The Quotes canon
Sourced and curated.
Every quote has been curated by hand and carefully authenticated.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Art3 quotes
Much of modern art is devoted to lowering the threshold of what is terrible. By getting us used to what, formerly, we could not bear to see or hear, because it was too shocking, painful, or embarrassing, art changes morals. — Susan Sontag · 1973Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. — Susan Sontag · 1966Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. — Susan Sontag · 1966Photography2 quotes
So successful has been the camera's role in beautifying the world that photographs, rather than the world, have become the standard of the beautiful. — Susan Sontag · 1977Narratives can make us understand. Photographs do something else: they haunt us. — Susan Sontag · 2003Power of art2 quotes
Much of modern art is devoted to lowering the threshold of what is terrible. By getting us used to what, formerly, we could not bear to see or hear, because it was too shocking, painful, or embarrassing, art changes morals. — Susan Sontag · 1973Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. — Susan Sontag · 1966Taste2 quotes
Camp is a vision of the world in terms of style-but a particular kind of style. It is the love of the exaggerated, the "off," of things-being-what-they-are-not... The ultimate Camp statement: it's good because it's awful. — Susan Sontag · 1964The man who insists on high and serious pleasures is depriving himself of pleasure; he continually restricts what he can enjoy; in the constant exercise of his good taste he will eventually price himself out of the market, so to speak. — Susan Sontag · 1964AIDS1 quote
Societies need to have one illness which becomes identified with evil, and attaches blame to its "victims". — Susan Sontag · 1989Beauty1 quote
So successful has been the camera's role in beautifying the world that photographs, rather than the world, have become the standard of the beautiful. — Susan Sontag · 1977Camp1 quote
Camp is a vision of the world in terms of style-but a particular kind of style. It is the love of the exaggerated, the "off," of things-being-what-they-are-not... The ultimate Camp statement: it's good because it's awful. — Susan Sontag · 1964Courage1 quote
Courage is as contagious as fear. — Susan Sontag · 2003Courage vs. fear1 quote
Courage is as contagious as fear. — Susan Sontag · 2003Fear1 quote
Courage is as contagious as fear. — Susan Sontag · 2003Getting started1 quote
Get up quickly-just switch on the white light of the will. — Susan Sontag · 1973Good taste1 quote
The man who insists on high and serious pleasures is depriving himself of pleasure; he continually restricts what he can enjoy; in the constant exercise of his good taste he will eventually price himself out of the market, so to speak. — Susan Sontag · 1964International politics1 quote
Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a "cowardly" attack on "civilization" or "liberty" or "humanity" or "the free world" but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? — Susan Sontag · 2001Meaning of art1 quote
Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. — Susan Sontag · 1966Modern art1 quote
Much of modern art is devoted to lowering the threshold of what is terrible. By getting us used to what, formerly, we could not bear to see or hear, because it was too shocking, painful, or embarrassing, art changes morals. — Susan Sontag · 1973Motivation1 quote
Get up quickly-just switch on the white light of the will. — Susan Sontag · 1973Politics1 quote
Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a "cowardly" attack on "civilization" or "liberty" or "humanity" or "the free world" but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? — Susan Sontag · 2001Pornography1 quote
What pornographic literature does is precisely to drive a wedge between one's existence as a full human being and one's existence as a sexual being. — Susan Sontag · 1967Quotations1 quote
Though collecting quotations could be considered as merely an ironic mimetism-victimless collecting, as it were... In a world that is well on its way to becoming one vast quarry, the collector becomes someone engaged in a pious work of salvage. The course of modern history having already sapped the traditions and shattered the living wholes in which precious objects once found their place, the collector may now in good conscience go about excavating the choicer, more emblematic fragments. — Susan Sontag · 1974Scapegoats1 quote
Societies need to have one illness which becomes identified with evil, and attaches blame to its "victims". — Susan Sontag · 1989September 11th1 quote
Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a "cowardly" attack on "civilization" or "liberty" or "humanity" or "the free world" but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? — Susan Sontag · 2001Standards of beauty1 quote
So successful has been the camera's role in beautifying the world that photographs, rather than the world, have become the standard of the beautiful. — Susan Sontag · 1977Stories1 quote
Narratives can make us understand. Photographs do something else: they haunt us. — Susan Sontag · 2003Terrorism1 quote
Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a "cowardly" attack on "civilization" or "liberty" or "humanity" or "the free world" but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? — Susan Sontag · 2001Work1 quote
Get up quickly-just switch on the white light of the will. — Susan Sontag · 1973