Jacob August Riis Quotes

• 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 Ago

  Jacob August Riis (1914). “How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York”

  44 Copy quote

• The slum is the measure of civilization.

  Jacob August Riis

  Civilization, Cities, Slums

  "Introducing 'Breakdown: Americans on the Edge'” by Timothy L. O’Brien, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 1, 2012.

  57 Copy quote

• 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

  28 Copy quote

• Some defeats are only installments to victory.

  Jacob August Riis

  Inspiring, Children, Victory

  24 Copy quote

• The more I live, the more I think that humor is the saving sense.

  Jacob August Riis

  Humor, Thinking, Saving

  56 Copy quote

• 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

  Jacob August Riis (1901). “The Making of an American”

  20 Copy quote

• 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

  Perseverance, Determination, Rocks

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• Men have a trick of coming up to what is expected of them, good or bad.

  Jacob August Riis

  Men, Tricks, Expected

  Jacob August Riis (1973). “Jacob Riis revisited: poverty and the slum in another era”, Augustus m Kelley Pubs

  12 Copy quote

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