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
It is not suffering as such that is most deeply feared but suffering that degrades.
Interpretation
People fear not just suffering, but suffering that diminishes their humanity or dignity.
Susan Sontag's quote suggests that the fear we have about suffering is less about the pain itself and more about the loss of dignity and humanity that can accompany it. It emphasizes that the experience of suffering is profound not only in its intensity but also in its potential to degrade a person's sense of self and worth.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the implications of mental health issues.
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.
Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art.
Gide and I have attained such perfect intellectual communion that I experience the appropriate labor pains for every thought he gives birth to!
Volume depends precisely on the writer's having been able to sit in a room every day, year after year, alone.
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.
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.
God is the ultimate source of all power. All human power is therefore derived, limited, unstable and transient.
For a long time we have thought we were better than the living world, and now some of us tend to think we are worse, that everything we touch turns to soot. But neither perspective is healthy. We have to remember how it feels to have equal standing in the world, to be "between the mountain and the ant . . . part and parcel of creations," as the Iroquois traditionalist Oren Lyons says.
The successful memoirist [blogger] respects facts, uses them accurately, rigorously represses the human impulse to lie or embellish, but knows that truth is both different from facts and greater than facts, and not always their sum.
You may have killed God beneath the weight of all that you have said; but don't imagine that, with all that you are saying, you will make a man that will live longer than he.
Some find that very optimistic people have benign illusions about themselves. These people may think they have more control, or more skill, than they actually do. Others have found that optimistic people have a good handle on reality. The jury is still out.
When you suffer and lose, that does not mean you are being disobedient to God. In fact, it might mean you're right in the center of His will. The path of obedience is often marked by times of suffering and loss.
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