It's easier to teach a poet how to read a balance sheet than it is to teach an accountant how to write.

To see life. To see the world. To watch the faces of the poor, and the gestures of the proud. To see strange things. Machines, armies, multitudes, and shadows in the jungle. To see, and to take pleasure in seeing. To see and be instructed. To see and be amazed. (Describing the powers of photography; written for the launch of LIFE Magazine, 1936.)

The world of the 20th century, if it is to come to life in any viability of health and vigor, must be to a significant degree an American century.

Of necessity, we made the discovery that it is easier to turn poets into business journalists than to turn bookkeepers into writers.

Publishing is a business, but journalism never was and is not essentially a business. Nor is it a profession.

Business, more than any other occupation, is a continual dealing with the future; it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight.

I became a journalist to come as close as possible to the heart of the world.