Enhance Your Quote Experience
Enjoy ad-free browsing, unlimited collections, and advanced search features with Premium.
We like to stress the commonness of heroes. Essences seem undemocratic. We feel oppressed by the call to greatness. We regard an interest in glory or… - Susan Sontag
" "We like to stress the commonness of heroes. Essences seem undemocratic. We feel oppressed by the call to greatness. We regard an interest in glory or perfection as a sign of mental unhealthiness, and have decided that high achievers, who are called overachievers, owe their surplus ambition to a defect in mothering (either too little or too much). We want to admire but think we have a right not to be intimidated. We dislike feeling inferior to an ideal. So away with ideals, with essences. The only ideals allowed are healthy ones — those everyone may aspire to, or comfortably imagine oneself possessing.
equality
heroes
egalitarianism
jealousy
overachievers
democracy
greatness
intimidation
inferiority
mediocrity
perfection
ambition
achievement
essence
pettiness
glory
success
ideals
English
Collect this quote
About Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag (16 January 1933 – 28 December 2004) was an American essayist, literary critic, cultural theorist, and political activist.
Biography information from Wikiquote
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
Susan Rosenblatt
•
Susan Lee Sontag
•
Susan Lee Rosenblatt
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Additional quotes by Susan Sontag
One can feel obliged to look at phototgraphs that record great cruelties and crimes. One should feel obliged to think about what it means to look at them, about the capacity actually to assimilate what they show. Not all reactions to these pictures are under the supervision of reason and conscience.
Unlimited Quote Collections
Organize your favorite quotes without limits. Create themed collections for every occasion with Premium.
"I adore simple pleasures, they are the last refuge of the complex."
- A Woman of No Importance
45. Detachment is the prerogative of an elite; and as the dandy is the 19th century's surrogate for the aristocrat in matters of culture, so Camp is the modern dandyism. Camp is the answer to the problem: how to be a dandy in the age of mass culture.
Loading...