--- title: "Meaning & Key Takeaway of: Persons who merely have-a-life…" description: "\"Persons who merely have-a-life customarily move in a dense fluid. That's how they're able to conduct their lives at all. Their living depends on not se..." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/36d/susan-sontag-332_able_persons-who-merely-have-a-life-customari_2865281.jpg" --- # Persons who merely have-a-life customarily move in a dense… ![“Persons who merely have-a-life customarily move in a dense fluid. That's how they're able to conduct their lives at all. Their living depends on not seeing.” quote by Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/36d/susan-sontag-332_able_persons-who-merely-have-a-life-customari_2865281.jpg) [Download](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/36d/susan-sontag-332_able_persons-who-merely-have-a-life-customari_2865281.jpg) [Open image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/36d/susan-sontag-332_able_persons-who-merely-have-a-life-customari_2865281.jpg) > “Persons who merely have-a-life customarily move in a dense fluid. That's how they're able to conduct their lives at all. Their living depends on not seeing.” [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. People who live superficially exist in a dense, opaque fluid, unable to truly perceive or engage with life. **In simple terms:** Superficial lives are like moving in thick fluid. Key Takeaway Seek depth and clarity in experience. Themes existence perception depth Mood analytical critical Type philosophical reflective When to use this quote - philosophical discourse - personal development Key Concepts social interaction self‑awareness Questions to Reflect On - What does "dense fluid" symbolize for you? - How can one achieve clearer perception? A Different Perspective Living shallowly limits authentic connection. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet [Life](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/life/) ## Related quotes > [“You are what you do. That's what I'm trying to tell you. What we do defines us. However we behave, conduct our lives...that's real.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/catherine-ryan-hyde/you-are-what-you-do-that-s-what-i-m-trying-to-tell-you-what-we-do/) [Catherine Ryan Hyde](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/catherine-ryan-hyde/) > [“When we decide for ourselves how we want to conduct our lives on the basis of what is actually important to us, we discover…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/nancy-colier/when-we-decide-for-ourselves-how-we-want-to-conduct-our-lives-on-the/) [Nancy Colier](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/nancy-colier/) > [The conduct of our lives is the true mirror of our doctrine.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/michel-de-montaigne/the-conduct-of-our-lives-is-the-true-mirror-of-our-doctrine/) [Michel de Montaigne](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/michel-de-montaigne/) > [For our discussion is on no trifling matter, but on the right way to conduct our lives.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/plato/for-our-discussion-is-on-no-trifling-matter-but-on-the-right-way-to/) [Plato](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/plato/) > [“People may laugh at what I do but am not perturbed. My work is to add value to lives. I will keep living my…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/ifeanyi-enoch-onuoha/people-may-laugh-at-what-i-do-but-am-not-perturbed-my-work-is-to-add/) [Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/ifeanyi-enoch-onuoha/) > [Lives are only one with living. How dare we, in our egos, claim catastrophe in the rise and fall of the individual entity? 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In the absence of natural…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/tristram-stuart/heartless-though-it-may-seem-to-some-among-the-least-harmful-things/) [Tristram Stuart](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/tristram-stuart/) > [Two times two is twenty-two, four times four is forty-four. When numbers get serious, they leave a mark on your door.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/paul-simon/two-times-two-is-twenty-two-four-times-four-is-forty-four-when/) [Paul Simon](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/paul-simon/) > [Only the good die young.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/billy-joel/only-the-good-die-young/) [Billy Joel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/billy-joel/) ## 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? 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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 Able quotes > [I am certain that children always know more than they are able to tell, and that makes the big difference between them and adults,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jacques-lusseyran/i-am-certain-that-children-always-know-more-than-they-are-able-to/) [Jacques Lusseyran](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jacques-lusseyran/) > [I have observed this in my experience of slavery, - that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/frederick-douglass/i-have-observed-this-in-my-experience-of-slavery-that-whenever-my/) [Frederick Douglass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/frederick-douglass/) > [There is something about the South that accepts the supernatural. 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