Full Idea
The power and simplicity of an algorithm, or indeed of any theory, depend on there being many occurrences of few elements rather than few occurrences of many.
Gist of Idea
Good algorithms and theories need many occurrences of just a few elements
Source
Willard Quine (Mr Strawson on Logical Theory [1953], III)
Book Reference
Quine,Willard: 'Ways of Paradox and other essays' [Harvard 1976], p.143
A Reaction
Not sure how this applies to a software function. One which produces a good result from a large number of input variables sounds particularly impressive to me. Many occurrences of a single variable sounds rather inefficient.