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
No 'we' should be taken for granted when the subject is looking at other people's pain.
Interpretation
What this quote means
It emphasizes the importance of empathy and awareness regarding others' suffering.
Susan Sontag's quote urges us not to overlook the collective experience of pain that others endure. It highlights the necessity of acknowledging and addressing the suffering around us, rather than becoming indifferent or detached from it, thereby reinforcing our shared humanity.
Themes
EmpathySufferingPainAwarenessHumanity
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on social justice, this quote could be used to highlight the importance of empathy.
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!
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Volume depends precisely on the writer's having been able to sit in a room every day, year after year, alone.
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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.
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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.
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The United States does not have a monopoly on crazy people. It's not the only country that has psychosis. And yet we kill each other in these mass shootings at rates that are exponentially higher than anyone else. Well, what's the difference? The difference is that these guys can stack up a bunch of ammunition in their houses, and that's sort of par for the course.
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Birds and animals probably think without knowing that they think; that is, they have not self-consciousness. Only man seems to be endowed with this faculty; he alone develops disinterested intelligence, intelligence that is not primarily concerned with his own safety and well-being but that looks abroad upon things.
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What we see as death, empty space, or nothingness is only the trough between the crests of this endlessly waving ocean. It is all part of the illusion that there should seem to be something to be gained in the future, and that there is an urgent necessity to go on and on until we get it. Yet just as there is no time but the present, and no one except the all-and-everything, there is never anything to be gained - though the zest of the game is to pretend that there is.
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But we know that freedom cannot be served by the devices of the tyrant. As it is an ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence. And any who act as if freedoms defenses are to be found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America.
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The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play _x000D_ And in one word, just nothing.
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The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country.
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