Writing is an imperfect technology for moving thoughts between minds. "Writing simply" is valuable if it communicates your thought more efficiently and accurate

Writing is an imperfect technology for moving thoughts between minds. "Writing simply" is valuable if it communicates your thought more efficiently and accurately (and it is indeed a common peccadillo to write thoughts in a bloated and inefficient manner), but like you're pointing out, some thoughts are not compressible beyond a certain point. For example, here's some Ovid quoted in a book I'm reading. I'd like to hear how you could write this "simply" without losing resolution of the thought from which it originated: -------- There is no greater wonder than to range The starry heights, to leave the earth’s dull regions, To ride the clouds, to stand on Atlas’ shoulders, And see, far off, far down, the little figures Wandering here and there, devoid of reason, Anxious, in fear of death, and so advise them, And so make fate an open book… Full sail, I voyage Over the boundless ocean, and I tell you Nothing is permanent in all the world. All things are fluid; every image forms, Wandering through change. Time is itself a river In constant movement, and the hours flow by Like water, wave on wave, pursued, pursuing, Forever fugitive, forever new. That which has been, is not; that which was not, Begins to be; motion and moment always In process of renewal… Not even the so-called elements are constant… Nothing remains the same: the great renewer, Nature, makes form from form, and, oh, believe me That nothing ever dies….