165 Quotes by Henri Cartier-Bresson

Photography is only intuition, a perpetual interrogation - everything except a stage set.

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

He made me suddenly realize that photographs could reach eternity through the moment.

To take photographs means to recognize - simultaneously and within a fraction of a second - both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one's head, one's eye and one's heart on the same axis.

It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos.

In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv.

Of course it's all luck.

As time passes by and you look at portraits, the people come back to you like a silent echo. A photograph is a vestige of a face, a face in transit. Photography has something to do with death. It's a trace.

I'm not responsible for my photographs. Photography is not documentary, but intuition, a poetic experience. It's drowning yourself, dissolving yourself, and then sniff, sniff, sniff - being sensitive to coincidence. You can't go looking for it; you can't want it, or you won't get it. First you must lose your self. Then it happens.