--- title: "10 Oneself Quotes By Susan Sontag" description: "10 Oneself quotes by Susan Sontag. Plus more from Susan Sontag and more Oneself sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/176/susan-sontag-332_art_as-one-passion-begins-to-fail-it-is-nece_1871267.jpg" --- > [As one passion begins to fail it is necessary to form another, for the whole art of going through life tolerably is…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/as-one-passion-begins-to-fail-it-is-necessary-to-form-another-for-the/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/176/susan-sontag-332_art_as-one-passion-begins-to-fail-it-is-nece_1871267.jpg) > [To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/to-photograph-is-to-appropriate-the-thing-photographed-it-means/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/47c/susan-sontag-332_appropriate_to-photograph-is-to-appropriate-the-thin_2796294.jpg) > [One criticizes in others what one recognizes and despises in oneself. For example, an artist who is revolted by another’s ambitiousness.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/one-criticizes-in-others-what-one-recognizes-and-despises-in-oneself/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/43e/susan-sontag-332_artist_one-criticizes-in-others-what-one-recogn_3050346.jpg) > [the process of building a self and its works is always too slow. One is always in arrears to oneself.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-process-of-building-a-self-and-its-works-is-always-too-slow-one/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/63c/susan-sontag-332_building_the-process-of-building-a-self-and-its-w_2336087.jpg) > [Decline of the letter, the rise of the notebook! One doesn't write to others any more; one writes to oneself.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/decline-of-the-letter-the-rise-of-the-notebook-one-doesn-t-write-to/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/339/susan-sontag-332_decline_decline-of-the-letter-the-rise-of-the-no_197721.jpg) > [The only ideals allowed are healthy ones - those everyone may aspire to, or comfortably imagine oneself possessing.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-only-ideals-allowed-are-healthy-ones-those-everyone-may-aspire-to/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/46a/susan-sontag-332_aspire_the-only-ideals-allowed-are-healthy-ones_2808736.jpg) > [To patronize the faculty of taste is to patronize oneself. For taste governs every free - as opposed to rote - human…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/to-patronize-the-faculty-of-taste-is-to-patronize-oneself-for-taste/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ece/susan-sontag-332_faculty_to-patronize-the-faculty-of-taste-is-to_607453.jpg) > [Dissimulation, secretiveness, appear a necessity to the melancholic. He has complex, often veiled relations with others. These feelings of superiority, of inadequacy,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/dissimulation-secretiveness-appear-a-necessity-to-the-melancholic-he/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4d1/susan-sontag-332_able_dissimulation-secretiveness-appear-a-nec_1497654.jpg) > [As objects of contemplation, images of the atrocious can answer to several different needs. To steel oneself against weakness. To make oneself…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/as-objects-of-contemplation-images-of-the-atrocious-can-answer-to/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e38/susan-sontag-332_acknowledge_as-objects-of-contemplation-images-of-th_33196.jpg) > [Conventions vs. spontaneity. This is a dialectical choice, it depends on the assessment you make of your own times. If you judge…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/conventions-vs-spontaneity-this-is-a-dialectical-choice-it-depends-on/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/5f3/susan-sontag-332_age_conventions-vs-spontaneity-this-is-a-dia_2992050.jpg) ## Other authors on Oneself ## More by Susan Sontag > [the appetite for thinking must be regulated, as all sensible people know, for it may stifle one's life.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-appetite-for-thinking-must-be-regulated-as-all-sensible-people/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [We are ruled by quotations.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/we-are-ruled-by-quotations/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [Unfortunately, moral beauty in art - like physical beauty in a person - is extremely perishable. It is nowhere so durable as artistic or…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/unfortunately-moral-beauty-in-art-like-physical-beauty-in-a-person-is/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [Like the collector, the photographer is animated by a passion that, even when it appears to be for the present, is linked to a…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/like-the-collector-the-photographer-is-animated-by-a-passion-that/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [ Anthropology has always struggled with an intense, fascinated repulsion towards its subject… \[The anthropologist\] submits himself to the exotic to confirm his own inner… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/anthropology-has-always-struggled-with-an-intense-fascinated/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [“Why not eliminate schooling between age 12-16? It’s biologically + psychologically too turbulent a time to be cooped up inside, made to sit all…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/why-not-eliminate-schooling-between-age-12-16-it-s-biologically/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them that they can never…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/to-photograph-people-is-to-violate-them-by-seeing-them-as-they-never/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [One set of messages of the society we live in is: Consume. Grow. Do what you want. Amuse yourselves. The very working of this…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/one-set-of-messages-of-the-society-we-live-in-is-consume-grow-do-what/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [Currently intellectuals in Western Europe and North America are extremely demoralized and shaken by the rise of a virulent conservative tendency (which some have…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/currently-intellectuals-in-western-europe-and-north-america-are/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [With the modern diseases (once TB, now cancer) the romantic idea that the disease expresses the character is invariably extended to assert that the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/with-the-modern-diseases-once-tb-now-cancer-the-romantic-idea-that/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [As objects of contemplation, images of the atrocious can answer to several different needs. To steel oneself against weakness. To make oneself more numb.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/as-objects-of-contemplation-images-of-the-atrocious-can-answer-to/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [The creative phase of an idea coincides with the period during which it insists, cantankerously, on its boundaries, on what makes it different; but…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-creative-phase-of-an-idea-coincides-with-the-period-during-which/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [Photographs objectify: they turn an event or a person into something that can be possessed.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/photographs-objectify-they-turn-an-event-or-a-person-into-something/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [I'm not interested in giving aid and comfort to the neo­-Conservatives.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/i-m-not-interested-in-giving-aid-and-comfort-to-the-neo-conservatives/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [The feminist movement has been important to me because it's made me feel less odd and also because it has made me understand some…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/the-feminist-movement-has-been-important-to-me-because-it-s-made-me/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/oneself/susan-sontag/#itemlist", "name": "10 Oneself Quotes By Susan Sontag", "numberOfItems": 10, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "As one passion begins to fail it is necessary to form another, for the whole art of going through life tolerably is to keep oneself eager about anything.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Susan Sontag" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/as-one-passion-begins-to-fail-it-is-necessary-to-form-another-for-the/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/176/susan-sontag-332_art_as-one-passion-begins-to-fail-it-is-nece_1871267.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/176/susan-sontag-332_art_as-one-passion-begins-to-fail-it-is-nece_1871267.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/176/susan-sontag-332_art_as-one-passion-begins-to-fail-it-is-nece_1871267.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“As one passion begins to fail it is necessary to form another, for the whole art of going through life…” — Susan Sontag", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. 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To acknowledge the existence of the incorrigible.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Susan Sontag" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/as-objects-of-contemplation-images-of-the-atrocious-can-answer-to/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e38/susan-sontag-332_acknowledge_as-objects-of-contemplation-images-of-th_33196.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e38/susan-sontag-332_acknowledge_as-objects-of-contemplation-images-of-th_33196.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e38/susan-sontag-332_acknowledge_as-objects-of-contemplation-images-of-th_33196.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“As objects of contemplation, images of the atrocious can answer to several different needs. 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In a time hollowed out by decorum, one must school oneself in spontaneity.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Susan Sontag" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/conventions-vs-spontaneity-this-is-a-dialectical-choice-it-depends-on/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/5f3/susan-sontag-332_age_conventions-vs-spontaneity-this-is-a-dia_2992050.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/5f3/susan-sontag-332_age_conventions-vs-spontaneity-this-is-a-dia_2992050.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/5f3/susan-sontag-332_age_conventions-vs-spontaneity-this-is-a-dia_2992050.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Conventions vs. spontaneity. 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