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About this quote

What does it mean?
Stein suggests that resilience and retained identity matter more than what a place or person gives you.
In plain terms
What matters is what you keep, not what you get.
What can you take from it?
Preserving your core self is vital.

Where it applies

  • experiencing culture
  • personal growth
  • historical reflection

Putting it to work

  • Evaluating life changes
  • Appreciating stability
  • Defining personal worth

Questions to consider

  • What do you hold onto when things change?
  • Is giving less important than keeping?

Another view

It ignores the value of genuine gifts or opportunities received.

More from Gertrude Stein

  1. Growing has no connection with audience. Audience has no connection with identity. Identity has no connection with a universe. A universe has no connection wit…

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  2. Adventure is making the distant approach nearer but romance is having what is where it is which is not where you are stay where it is.

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  3. In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. This is what makes America what it is.

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