Journalism is the art of collecting varying kinds of information (commonly called news) which a few people possess and of transmitting it to a much larger number of people who are supposed to desire to share it.

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.)

Not much longer shall we have time for reading lessons of the past. An inexorable present calls us to the defense of a great future.

Show me a man who claims he is objective and I'll show you a man with illusions.

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

There are men who can write poetry, and there are men who can read balance sheets. The men who can read balance sheets cannot write.

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