To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event.

One eye of the photographer looks wide open through the viewfinder, the other, the closed looks into his own soul.

...it is seldom indeed that a composition which was poor when the picture was taken can be improved by reshaping it in the dark room.

Thinking should be done beforehand and afterwards - never while actually taking a photograph.

Thinking should be done before and after, not during photographing. Success depends on the extent of one's general culture. one's set of values, one's clarity of mind one's vivacity. The thing to be feared most is the artificially contrived, the contrary to life.

I suddenly understood that a photograph could fix eternity in an instant.

We must avoid however, snapping away, shooting quickly and without thought, overloading ourselves with unnecessary images that clutter our memory and diminish the clarity of the whole.