ardor-mohr: “Each time that one (that I) surrender to one’s vanities, each time that one

ardor-mohr:

“Each time that one (that I) surrender to one’s vanities, each time that one thinks and lives for the sake of ‘appearing,’ one betrays…It is not necessary to deliver oneself to others, but only to those whom one loves. For then it is no longer delivering oneself in order to appear, but only in order to give. There is much more force in a man who appears only when he must. To go to the end, that means to know how to guard one’s secret. I have suffered from being alone, but in order to have kept my secret, I conquered the suffering of being alone. And today, I know no greater glory than to live alone and unknown.”

— Susan Sontag, Reborn: Early Diaries 1947-1963 [Undated]