Gertrude Stein: Thing

Gertrude Stein was American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays. Explore interesting quotes on thing.

Gertrude Stein: 320 quotes25 likes

“I dislike it when instead of saying Jew they say Hebrew or Israelite, or Semite, I do not like it and why should a Negro want to be called colored. Why should we want to lose being a Negro… I have stated that a noun to me is a stupid thing, if you know a thing and its name why bother about it but you have to know its name to talk about it. Well its name is Negro if it is a Negro and Jew if it is a Jew and both of them are nice strong names and so let us keep them.”

Source: Everybody’s Autobiography (1937), Ch. 4

“It is the soothing thing about history that it does repeat itself.”

Wars I Have Seen (1945)

“I like a thing simple but it must be simple through complication. Everything must come into your scheme, otherwise you cannot achieve real simplicity.”

What Are Masterpieces and Why Are There So Few of Them (1936), Afterword of a later edition

“The whole duty of man consists in being reasonable and just… I am reasonable because I know the difference between understanding and not understanding and I am just because I have no opinion about things I don’t understand.”

Manuscript (1903), published in Q.E.D. Book 1, from Q.E.D., and Other Early Writings (1971)

“It is a difficult thing to like anybody else's ideas of being funny.”

Source: Everybody’s Autobiography (1937), Ch. 3

“The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting.”

Mrs. Reynolds and Five Earlier Novelettes (1952) Pt. 1 (written 1940-1943)

“The reason why all of us naturally began to live in France is because France has scientific methods, machines and electricity, but does not really believe that these things have anything to do with the real business of living.”

Gertrude Stein book Paris France

Source: Paris France (1940), p. 8

“They were regular in being gay, they learned little things that are things in being gay, they learned many little things that are things in being gay, they were gay every day, they were regular, they were gay, they were gay the same length of time every day, they were gay, they were quite regularly gay.”

"Miss Furr and Miss Skeene"
This story about two lesbians, written in 1911, and published in Vanity Fair magazine in July 1923, is considered to be the origin of the use of the term "gay" for "homosexual", though it was not used in this sense in the story.
Geography and Plays (1922)