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Dissimulation, secretiveness, appear a necessity to the melancholic. He has complex, often veiled relations with others. These feelings of superiority, of inadequacy, of baffled feeling, of not being able to get what one wants, or even name it properly (or consistently) to oneself — these can be, it is felt they ought to be, masked by friendliness, or the most scrupulous manipulation.
Dissimulation, secretiveness, appear a necessity to the melancholic. He has complex, often veiled relations with others. These feelings of superiority, of inadequacy, of baffled feeling, of not being able to get what one wants, or even name it properly (or consistently) to oneself — these can be, it is felt they ought to be, masked by friendliness, or the most scrupulous manipulation.
Approximate author period: c. 1968 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- Susan Sontag
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
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- Approximate author period: c. 1968 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1933 to 2004; Wikidata Q152824, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q152824 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 169107; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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