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
Lying is an elementary means of self-defense.
Interpretation
Lying can be a basic instinct used to protect oneself from harm or discomfort.
Susan Sontag's quote suggests that lying is sometimes a fundamental, instinctive strategy for self-preservation. In situations where truth may lead to vulnerability or danger, individuals may resort to deception as a defense mechanism to shield themselves from negative repercussions, highlighting the complexities of human behavior and morality.
In practice
In a debate about morality, this quote can illustrate the complexities of honesty.
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.
Tout est poison, rien n'est poison, tout est une question de dose. Everything is poisonous, nothing is poisonous, it is all a matter of dose.
I think if you're against cruelty and you look at what happens to animals in slaughterhouses and on factory farms, you have to be completely against eating meat.
Violence can succeed, as Americans know well from the conquest of the national territory. But at terrible cost. It can also provoke violence in response, and often does.
Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds, you open the way for every kind of intolerance and religious persecution.
Philosophers, as things now stand, are all too fond of offering criticism from on high instead of studying and understanding things from within.
[H]istory assures us that civilizations decay quite leisurely.
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