# Quote — Slavoj Žižek, The Sublime Object of Ideology

> Kantian definition of the Sublime: 'The sublime may be described in this way: It is an object (of nature) the representation of which determines the mind to regard the elevation of nature beyond our reach as equivalent to a presentation of ideas...' The feeling of the Sublime is, therefore, at once a feeling of displeasure, arising from the inadequacy of imagination in the aesthetic estimation of magnitude to attain, to its estimation by reason, and a simultaneously awakened pleasure, arising from this very judgement of the inadequacy of the greatest faculty of sense being in accord with ideas of reason, so far as the effort to attain to these is for us a law.

- Author: [Slavoj Žižek](https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek.md)
- Book: [The Sublime Object of Ideology](https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/the-sublime-object-of-ideology.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Slavoj_%C5%BDi%C5%BEek#The_Sublime_Object_of_Ideology_(1989)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/the-sublime-object-of-ideology/kantian-definition-of-the

## More from this book

> 'Father, why is the sky blue?' - the child is not really interested in the sky as such; the real stake of the question is to expose father's impotence, his helplessness in the face of the hard fact, to present the whole chain of reasons leading to it. The blue of the sky thus becomes not only the father's problem, but in a way even his fault. The sky is blue, and you're just staring at it like an idiot incapable of doing anything about it!

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/the-sublime-object-of-ideology/father-why-is-the.md)

> Memento mori should be read: don't forget to die.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/the-sublime-object-of-ideology/memento-mori-should.md)

> Subject - (1) a person subject to political rule; (2) a free agent, instigator of its activity - subjects can realize themselves as free agents only by means of redoubling themselves as, only in so far as they project, transpose the pure form of their freedom into the very heart of the substance opposed to them; into the person of the subject-monarch as head of state.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/the-sublime-object-of-ideology/subject-1-a-person.md)