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 the nature of aphoristic thinking to be always in a state of concluding; a bid to have the final word is inherent in all powerful phrase-making.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Aphoristic thinking seeks to reach definitive conclusions, often fighting for the authority of the final word.
In this quote, Susan Sontag reflects on the nature of aphoristic thinking, describing it as a pursuit to arrive at conclusive statements. This tendency for brevity in expression often leads to the desire to assert one's perspective as the ultimate truth, highlighting the power and persuasion inherent in well-crafted phrases.
Themes
AphorismThinkingConclusionPhrase-MakingExpression
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on communication, you might use this quote to illustrate the power of concise language.
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.
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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
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All around me darkness gathers, Fading is the sun that shone, We must speak of other matters, You can be me when I'm gone Flowers gathered in the morning, Afternoon they blossom on, Still are withered in the evening, You can be me when I'm gone.
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Among the repulsions of atheism for me has been its drastic un-interestingness as an intellectual position. Where was the ingenuity, the ambiguity, the humanity of saying that the universe just happened to happen and that when we're dead we're dead?
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Few if any seemed to have grasped the Principle of Reality; new knowledge leads always to yet more awesome mysteries. Greater physiological knowledge of the brain makes the existence of the soul less possible yet more probable by the nature of the search.
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Let us respect others no one lives alone in a city, a nation, or a world.
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Do I believe in God? Yes I do. When you've had a life like mine, you have to.
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Do not neglect this body. This is the house of God; take care of it, only in this body can God be realized.
Sri Nisargadatta MaharajRead