. . . 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
Men cannot count, they do not know that two and two make four if women do not tell them so.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that men may rely on women for clarity and understanding in certain matters, highlighting gender-based perceptions of knowledge.
Gertrude Stein's quote reflects on the idea that societal roles and expectations often dictate what knowledge is considered valid or necessary. It implies that women's insights and contributions are essential for men to grasp certain truths, particularly those related to emotional or relational intelligence, underscoring the collaborative nature of understanding between genders.
In practice
In a discussion about gender roles, this quote can be used to highlight the importance of women's contributions.
. . . 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.
The creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Women must tell men always that they are the strong ones. They are the big, the strong, the wonderful. In truth, women are the strong ones. It is just my opinion, I am not a professor.
One of the things we learn in movies directed by men is what the 'fantasy woman' is. What we learn in movies directed by women is what real women are about. I don't think that men see things wrong and women right, just that we do see things differently.
Women are put in a position of feeling embarrassed about their bodies. It's so ridiculous, but also astounding - we have to always be apologetic about having created the human race.
A woman can never be too rich or too thin, but until very, very recently, she could be too powerful, for which - if she wasn't smart enough to camouflage herself - she generally paid the price.
It is often falsely assumed, even by feminists, that sexuality is the enemy of the female who really wants to develop these aspects of her personality, and this is perhaps the most misleading aspect of movements like the National Organization of Women. It was not the insistence upon her sex that weakened the American woman student's desire to make something of her education, but the insistence upon a passive sexual role
Girls are taught to view their bodies as unending projects to work on, whereas boys from a young age, are taught to view their bodies as tools to master their environment
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