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To take photographs means to recognize - simultaneously and within a fraction of a second - both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one's head, one's eye and one's heart on the same axis.

Henri Cartier-Bresson
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Actually, I'm not all that interested in the subject of photography. Once the picture is in the box, I'm not all that interested in what happens next. Hunters, after all, aren't cooks.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Memory is very important, the memory of each photo taken, flowing at the same speed as the event. During the work, you have to be sure that you haven't left any holes, that you've captured everything, because afterwards it will be too late.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
During the work, you have to be sure that you haven't left any holes, that you've captured everything, because afterwards it will be too late.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
To photograph is to hold one's breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It's at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Think about the photo before and after, never during. The secret is to take your time. You mustn't go too fast. The subject must forget about you. Then, however, you must be very quick.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
The photograph itself doesn't interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
To take photographs means to recognize - simultaneously and within a fraction of a second - both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one's head, one's eye and one's heart on the same axis.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
To take photographs means to recognize simultaneously and within a fraction of a. It is putting one's head, one's eye and one's heart on the same axis.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
A photograph is neither taken or seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
In a portrait, I’m looking for the silence in somebody.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.
William Wordsworth
Happiness is the harvest of a quiet eye.
Austin O'Malley
It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.
Samuel Johnson
To judge between good or bad, between successful and unsuccessful would take the eye of a God.
Anton Chekhov
The plate at each point only sends back to the eye the simple colour imprinted. The other colours are destroyed by interference. The eye thus perceives at each point the constituent colour of the image.
Gabriel Lippmann
One gets into a strange psychological, almost hypnotic, state of mind while on the firing line which probably prevents the mind's eye from observing and noticing things in a normal way.
Fritz Kreisler
Don't forget that the only two things people read in a story are the first and last sentences. Give them blood in the eye on the first one.
Herbert Bayard Swope
More firm and sure the hand of courage strikes, when it obeys the watchful eye of caution.
James Thomson
A cynic is a man who looks at the world with a monocle in his mind's eye.
Carolyn Wells
The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.
Meister Eckhart
If your sister is in a tearing hurry to go out and cannot catch your eye, she's wearing your best sweater.
Pam Brown
Baseball is a game where a curve is an optical illusion, a screwball can be a pitch or a person, stealing is legal and you can spit anywhere you like except in the umpire's eye or on the ball.
James Patrick Murray
Only a kind person is able to judge another justly and to make allowances for his weaknesses. A kind eye, while recognizing defects, sees beyond them.
Lawrence G. Lovasik
I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus Christ
Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
I don't see any kind of mirror of power, male power, that is, as a form of liberation. I don't believe in an eye for an eye. I don't believe this is truly freedom.
Sandra Cisneros
Follow the wisdom of the great actor, James Cagney, you hit your mark, you look the other guy in the eye, and you tell the truth.
Larry Merchant
Thou has a thousand eyes and yet not one eye; Thou host a thousand forms and yet not one form.
Guru Nanak
Our situation here, without any exaggeration, is beyond description almost; it is such as eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it ever entered into the heart of men to conceive Boston ever to arrive at.
Peter Oliver
Every day you must arise and say to your heart, I have suffered enough and now I must live because the light of the sun must not be wasted, it must not be lost without an eye to appreciate it.
Simone Schwarz-Bart
Every age has a keyhole to which its eye is pasted.
Mary McCarthy
It's easy to fool the eye but it's hard to fool the heart.
Al Pacino
The eye is a very quick instrument, much quicker than the ear. The eye gets it immediately.
Anish Kapoor
The eye of genius has always a plaintive expression, and its natural language is pathos.
Lydia M. Child
Queer Eye is a makeover show, meant to help our straight brethren.
Kyan Douglas
Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts.
Walker Evans
With any group of people in life, sad things happen, and crazy things, and happy things. When you're in the public eye, it's just amplified, that's all.
Margot Kidder
Whatever makes an impression on the heart seems lovely in the eye.
Sa'Di
I have had some pretty wild nights! I think the media keeps a very close eye on what people are up to these days. I was out with George Clooney a few nights ago and we had a great time.
Tom Jones
City people try to buy time as a rule, when they can, whereas country people are prepared to kill time, although both try to cherish in their mind's eye the notion of a better life ahead.
Edward Hoagland