Gertrude Stein Quotes on Communication

7 quotes

  1. It is always a mistake to be plain-spoken.

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

  3. Human beings are interested in two things. They are interested in the reality and interested in telling about it.

  4. Explanations are clear but since no one to whom a thing is explained can connect the explanations with what is really clear, therefore clear explanations are not clear. Now this is a simple thing that anybody who has ever argued or quarreled knows perfectly well is a simple thing, only when they read it they do not understand it because they do not see that understanding and believing are not the same thing. ~ Ch. 4

  5. The head-lines which do not head anything they simply replace something but they do not make anything. ~ Ch. 5

  6. Now they can do the radio in so many languages that nobody any longer dreams of a single language, and there should not any longer be dreams of conquest because the globe is all one, anybody can hear everything and everybody can hear the same thing, so what is the use of conquering.

  7. Clarity is of no importance because nobody listens and nobody knows what you mean no matter what you mean, nor how clearly you mean what you mean. But if you have vitality enough of knowing enough of what you mean, somebody and sometime and sometimes a great many will have to realize that you know what you mean and so they will agree that you mean what you know, what you know you mean, which is as near as anybody can come to understanding any one.

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