"To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them that they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed. Just as a camera is a sublimation of the gun, to photograph someone is a subliminal murder - a soft murder, appropriate to a sad, frightened time."

Ethics, Observation, Truth, Power

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"To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them that they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed. Just as a camera is a sublimation of the gun, to photograph someone is a subliminal murder - a soft murder, appropriate to a sad, frightened time."

Exlpore more Ethics quotes

"We are all flawed and creatures of our times. Is it fair to judge us by the unknown standards of the future?"

Carl Sagan, American Scientist

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"Any religion which demands death for other people is itself worthy of nothing less than it expects for others. In fact, it is probably long overdue."

Christina Engela, South African Author

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"And no one rose to ask the question: Good?-by what standard?John Galt."

Ayn Rand, Russian Writer

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"Doing what's right isn't the problem. It is knowing what's right."

Lyndon B. Johnson, American President

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"What need of prompt or hint when it is open to yourself to discern what needs to be done - and, if you can see your way, to follow it with kind but undeviating intent. If you cannot see the way, hold back and consult your best advisors. if some other factors obstruct this advice, proceed on your present resources, but with cautious deliberations, keeping always to what seems just. Justice is the best aim, as any failure is in fact a failure of justice.A man following reason in all things combines relaxation with initiative, spark with composure."

Marcus Aurelius, Roman Soldier

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"Ethics are the things that say, 'Don't stick your finger in the socket.' The world says, 'It's okay because we've shut off the electricity.' And at the point that we've chosen to listen to the world and ignore our ethics, we say, 'I'm having a really hard time getting back up."

Craig D. Lounsbrough, American Author

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"Angling is a sport, so sporting ethics should apply."

Fennel Hudson, British Author

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"He that resolves to deal with none but honest men must leave off dealing."

Thomas Fuller, English Clergyman

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"When we constantly ask for miracles, we're unraveling the fabric of the world. A world of continuous miracles would not be a world, it would be a cartoon."

Doug Coupland, Canadian Author

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"It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result."

Mahatma Gandhi, Indian Leader

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Explore more quotes by Susan Sontag

"Volume depends precisely on the writer's having been able to sit in a room every day, year after year, alone."

Media, Day, Writer

"Making social comment is an artificial place for an artist to start from. If an artist is touched by some social condition, what the artist creates will reflect that, but you can't force it."

Art, Artist, Force, Will

"Ambition, if it feeds at all, does so on the ambition of others."

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"Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art."

Art, Science, Disaster, Fiction

"So successful has been the camera's role in beautifying the world that photographs, rather than the world, have become the standard of the beautiful."

Success, Successful, World

"The taste for quotations (and for the juxtaposition of incongruous quotations) is a Surrealist taste."

Literature, Quotations, Taste

"I don't want to express alienation. It isn't what I feel. I'm interested in various kinds of passionate engagement. All my work says be serious, be passionate, wake up."

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"Most people in this society who aren't actively mad are, at best, reformed or potential lunatics."

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"A family's photograph album is generally about the extended family and, often, is all that remains of it."

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"The love of the famous, like all strong passions, is quite abstract. Its intensity can be measured mathematically, and it is independent of persons."

Love, Famous