Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe (2013)
“Interpretation is not (as most people assume) an absolute value, a gesture of mind situated in some timeless realm of capabilities.”
Source: Against Interpretation and Other Essays (1966), p. 6
Context: Interpretation is not (as most people assume) an absolute value, a gesture of mind situated in some timeless realm of capabilities. Interpretation must itself be evaluated, within a historical view of human consciousness. In some cultural contexts, interpretation is a liberating act. It is a means of revising, of transvaluing, of escaping the dead past. In other cultural contexts, it is reactionary, impertinent, cowardly, stifling.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Susan Sontag 168
American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist 1933–2004Related quotes

Source: 1950s-1960s, Social Choice and Individual Values (1951), p. 7

Presidential Address to the First Indian Statistical Congress, 1938. Sankhya 4, 14-17.
1930s

Gerd Gigerenzer and Reinhard Selten (2001), Bounded Rationality. The Adaptive Toolbox, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"The Illusion of Rewards", p. 43
Awareness (1992)
Context: Do you know what eternal life is? You think it's everlasting life. But your own theologians will tell you that that is crazy, because everlasting is still within time. It is time perduring forever. Eternal means timeless — no time. The human mind cannot understand that. The human mind can understand time and can deny time. What is timeless is beyond our comprehension. Yet the mystics tell us that eternity is right now. How's that for good news? It is right now. People are so distressed when I tell them to forget their past. They're crazy! Just drop it! When you hear "Repent for your past," realize it's a great religious distraction from waking up. Wake up! That's what repent means. Not "weep for your sins.": Wake up! understand, stop all the crying. Understand! Wake up!

Source: Arabella and the Battle of Venus (2017), Chapter 8, “Crossing the Line” (p. 110)

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 176.

Exsurge Domine (1520)
Context: Some, putting aside her true interpretation of Sacred Scripture, are blinded in mind by the father of lies. Wise in their own eyes, according to the ancient practice of heretics, they interpret these same Scriptures otherwise than the Holy Spirit demands, inspired only by their own sense of ambition, and for the sake of popular acclaim, as the Apostle declares. In fact, they twist and adulterate the Scriptures. As a result, according to Jerome, "It is no longer the Gospel of Christ, but a man's, or what is worse, the devil's."
Let all this holy Church of God, I say, arise, and with the blessed apostles intercede with almighty God to purge the errors of His sheep, to banish all heresies from the lands of the faithful, and be pleased to maintain the peace and unity of His holy Church.
For we can scarcely express, from distress and grief of mind, what has reached our ears for some time by the report of reliable men and general rumor; alas, we have even seen with our eyes and read the many diverse errors.