The standard that a society should actually embody its own professed principles is a utopian one, in the sense that moral principles contradict the way things really are --- and always will be. How things really are --- and always…

Quote by Susan Sontag

Topics: Ethics Quotes, Morality Quotes, Society Quotes, Utopia Quotes

The becoming of man is the history of the exhaustion of his possibilities.

The becoming of man is the history of the exhaustion of his possibilities.

Life is not significant details, illuminated by a flash, fixed forever. Photographs are.

Life is not significant details, illuminated by a flash, fixed forever. Photographs are.

In America, the photographer is not simply the person who records the past, but the...

In America, the photographer is not simply the person who records the past, but the...

Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen...

Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen...

AIDS obliges people to think of sex as having, possibly, the direst consequences: suicide. Or...

AIDS obliges people to think of sex as having, possibly, the direst consequences: suicide. Or...

Making social comment is an artificial place for an artist to start from. If an...

Making social comment is an artificial place for an artist to start from. If an...

Mallarme said that everything in the world exists in order to end in a book....

Mallarme said that everything in the world exists in order to end in a book....

AIDS occupies such a large part in our awareness because of what it has been...

AIDS occupies such a large part in our awareness because of what it has been...

Lying is the most simple form of self-defence.

Lying is the most simple form of self-defence.

Intelligence is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas.

Intelligence is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas.

I don't want to express alienation. It isn't what I feel. I'm interested in various...

I don't want to express alienation. It isn't what I feel. I'm interested in various...

Victims suggest innocence. And innocence, by the inexorable logic that governs all relational terms, suggests...

Victims suggest innocence. And innocence, by the inexorable logic that governs all relational terms, suggests...

What we need is to use what we have.

What we need is to use what we have.

Pornography is a theatre of types, never of individuals.

Pornography is a theatre of types, never of individuals.

Surrealism is a bourgeois disaffection; that its militants thought it universal is only one of...

Surrealism is a bourgeois disaffection; that its militants thought it universal is only one of...

Perhaps it is our perennial fate to be surprised by the simultaneity of events, by...

Perhaps it is our perennial fate to be surprised by the simultaneity of events, by...

Most people in this society who aren't actively mad are, at best, reformed or potential...

Most people in this society who aren't actively mad are, at best, reformed or potential...

To photograph is to confer importance.

To photograph is to confer importance.

Silence remains, inescapably, a form of speech.

Silence remains, inescapably, a form of speech.

I envy paranoids; they actually feel people are paying attention to them.

I envy paranoids; they actually feel people are paying attention to them.