Quotes from Gertrude Stein

One cannot come back too often to the question what is knowledge and to the answer knowledge is what one knows.... Knowledge is the thing you know and how can you know more than you do know.

Everybody gets so much common information all day long that they lose their common sense.

I am because my little dog knows me.

Every adolescent has that dream every century has that dream every revolutionary has that dream, to destroy the family.

I could undertake to be an efficient pupil if it were possible to find an efficient teacher.

This is the lesson that history teaches: repetition.

Anything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful.

It is extraordinary that when you are acquainted with a whole family you can forget about them.

It is natural not to care about a sister certainly not when she is four years older and grinds her teeth at night.

It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for the future, none at all. It certainly is extraordinary, but it is certainly true.

Do not forget birthdays. This is in no way a propaganda for a larger population.

War is never fatal but always lost. Always lost.

Disillusionment in living is finding that no one can really ever be agreeing with you completely in anything.

Success is the result achieved when nobody answers.

There is no real reality to a really imagined life any more.

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

This joy you feel is life.

What is the answer? In that case, what is the question?

Just before she died she asked, What is the answer? No answer came. She laughed and said, In that case, what is the question? Then she died.

It is not what France gave you but what it did not take from you that was important.

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

There is a difference between twenty-nine and thirty. When you are twenty-nine it can be the beginning of everything. When you are thirty it can be the end of everything.

Everybody thinks that this civilization has lasted a very long time but it really does take very few grandfathers' granddaughters to take us back to the dark ages.

Any time is the time to make a poem.