Like the collector, the photographer is animated by a passion that, even when it appears to be for the present, is linked to a sense of the past.
Susan SontagRead
Any critic is entitled to wrong judgments, of course. But certain lapses of judgment indicate the radical failure of an entire sensibility.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Critics can make mistakes, but some errors reveal a deeper lack of understanding.
In this quote, Susan Sontag emphasizes that while everyone is entitled to their opinions and can make incorrect judgments, certain critical missteps reveal a fundamental deficiency in a person's overall sensibility or understanding of a topic. This suggests that the way one interprets and critiques reflects their deeper values and insights.
Themes
CriticismJudgmentUnderstandingSensibilityWisdom
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about art critique in an academic setting.
More from Susan Sontag
All quotes βScience fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art.
Susan SontagRead
Gide and I have attained such perfect intellectual communion that I experience the appropriate labor pains for every thought he gives birth to!
Susan SontagRead
Volume depends precisely on the writer's having been able to sit in a room every day, year after year, alone.
Susan SontagRead
In NY sensuality completely turns into sexuality - no objects for the senses to respond to, no beautiful river, houses, people. Awful smells of the street, and dirt... Nothing except eating, if that, and the frenzy of the bed.
Susan SontagRead
It hurts to love. It's like giving yourself to be flayed and knowing that at any moment the other person may just walk off with your skin.
Susan SontagRead
Similar quotes
Whosoever is determined to seek guidance and follow a path of right conduct must search for a shaykh from amongst those who have realization, one who follows a path methodically, who has abandoned his passions, and who has firmly established his feet in the service of his Lord.
Ibn Ata AllahRead
I am willing to let go. I release others to experience whatever is meaningful to them, and I am free to create that which is meaningful to me.
Louise HayRead
Has my heart gone to sleep? Have the beehives of my dreams stopped working, the waterwheel of the mind run dry, scoops turning empty, only shadow inside? No, my heart is not asleep. It is awake, wide awake. Not asleep, not dreamingβ its eyes are opened wide watching distant signals, listening on the rim of vast silence
Antonio MachadoRead
We are all of us obliged, if we are to make reality endurable, to nurse a few little follies in ourselves.
Marcel ProustRead
Rule your mind with serenity rather than with force and manipulation.
LaoziRead
How could you reach the pearl by only looking at the sea? If you seek the pearl, be a diver: the diver needs several qualities: he must trust his rope and his life to the Friend's hand, he must stop breathing, and he must jump.
RumiRead