QuoteProject
I like a view but I like to sit with my back turned to it.
Gertrude Stein
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote suggests a preference for introspection and self-reflection over external distractions.

Gertrude Stein’s quote reflects on the difference between experiencing beauty and turning one's attention inward. It implies that the value of a beautiful view is often overshadowed by the importance of personal contemplation and the inner experience that comes from focusing on one's thoughts and feelings rather than on the outside world.

Themes

ViewIntrospectionReflectionInner PeacePerspective

In practice

Example use cases

During a motivational speech about the importance of self-reflection.

More from Gertrude Stein

. . . 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
The creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic.
Gertrude SteinRead
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.
Gertrude SteinRead
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.
Gertrude SteinRead
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.
Gertrude SteinRead
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.
Gertrude SteinRead

Similar quotes

No wickedness proceeds on any grounds of reason.
LivyRead
What I know for sure is that what you give comes back to you. That's not just my theory or point of view, it's physics. Life is an energy of giving and receiving... Those that are greedy, hit a road block where they are alone. Give more than you receive and be grateful for those around you.
Oprah WinfreyRead
That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.
William BlackstoneRead
The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity – it’s envy.
Yann MartelRead
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.
William ShakespeareRead
Liberty cannot be guaranteed by law. Nor by any thing else except the resolution of free citizens to defend their liberties.
Edward AbbeyRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.