Susan Sontag Quotes

The more often a man feels without acting, the less he is able to act and in the long run the less he is able to feel.

Empathy is not simply a matter of trying to imagine what others are going through, but having the will to muster enough courage to do something about it. In a way, empathy is predicated upon hope.

Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers.

I don't believe people are moved to action when they see horror. They're moved to action when they see courage in the face of horror.

Once people are made aware of things that they were previously ignorant of, I think people are a lot more willing to really try.

There's stuff in this world, everybody pretends they understand. But we don't understand. It's important to listen.

'Citylights' is for those people who know a lot but don't feel at all. It's time for them to feel, and this film will make those people, who know so much, feel because feeling is the life blood of human race, which is disappearing.

Educate yourself, because this society is geared to have us hate each other. The longer we hate each other, the more we can't come together as humanity and look at the knuckleheads screwing it up for everybody.

I think humility - which I think is a very good value to adopt - is basically an extension of understanding your own ignorance.

No matter how much faculty of idle seeing a man has, the step from knowing to doing is rarely taken.

The largest question facing the human race is not when will you learn, but when will you act on what you've already learned.

The fruit of love is service, which is compassion in action.

Knowing and knowing what to do about it were two different things.

To know is not less than to feel.

It is possible to know the great truths without feeling the truth of them.

Acting is, to me now, artificial. Seeing people suffer is real. It couldn't be more real. Some people don't like to look at it in the face because it's painful. But if nobody does, then nothing gets done.

Love does not to be understood. It needs only to be shown.

Sympathy is no substitute for action.

If you care, do something. If you don't care, please stay out of the way of those who do.

To know is to care, to care is to act, to act is to make a difference.

Our problem is not the lack of knowing; it is the lack of doing. Most people know far more than they think they do

Obviously, there is little you can learn from doing nothing.

Since we are not permitted to act, we are obliged to know.

Pity is the feeling of well-intentioned people who are unable to act.

I consider non-violence to be compassion in action. It doesn’t mean weakness, cowering in fear, or simply doing nothing. It is to act without violence, motivated by compassion, recognising the rights of others.