Jacob August Riis famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

The more I live, the more I think that humor is the saving sense.
-- Jacob August Riis

#Humor #Thinking #Saving
This will remain so after Hurricane Katrina disappears from the front pages of our newspapers. Long ago. it was said that 'one half of the world does not know how the other half lives. '... It did not know because it did not care... until some flagrant outrage on decency and the health of the community aroused it to noisy but ephemeral indignation.
-- Jacob August Riis

#Long #Community #Hurricanes
Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.
-- Jacob August Riis

#Motivational #Inspiring #Leadership
Some defeats are only installments to victory.
-- Jacob August Riis

#Inspiring #Children #Victory
Long ago it was said that 'one half of the world does not know how the other half lives.' That was true then. It did not know because it did not care. The half that was on top cared little for the struggles, and less for the fate, of those who were underneath, so long as it was able to hold them there and keep its own seat.
-- Jacob August Riis

#Struggle #Fate #Long
Men have a trick of coming up to what is expected of them, good or bad.
-- Jacob August Riis

#Men #Tricks #Expected
The slum is the measure of civilization.
-- Jacob August Riis

#Civilization #Cities #Slums
When nothing seems to help, I go look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it.
-- Jacob August Riis

#Rocks #Cracks #Looks
I do not want [photography] explained to me in terms of... formulas, learned, but so hopelessly unsatisfying. I do not want my butterfly stuck on a pin and put in a glass case. I want to see the sunlight on its wings as it flits from flower to flower and I don't care a rap what its Latin name may be.
-- Jacob August Riis

#Photography #Latin #Flower

Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.
Wit is artificial; humor is natural. Wit is accidental; humor is inevitable. Wit is born of conscious effort; humor, of the allotted ironies of fate. Wit can be expressed only in language; humor can be developed sufficiently in situation.
The interesting adults are always the school failures, the weird ones, the losers, the malcontents, this isnâ€™t wishful thinking. Itâ€™s the rule.
Americans think the only funny Brits are John Cleese, Benny Hill and whoever makes our toothpaste. They're not laughing with us, they are laughing at us.
A quotation is a handy thing to have about, saving one the trouble of thinking for oneself, always a laborious business.
The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.
Far better to think historically, to remember the lessons of the past. Thus, far better to conceive of power as consisting in part of the knowledge of when not to use all the power you have. Far better to be one who knows that if you reserve the power not to use all your power, you will lead others far more successfully and well.
You can't have intentions without consequences. The question is, who pays for the consequences? Saving fish from drowning. Same thing. Whoâ€™s saved? Whoâ€™s not?
Saving our planet requires you to be ambitious in what you aim, and, equally, in how hard you work to reach your goal.
If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting.

Jacob August Riis famous quotes

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