Susan Sontag Quotes

Reason is the historian, but passions are the actors.

The passions of men are commonly more potent than their reason.

Sometimes, I work a little more from emotion than I do from rational thought.

Enthusiasm for a cause sometimes warps judgment.

At the constitutional level where we work, 90 percent of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections.

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.

Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason. Events which excite those feelings will produce wonderful effects.

Conflicts arouse tremendous passions and passion clouds judgment.

Nothing is more fallacious than to expect to produce any valuable or permanent results in political projects by relying merely on the reason of men. Men are ... for the most part governed by the impulses of passion.

… people are far from acting generally according to the dictates of their interests, but oftener in consequence of their passions, though it may even prove injurious to their interests.

I played the character knowing that she was knocked down, 100 percent, dead-in-front-of-a-bus in love with her boss. Every scene, I did not care if it was about taxes or about, you know, getting rid of the penny, it was all about me being in love with him.

What was I thinking? Fact is I wasn't thinking. I didn't want to think. I wanted to feel.

All our reasoning boils down to yielding to sentiment.

But common sense has no place in first love and never has.

I see enormous loves growing immense and finally crushing me.

Irrational passions would seem to be as much a part of human nature as is reason.

This is crazy," I told Patch in an undertone. "I'm crazy." He was on the brink of smiling again. "About you.

Joy, grief, desire or fear, whate'er the name The passion bears, its influence is the same; Where things exceed your hope or fall below, You stare, look blank, grow numb from top to toe.

Most people are perpetually locked in the present. Their decisions are overly influenced by the most immediate event; they easily become emotional and ascribe greater significance to a problem than it should have in reality.

You will find that reason, which always ought to direct mankind, seldom does; but that passions and weaknesses commonly usurp itsseat, and rule in its stead.

He took in the squeaky music, the vulgar and pining melodies, because passion immobilizes good taste and seriously considers what soberly would be thought of as funny and to be resented.

Of all the passions, fear weakens judgment most.

You sound worked up. Really worked up. No, that's not it. You sound agitated...flustered...aroused." I could feel her eyes widen. "He kissed you, didn't he?" No answer. "He did! I knew it! I've seen the way he looks at you. I knew this was coming. I saw it from a mile away." I didn't want to think about it. "What was it like?" Vee pressed. "A peach kiss? A plum kiss? Or an al-fal-fa kiss?" "What?" "Was it a peck, did mouths part, or was there tongue? Never mind. You don't have to answer that. Patch isn't the kind of guy to deal with preliminaries. There was tongue involved. Guaranteed.

I love you, I know this must come as something of a surprise, since all I’ve ever done is scorn you and degrade you and taunt you, but I have loved you for several hours now, and every second, more. I thought an hour ago that I loved you more than any woman has ever loved a man, but a half hour after that I knew that what I felt before was nothing compared to what I felt then. But ten minutes after that, I understood that my previous love was a puddle compared to the high seas before a storm.

Don't you know that you're blowing my mind? What you do to me I can't describe. Baby, I can't hold back anymore. I just can't conceal it. You're the one I really adore.