Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Gertrude Stein

by Philip Yaffe

Part 17 of an occasional series

I am a collector of quotations. I have been ever since I learned how to write, I mean professionally, not in primary school.

I am particularly fond of what I like to call "pithy prose". These short quotations can cover an unlimited variety of subjects: love, religion, politics, human nature, etc. What unites them is their ability to say more in one or two sentences than could be expressed in a thousand-word treatise. It's like being able to pour a liter of liquid into a half-liter bottle.

They are superb examples of Mark Twain's famous dictum, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."

In principle, all writers and public speakers are capable of producing pithy prose, but clearly some are better at it than others.

Any collection of pithy prose must necessarily be biased in terms of what it includes and excludes. I make no apologies for my selections, only for the hundreds of other meritorious quotations I had to leave out.

No one will agree with all these quotations; this was not their intention. You may even find some of them repugnant or outrageous. This was their intention.

We seldom learn anything of value from what we already agree with. Only those ideas that grate on our nerves can open our minds. As with oysters, irritation can produce pearls. So if anything you are about to read annoys or shocks you, try to think clearly and dispassionately about what it is saying. You will either be confirmed in your current belief or shaken into re-examining it.

Either way, you win!

This article is part of an occasional series. In each article, I will be offering more amusing, educating, and exasperating quotations to your judgment. But just to be certain that we agree on what we are talking about, here it is in a nutshell.

Pithy Prose: A quotation where at first you may not be quite certain what it means. But when you become certain, you become equally certain that it couldn't have been said better any other way. In short, big ideas in small packages.

If you have a better definition of pithy prose, please contact me. I would love to hear it.

Who Is Gertrude Stein?

Gertrude Stein (1874 – 1946) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but spent most of her life in France, where she became a catalyst in the development of modern art and literature. She shared a salon at Paris first with her brother Leo and then with Alice B. Toklas. She wrote novels, plays, stories, libretti, and poems. Today she is best remembered a line from a 1913 poem that has almost become cliché: "A rose is a rose is a rose." This sentence reflects Stein's view that simply using the name of a thing already invokes the imagery and emotions associated with it.

1. A masterpiece... may be unwelcome but it is never dull.
   
   

2.    A real failure does not need an excuse. It is an end in itself.


3.    A vegetable garden in the beginning looks so promising and then after all little by little it grows nothing but vegetables, nothing, nothing but vegetables.


4.    A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears.


5.    Argument is to me the air I breathe. Given any proposition, I cannot help believing the other side and defending it.


6.    Communists are people who fancied that they had an unhappy childhood.


7.    Considering how dangerous everything is, nothing is really very frightening.


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

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


10.  Everybody knows if you are too careful, you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.


12.  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.


13.  Generally speaking, everyone is more interesting doing nothing than doing anything.


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


15.  I do want to get rich, but I never want to do what there is to do to get rich.


16.  I have always noticed that in portraits of really great writers, the mouth is always firmly closed.


17.  I like a view but I like to sit with my back turned to it.


18.  I've been rich and I've been poor. It's better to be rich.


19.  If you are looking down while you are walking, it is better to walk up hill; the ground is nearer.


20.  Is it worse to be scared than to be bored, that is the question.


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


22.  It is awfully important to know what is and what is not your business.


23.  It is funny that men who are supposed to be scientific cannot get themselves to realize the basic principle of physics, that action and reaction are equal and opposite, that when you persecute people you always rouse them to be strong and stronger.

24.  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.

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


26.  It takes a lot of time to be a genius. You have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.


27.  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.


28.  Literature -- creative literature -- unconcerned with sex is inconceivable.


29.  Nature is commonplace. Imitation is more interesting.


30.  Oh, I wish I were a miser. Being a miser must be so occupying.


31.  One does not get better but different and older. And that is always a pleasure.


32.  Picasso once remarked, "I do not care who it is that has or does influence me, as long as it is not myself."


33.  Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.


34.  Silent gratitude isn't very much to anyone.


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


36.  The thing that differentiates man from animals is money.


37.  There ain't no answer. There ain't gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer.

38.  There is a difference between 29 and 30. When you are 29 it can be the beginning of everything. When you are 30 it can be the end of everything.

39.  We are always the same age inside.

Part 1:    Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Mark Twain

Part 2:    Pithy Prose: The Wit & Wisdom of Oscar Wilde

Part 3:    Pithy Prose:  The Wit & Wisdom of People Named "W"

Part 4:    Pithy Prose:  The Wit & Wisdom of Anatole France

Part 5:    Pithy Prose:  The Wit & Wisdom of Ambrose Bierce

Part 6:    Pithy Prose:  The Wit & Wisdom of Friedrich Nietzsche

Part 7:    Pithy Prose:  The Wit & Wisdom of Anon

Part 8:    Pithy Prose:  The Wit & Wisdom of People Named "H"

Part 9:    Pithy Prose:  The Wit & Wisdom of Johann Goethe

Part 10:  Pithy Prose:  The Wit & Wisdom of Eric Hoffer

Part 11:  Pithy Prose:  The Wit & Wisdom of Blaise Pascal

Part 12:  Pithy Prose:  The Wit & Wisdom of Robert Frost

Part 13:  Pithy Prose:  More Wit & Wisdom of Anon

Part 14:  Pithy Prose:  The Wit & Wisdom of Elbert Hubbard

Part 15:  Pithy Prose:  The Wit & Wisdom of Friedrich Schiller

Part 16:  Pithy Prose:  The Wit & Wisdom of Simone Veil

Philip Yaffe is a former reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Journal and a marketing communication consultant. He currently teaches a course in good writing and good speaking in Brussels, Belgium. His recently published book In the “I” of the Storm: the Simple Secrets of Writing & Speaking (Almost) like a Professional is available from Story Publishers in Ghent, Belgium (storypublishers.be) and Amazon (amazon.com).

For further information, contact:

Philip Yaffe

Brussels, Belgium

Tel:        +32 (0)2 660 0405

Email:    phil.yaffe@yahoo.com,phil.yaffe@gmail.com