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All modern wars, even when their aims are the traditional ones, such as territorial aggrandizement or the acquisition of scarce resources, are cast as clashes of civilizations — culture wars — with each side claiming the high ground, and characterizing the other as barbaric.

— Susan Sontag Frankfurt Book Fair speech (2003)

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More quotes by Susan Sontag

Don't be too hard on the envious. Be glad you have, or had in the past, something enviable.

Death Kit (1967)

From now to the end of consciousness, we are stuck with the task of defending art.

Against Interpretation and Other Essays (1966)

Art today is a new kind of instrument, an instrument for modifying consciousness and organizing new modes of sensibility.

Against Interpretation and Other Essays (1966)

Not all violence is equally reprehensible; not all wars are equally unjust.

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.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Susan Sontag (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.