less is more

The notion that a smaller amount of something can be much more effective than a large or excessive amount. Sometimes hyphenated and used as a modifier before a noun. Try not to give your characters such lengthy expositions and backstories—remember that less is usually more. We're going with a less-is-more mentality approach with the house in order to showcase the stunning scenery around it.

Cliché fewer or small is better. Simplicity now rules our lives. Less is more. Smaller houses and cars. The world will be a better place!

Simplicity is superior to elaborate embellishment. This phrase is commonly associated with the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886– 1969), who used it referring to the desirability of less visual clutter in buildings and homes. Actually the very same words appeared a century earlier in Robert Browning’s poem Andrea del Sarto, referring to the painter’s creed: “Yet do much less, so much less . . . Well, less is more, Lucrezia; I am judged.” Although both citations refer to the visual arts, the term has been extended to other contexts. For example, “Featherbrains can also count on enjoying Karen Shaw’s variations on the theme of ‘less is more,’ in which language, numbers and symbols are all put through the mincer to convivial effect” (New York Times, June 20, 1980).