Margaret Bourke-White Quotes

To understand another human being you must gain some insight into the conditions which made him what he is.

Photography is a very subtle thing. You must let the camera take you by the hand, as it were, and lead you into your subject.

Nothing attracts me like a closed door. I cannot let my camera rest until I have pried it open.

Life wanted faces that would express what we wanted to tell. Not just the unusual or striking face, but the face that would speak out the message from the printed page. I am always looking for some typical person or face that will tie the picture essay together in a human way.

If you banish fear, nothing terribly bad can happen to you.

The camera is a remarkable instrument. Saturate yourself with your subject, and the camera will all but take you by the hand and point the way.

If you want to photograph a man spinning, give some thought to why he spins. Understanding for a photographer is as important as the equipment he uses.

War makes its own morals.

"Utter truth is essential, and that is what stirs me when I look through the camera."

The sights I have just seen [at Buchenwald] are so unbelievable that I don't think I'll believe them myself until I've seen the photographs.

A burning purpose attracts others who are drawn along with it and help fulfill it.

Usually I object when someone makes over-much of men's work versus women's work, for I think it is the excellence of the results which counts.

Work is something you can count on, a trusted, lifelong friend who never deserts you.

I'm afraid my closely guarded solitude causes some hurt feelings now and then. But how to explain, without wounding someone, that you want to be wholly in the world you are writing about, that it would take two days to get the visitor's voice out of the house so that you could listen to your own characters again?

Life is beating against the school windows. You must quickly open the doors and go out to learn that no door must be locked against you.

You are responsible for what you have done and the people whom you have influenced.

We are in a privileged and sometimes happy position. We see a great deal of the world. Our obligation is to pass it on to others.

As photographers, we live through things so swiftly. All our experience and training is focused toward snatching off the highlights... That all significant perfect moment, so essential to capture, is often highly perishable. There may be little opportunity to probe deeper.

The beauty of the past belongs to the past.

The very secret of life for me, I believed, was to maintain in the midst of rushing events an inner tranquility.

The element of discovery is very important. I don't repeat myself well. I want and need that stimulus of walking forward from one new world to another. There is something demoralizing about going back to a place to retake pictures. You can no longer see your subjects in a fresh eye; you keep comparing them with the pictures you hold in your memory. [The] world was full of discoveries waiting to be made...(as a photographer) I could share the things I saw and learned...you would react to something all others might walk by.

It seems to me that while it is very important to get a striking picture of a line of smoke stacks or a row of dynamos, it is becoming more and more important to reflect that life that goes on behind these photographs. (1935)

I was to discover that the quest for human understanding is a lifetime one that has no end in sight.

If anyone gets in my way when I'm making a picture, I become irrational. I'm never sure what I am going to do, or sometimes even aware of what I do-only that I want that picture.

Nothing attracts me like a closed door.