Susan Sontag Quotes

The truth is balance. However the opposite of truth, which is unbalance, may not be a lie.

Sometimes you have to lie. One often has to distort a thing to catch its true spirit.

A half truth is a whole lie.

The danger is that in reaction to abuses and distortions of an idea, we'll reject it completely. And in the process miss out on the good of it, the worth of it, the truth of it.

But surely to tell these tall tales and others like them would be to spread the myth, the wicked lie, that the past is always tense and the future, perfect.

Hmmmm Light makes shadow. Truth makes lies. Hmmmm.

Gnomic wisdom, however, is notoriously polychrome, and proverbs depend for their truth entirely on the occasion they are applied to. Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.

Maturity is reached the day we don't need to be lied to about anything.

Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent.

I try to hold both history and wilderness in mind, that my poems may the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times.

I would not favour a fiction to keep a whole world out of hell. The hell that a lie would keep any man out of is doubtless the very best place for him to go to. It is truth... that saves the world.

Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse.

The Truth lies not in the Yes and not in the No, but in the knowledge and the beginning from which the Yes and the No arise.

A person is strong only when he stands upon his own truth, when he speaks and acts with his deepest convictions. Then, whatever the situation he may be in, he always knows what he must say and do. He may fall, but he cannot bring shame upon himself or his cause. If we seek the liberation of the people by means of a lie, we will surely grow confused, go astray, and loose sight of our objective, and if we have any influence at all on the people we will lead them astray as well - in other words, we will be acting in the spirit of reaction and to its benefit.

Are we willing to do for the truth what others are willing to do for a lie?

Lies are usually attempts to make everything simpler - for the liar - than it really is, or ought to be.

Photography is without mercy--though it's nonsense to say it does not lie. Rather, it lies in a particular, capricious way which makes beggars of ministers and gods of cat's meat men.

A writing may be lost; a lie may be written; but what the eye has seen is truth and remains in the mind!

They call me "a teacher, a fomenter of violence." I would say point blank, "That is a lie. I'm not for wanton violence, I'm for justice."

The reason why most people are frustrated is because a lie cannot be turned into a truth.

Proportion is almost impossible to human beings. There is no one who does not exaggerate.

I mean you last as long as lies.

I'm lying. I don't just need someone like you. I need you.

A lie always needs a truth for a handle to it.

But a lie is a lie, and in itself intrinsically evil, whether it be told with good or bad intents.