165 Quotes by Henri Cartier-Bresson

We must respect the atmosphere which surrounds the human being

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.

Photography appears to be an easy activity; in fact it is a varied and ambiguous process in which the only common denominator among its practitioners is in the instrument.

The camera is for us a tool, not a pretty mechanical toy ... people think far too much about techniques and not enough about seeing.

They ... asked me: 'How do you make your pictures?' I was puzzled ... I said, I don't know, it's not important.

I am neither an economist nor a photographer of monuments, and I am not much of a journalist either. What I am trying to do more than anything else is to observe life.

The Photography is a chopper which in the eternity seizes the moment which dazzled it.

For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression.

One has to tiptoe lightly and steal up to one's quarry; you don't swish the water when you are fishing.