"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."

Henri Cartier-Bresson, French Photographer

Act,

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"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."

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"Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven."

Henry Ward Beecher, American Clergyman

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"It's in the act of having to do things that you don't want to that you learn something about moving past the self. Past the ego."

bell hooks, American Critic

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"Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one."

Salman Rushdie, Indian Novelist

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"I will act as if what I do makes a difference."

William James, American Philosopher

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"There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord."

Thomas Paine, English Writer

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"Only remember west of the Mississippi it's a little more look, see, act. A little less rationalize, comment, talk."

F. Scott Fitzgerald, American Author

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"In the beginning was the Word. Man acts it out. He is the act, not the actor."

Henry Miller, American Author

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"A conventional good read is usually a bad read, a relaxing bath in what we know already. A true good read is surely an act of innovative creation in which we, the readers, become conspirators."

Augustine Birrell, English Author

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"I don't want to be a star. If you have to label me anything, I'm an actor - I guess. A journeyman actor. I think 'star' is what you call actors who can't act."

Paul Muni, American Actor

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"Awareness has changed so that every act for children, every piece of legislation recognizes that children are part of families and that it is within families that children grow and thrive or don't."

Bernice Weissbourd, American Social Worker

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Explore more quotes by Henri Cartier-Bresson

"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."

Earth

"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."

Portrait

"Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation."

Reaction

"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."

Act

"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."

Essence

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

Perception

"Memory is very important, the memory of each photo taken, flowing at the same speed as the event. During the work, you have to be sure that you haven't left any holes, that you've captured everything, because afterwards it will be too late."

Work

"During the work, you have to be sure that you haven't left any holes, that you've captured everything, because afterwards it will be too late."

Work

"Think about the photo before and after, never during. The secret is to take your time. You mustn't go too fast. The subject must forget about you. Then, however, you must be very quick."

Time

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

Interest