. . . money . . . is really the difference between men and animals, most of the things men feel, animals feel, and vice versa, but animals do not know about money.
Gertrude SteinRead
Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that things are what they are, regardless of interpretation or context.
Gertrude Stein's repetitive phrase, 'Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose,' suggests that a rose remains a rose, symbolizing the idea of identity and the essence of objects. Stein's work often explores the nature of language and meaning, and in this quote, she hints at the simplicity and clarity of perception, urging us to accept things as they are without overcomplicating our understanding.
In practice
This quote can be used in an art class to discuss the role of perception in understanding artwork.
. . . money . . . is really the difference between men and animals, most of the things men feel, animals feel, and vice versa, but animals do not know about money.
The creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic.
If the communication is perfect, the words have life, and that is all there is to good writing, putting down on the paper words which dance and weep and make love and fight and kiss and perform miracles.
The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.
I simply contend that the middle-class ideal which demands that people be affectionate, respectable, honest and content, that they avoid excitements and cultivate serenity is the ideal that appeals to me, it is in short the ideal of affectionate family life, of honorable business methods.
It is natural to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes to that siren until she allures us to our death.
You have the itch for writing born in you. It's quite incurable. What are you going to do with it?
The constant fear of a performer is to become what is reflected back at you.
One writes out of one thing only - one's own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art.
Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.
If you want to be an entertainer, then go be an entertainer and give people what they want. If you want to be an artist, then you have to be true to yourself, and you have to be prepared to confront expectations - and you have to be prepared to disappoint your fans, too.
If all your life means to you is water running over rocks, then photograph it, but I want to create something that would not have existed without me.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.