--- title: "Meaning & Key Takeaway of: Nobody ever discovered ugliness through…" description: "\"Nobody ever discovered ugliness through photographs. But many, through photographs, have discovered beauty.\" — Susan Sontag" image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/75b/susan-sontag-332_beauty_nobody-ever-discovered-ugliness-through_2295008.jpg" --- # Nobody ever discovered ugliness through photographs. But… ![“Nobody ever discovered ugliness through photographs. But many, through photographs, have discovered beauty.” quote by Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/75b/susan-sontag-332_beauty_nobody-ever-discovered-ugliness-through_2295008.jpg) [Download](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/75b/susan-sontag-332_beauty_nobody-ever-discovered-ugliness-through_2295008.jpg) [Open image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/75b/susan-sontag-332_beauty_nobody-ever-discovered-ugliness-through_2295008.jpg) > “Nobody ever discovered ugliness through photographs. But many, through photographs, have discovered beauty.” [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) ## About This Quote This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation. Photographs rarely reveal ugliness directly; instead, they often highlight beauty that might otherwise be unnoticed. **In simple terms:** Photos show beauty, not ugliness. Key Takeaway Use images to appreciate hidden beauty. Themes perception beauty photography Mood analytical critical Type philosophical educational When to use this quote - art criticism - media analysis - personal reflection - educational curricula Key Concepts aesthetics visual culture subjectivity Questions to Reflect On - How do you balance beauty and truth in images? - What responsibilities do photographers have? A Different Perspective Beauty focus can overlook real suffering. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet [Beauty](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/beauty/) [Inspirational](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/inspirational/) [Photography](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/photography/) [Ugliness](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/ugliness/) ## Related quotes > [True art is but the anti-type of nature; the embodiment of discovered beauty in utility.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/james-a-garfield/true-art-is-but-the-anti-type-of-nature-the-embodiment-of-discovered/) [James A. Garfield](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/james-a-garfield/) > [It is God himself who can be discovered in the beauty of sensible things.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/john-henry-newman/it-is-god-himself-who-can-be-discovered-in-the-beauty-of-sensible/) [John Henry Newman](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/john-henry-newman/) > [At an early age I discovered the beauty in pictures in 'Vogue' magazine and Ebony magazine, and I would read 'The New York Times.'…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/andre-leon-talley/at-an-early-age-i-discovered-the-beauty-in-pictures-in-vogue-magazine/) [Andre Leon Talley](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/andre-leon-talley/) > [Any photograph has multiple meanings: indeed, to see something in the form of a photograph is to encounter a potential object of fascination. The…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/any-photograph-has-multiple-meanings-indeed-to-see-something-in-the/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [Knowing a great deal about what is in the world art, catastrophe, the beauties of nature through photographic images, people are frequently disappointed, surprised,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/knowing-a-great-deal-about-what-is-in-the-world-art-catastrophe-the/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe. They are a grammar…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/photographs-alter-and-enlarge-our-notions-of-what-is-worth-looking-at/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [Photographs are a way of imprisoning reality, understood as recalcitrant, inaccessible; of making it stand still. One can't possess reality, one can possess (and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/photographs-are-a-way-of-imprisoning-reality-understood-as/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [A photograph is not only an image (as a painting is an image), an interpretation of the real; it is also a trace, something…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/a-photograph-is-not-only-an-image-as-a-painting-is-an-image-an/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [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.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/so-successful-has-been-the-camera-s-role-in-beautifying-the-world/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [Life is a movie; death is a photograph.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/life-is-a-movie-death-is-a-photograph/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [Photographs trade simultaneously on the prestige of art and the magic of the real.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/photographs-trade-simultaneously-on-the-prestige-of-art-and-the-magic/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [To take a photograph is to participate in another person's mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/to-take-a-photograph-is-to-participate-in-another-person-s-mortality/) [Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) > [While a painting, even one that meets photographic standards of resemblance, is never more than the stating of an interpretation, a photograph is never…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/while-a-painting-even-one-that-meets-photographic-standards-of/) [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/) > [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/) ## 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/) [Explore all 644 Susan Sontag quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/) ## More Beauty quotes > [We do not want nowadays temples of worship and outward rites and ceremonies. What we really want is an Asram. We want a place…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rabindranath-tagore/we-do-not-want-nowadays-temples-of-worship-and-outward-rites-and/) [Rabindranath Tagore](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rabindranath-tagore/) > [How could anybody confuse truth with beauty, I thought as I looked at him. Truth came with sunken eyes, bony or scarred, decayed. Its…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/janet-fitch/how-could-anybody-confuse-truth-with-beauty-i-thought-as-i-looked-at/) [Janet Fitch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/janet-fitch/) > [A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;It's loveliness increase;it will never pass into nothingness;but still will keep a bower quiet for us,and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/john-keats/a-thing-of-beauty-is-a-joy-for-ever-it-s-loveliness-increase-it-will/) [John Keats](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/john-keats/) > [To fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity, and still be…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/tool/to-fathom-the-power-to-witness-the-beauty-to-bathe-in-the-fountain-to/) [Tool](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/tool/) > [The term "black metal" has become a lot looser, or can include a larger range of sounds and extra-musical aesthetics, not just Satan and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/colin-marston/the-term-black-metal-has-become-a-lot-looser-or-can-include-a-larger/) [Colin Marston](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/colin-marston/) > [“We've all met people who are beautiful on the outside, however, when they open their mouths to speak, they have nothing of substance to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-c-young/we-ve-all-met-people-who-are-beautiful-on-the-outside-however-when/) [Susan C. Young](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-c-young/) > [There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-eliot/there-are-various-orders-of-beauty-causing-men-to-make-fools-of/) [George Eliot](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/george-eliot/) > [To me, the beauty of a quilt or a dress lies within the stitches and the thought of the person who made them. When…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/natalie/to-me-the-beauty-of-a-quilt-or-a-dress-lies-within-the-stitches-and/) [Natalie](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/natalie/) > [“do not misunderstand person by beauty You really do not know its real or Mask on dirty thoughts”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mohammed-zaki-ansari/do-not-misunderstand-person-by-beauty-you-really-do-not-know-its-real/) [Mohammed Zaki Ansari](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mohammed-zaki-ansari/) > [“I already love in you your beauty, but I am only beginning to love in you that which is eternal and ever precious –…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/leo-tolstoy/i-already-love-in-you-your-beauty-but-i-am-only-beginning-to-love-in/) [Leo Tolstoy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/leo-tolstoy/) > [The more perfect the sight is the more delightful the beautiful object. The more perfect the appetite, the sweeter the food. The more musical…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/richard-baxter/the-more-perfect-the-sight-is-the-more-delightful-the-beautiful/) [Richard Baxter](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/richard-baxter/) > [Call her beautiful a million times and she won't believe you. Call her ugly once, and she will never forget it.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/tumblr/call-her-beautiful-a-million-times-and-she-won-t-believe-you-call-her/) Tumblr > [Time can but make her beauty over again.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/william-butler-yeats/time-can-but-make-her-beauty-over-again/) [William Butler Yeats](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/william-butler-yeats/) > [ The social \[media channel\] isn't about beauty contests and popularity contests. They're a distortion, a caricature of the real thing. 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