Objectivity is of the very essence of photography, its contribution and at the same time its limitation

I think of myself as an explorer who has spent his life on a long voyage of discovery.

If Ansel Adams gets a thousand dollars a print, I want ten thousand.

Whether a watercolor is inferior to an oil [painting], or whether a drawing, an etching, or a photograph is not as important as either, is inconsequent. To have to despise something in order to respect something else is a sign of impotence.

I've always wanted to be aware of what's going on around me, and I've wanted to use photography as an instrument of research into and reporting on the life of my own time.

Photography... is either an expression of a cosmic vision, an embodiment of a life movement or it is nothing - to me. (1919)

I don't care how you photograph - use the kitchen mop if you must, but if the product is not true to the laws of photography... you have produced something that is dead. (1923)