Thomas Mann (1875-1955) was a German writer and received the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature. The rest of this post is some quotes from Mann.
Language
"Speech is civilization itself." (The Magic Mountain, 1924)
"An art whose medium is language will always show a high degree of critical creativeness, for speech is itself a critique of life: it names, it characterizes, it passes judgement, in that it creates." (Speech at the Prussian Academy of Art in Berlin, 1929)
Simplicity
"Order and simplification are the first steps toward the mastery of the subject - the actual enemy is the unknown." (The Magic Mountain, 1924)
