To condemn spontaneous and delightful occupations because they are useless for self-preservation shows an uncritical prizing of life irrespective of its content.

Ideal society is a drama enacted exclusively in the imagination.

The working of great institutions is mainly the result of a vast mass of routine, petty malice, self interest, carelessness and sheer mistake. Only a residual fraction is thought.

Photography at first was asked to do nothing but embalm our best smiles for the benefit of our friends and our best clothes for the amusement of posterity. Neither thing lasts, and photography came as a welcome salve to keep those precious, if slightly ridiculous, things a little longer in the world.

The Difficult is that which can be done immediately; the Impossible that which takes a little longer.

If pain could have cured us we should long ago have been saved.

Injustice in this world is not something comparative; the wrong is deep, clear, and absolute in each private fate.