Ours is an age which consciously pursues health, and yet…

Ours is an age which consciously pursues health, and yet only believes in the reality of sickness. The truths we respect are those born of affliction. We measure truth in terms of the cost to the writer in suffering — rather than by the standard of an objective truth to which a writer’s words correspond. Each of our truths must have a martyr.

Sourced

Review of Selected Essays by Simone Weil, The New York Review of Books (1963-02-01 )

Other Susan Sontag Quotes

An erotic life is, for more and more people, that which can be captured on digital photographs and on video. And perhaps the torture is more attractive, as something to record, when it has a sexual component. - View Quote Details on An erotic life is, for more and more people, that…
The tradition of portrait painting, to embellish or idealize the subject, remains the aim of everyday and of commercial photography, but it has had a much more limited career in photography considered as art. Generally speaking, the honors have gone to the Cordelias. - View Quote Details on The tradition of portrait painting, to embellish or idealize the…
I guess I think I’m writing for people who are smarter than I am, because then I’ll be doing something that’s worth their time. I’d be very afraid to write from a position where I consciously thought I was smarter than most of my readers. - View Quote Details on I guess I think I’m writing for people who are…
The AIDS crisis is evidence of a world in which nothing important is regional, local, limited; in which everything that can circulate does, and every problem is, or is destined to become, worldwide. - View Quote Details on The AIDS crisis is evidence of a world in which…
In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art. - View Quote Details on In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of…
In contrast to the asexual chasteness of official communist art, Nazi art is both prurient and idealizing. A utopian aesthetics (physical perfection; identity as a biological given) implies an ideal eroticism: sexuality converted into the magnetism of leaders and the joy of followers. The fascist ideal is to transform sexual energy into a “spiritual” force, for the benefit of the community. - View Quote Details on In contrast to the asexual chasteness of official communist art,…
The writer in me distrusts the good citizen, the “intellectual ambassador,” the human rights activist — those roles which are mentioned in the citation for this prize, much as I am committed to them. The writer is more skeptical, more self-doubting, than the person who tries to do (and to support) the right thing. - View Quote Details on The writer in me distrusts the good citizen, the “intellectual…
The United States is a generically religious society. That is, in the United States it’s not important which religion you adhere to, as long as you have one. - View Quote Details on The United States is a generically religious society. That is,…
Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place. - View Quote Details on Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship…
The discovery of the good taste of bad taste can be very liberating. The man who insists on high and serious pleasures is depriving himself of pleasure; he continually restricts what he can enjoy; in the constant exercise of his good taste he will eventually price himself out of the market, so to speak. Here Camp taste supervenes upon good taste as a daring and witty hedonism. It makes the man of good taste cheerful, where before he ran the risk of being chronically frustrated. It is good for the digestion. - View Quote Details on The discovery of the good taste of bad taste can…