A Quote by Susan Sontag

Self-exposure is commendable in art only when it is of a quality and complexity that allows other people to learn about themselves from it. — © Susan Sontag
Self-exposure is commendable in art only when it is of a quality and complexity that allows other people to learn about themselves from it.
Museums are important. Design and art schools are important because they show how it should be done at the highest level of quality. Once people are exposed to quality, they recognize it right away and they appreciate it. People's tastes are changed by exposure to quality. Unless they can see it they can't want it. That's the brilliance of Apple - they provide quality in design.
It's a pity I am so impatient and careless, as any ordinary person could learn all the techniques of photography in a week. It is the democratic art, i.e. technical skill is practically eliminated - the more foolproof cameras become with focusing and exposure gadgets the better - and artistic quality depends only on choice of subject.
All types of knowledge ultimately lead to self-knowledge. So, therefore, these people are asking me to teach them, not so much how to defend themselves or how to do somebody in. Rather, they want to learn to express themselves through some movement, be it anger, be it determination or whatever. So, in other words, they're paying me to show them, in combative form, the art of expressing the human body.
There are people who are excitable by nature and allow themselves to become angry for the most trivial of reasons. Judo can help such people learn to control themselves. Through training, they quickly realize that anger is a waste of energy, that it has only negative effects on the self and others.
What I am trying to say is that they need to learn to rely on themselves and to learn from other people, and when you learn something from other people, then you keep moving onward for yourself.
I didn't go to art school. So, I never had this moment of taking time to actually learn how to make things and learn about art history and learn about people that came before me.
How we feel about our own self, how well or little we know our own self, whether we feel alive inside, largely determine the quality of the time we spend alone, as well as the quality of the relationships we have with other people.
I'm fascinated by what makes up a self, how one becomes a self, how much is it an answer to others and how much is it an essence of self. We learn how to be people from other people. Then you think - what's personal freedom? Is self-creation possible? This book is dedicated to a friend of mine who really did re-create herself. I didn't do that - I stayed in the circus and am a circus performer like my parents were. I did what I was raised to do - I'm glad I did but I'm fascinated by the people who managed to do something else. I was always very curious about other people.
They say that there are three kinds of people in the world. There are people who never learn one way or another anything; there are people who learn from their own mistakes, eventually and with great pain; and then there are the really wise people who learn from other people's mistakes and spare themselves the suffering.
On one planet [earth], and possibly only one planet in the entire universe, molecules that would normally make nothing more complicated than a chunk of rock, gather themselves together into chunks of rock-sized matter of such staggering complexity that they are capable of running, jumping, swimming, flying, seeing, hearing, capturing and eating other such animated chunks of complexity; capable in some cases of thinking and feeling, and falling in love with yet other chunks of complex matter.
art is exposure. And until you've developed a degree of maturity to handle that knowledge, you are revealing what other people keep hidden.
I wish that young people, most of all, would learn to cut ties with those who make them feel bad about themselves or about the other people they love and care for.
To sing with other people and for other people, that's when you can really learn something about your voice. You can only learn so much if you create your own boundaries all the time. But then, other people can really teach you something. You know, if you're trying to sing with them, or if someone brings a style.
We academics - I am an academic - we love complexity. You can write papers about complexity, and the nice thing about complexity is it's fundamentally intractable in many ways, so you're not responsible for outcomes.
Wasn't it? Is loyalty still a commendable quality when it is misdirected?
If we are to understand the human condition, and if we are to accept ourselves in all the complexity, self-doubt, extravagance of feeling, guilt, joy, the slow freeing of the self to its full capacity for action and creation, both as human being and as artist, we have to know all we can about each other, and we have to be willing to go naked.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!