined by Kelly Johnson, lead engineer at the Lockheed Skunk Works (creators of the Lockheed U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes, among many others).