Quotes from Henri Cartier-Bresson

I love painting. As far as photography is concerned, I understand nothing.

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

It seems dangerous to be a portrait artist who does commissions for clients because everyone wants to be flattered, so they pose in such a way that there's nothing left of truth.

Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.

The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box.

The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt.

Of course it's all luck.

A photographer must always work with the greatest respect for his subject and in terms of his own point of view.

Pictures should never be posed. They are 'revealed' so must be accepted as they are. Left alone.

The photograph itself doesn't interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality.

Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation.

We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished, there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.

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

Actually, I'm not all that interested in the subject of photography. Once the picture is in the box, I'm not all that interested in what happens next. Hunters, after all, aren't cooks.

The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box.

Life is once, forever.

Reality offers us such wealth that we must cut some of it out on the spot, simplify. The question is, do we always cut out what we should?

Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.

For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity.

To photograph is to hold one's breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It's at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.

To photograph: it is to put on the same line of sight the head, the eye and the heart.

It is through living that we discover ourselves, at the same time as we discover the world around us.

Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.

Sharpness is a bourgeois concept