A Quote by Susan Sontag

That's what a community is: taking for granted certain assumptions, not having to start from zero every time. This is no longer true.

Susan Sontag

Quote Topics

Assumptions Certain Community Every Every Time Granted Having Longer Start Taking Time True Zero

Quote Author

Susan Sontag
American - Author
January 16, 1933 - December 28, 2004

I try to encourage people to think for themselves, to question standard assumptions... Don't take assumptions for granted. Begin by taking a skeptical attitude toward anything that is conventional wisdom. Make it justify itself. It usually can't. Be willing to ask questions about what is taken for granted. Try to think things through for yourself.

Noam Chomsky

Taking experimental results and observations for granted and putting the burden of proof on the theory means taking the observational ideology for granted without having ever examined it.

Paul Feyerabend

It certainly seems too simple to say what I am going to say, yet it is almost as if you would be better off turning the entire rational approach upside down, taking it for granted that all of its assumptions were false, for they are indeed more false than true.

Seth

Philosophy is a necessary activity because we, all of us, take a great number of things for granted, and many of these assumptions are of a philosophical character; we act on them in private life, in politics, in our work, and in every other sphere of our lives -- but while some of these assumptions are no doubt true, it is likely, that more are false and some are harmful. So the critical examination of our presuppositions -- which is a philosophical activity -- is morally as well as intellectually important.

Karl Popper

I think after time goes by and you earn certain rights or you break through certain barriers, you could sometimes, maybe, take it for granted what you have now that you didn't have before. And then that would lead to a certain lack of community, in a way, caring in a way, that I saw before [in gay society].

Madonna Ciccone

As trust in institutions erodes, the basic assumptions of fairness, shared values, and equal opportunity traditionally upheld by 'the system' are no longer taken for granted.

Richard Edelman

When you do anything for eight or nine years, you start getting a little comfortable; you start taking things for granted.

Charles Kelley

I always considered, with every shoot, I was on trial; every time I pick up my camera and start out on the relationship, I am at degree zero. There is no coasting.

Douglas Kirkland

For this reason poets and artists developed the doctrine of Art for Art's Sake. The community did not appear to need them, so, tit for tat, they did not need the community. This being granted, it was no longer necessary or even desirable to make one's poetry either intelligible or sympathetic to the community.

Louis MacNeice

Just think of yourself as starting from zero every time. That's what I do with every new role. I'm at zero, and I'm going to do the work.

Patton Oswalt

If you believe certain words, you believe their hidden arguments. When you believe something is right or wrong, true or false, you believe the assumptions in the words which express the arguments. Such assumptions are often full of holes, but remain most precious to the convinced.

Frank Herbert

The most challenging part of being an actor is that every time you play a character, you have to start from ground zero.

Himani Shivpuri

Every time I start thinking the world is all bad, then I start seeing people out there having a good time on motorcycles. It makes me take another look.

Steve McQueen

The purpose of theatre is... making an event in which a group of fragments are sudde nly brought together... in a community which, by the natural laws that make every community, gradually breaks up... At certain moments this fragmented world comes together and for a certain time it can rediscover the marvel of organic life ... The marvel of being one.