Quotes by
Lewis Wickes Hine

If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn't need to lug around a camera.

I wanted to show the thing that had to be corrected: I wanted to show the things that had to be appreciated.

There are two things I wanted to do. I wanted to show the things that had to be corrected. I wanted to show the things that had to be appreciated

In my early days of my child-labor activities I was an investigator with a camera attachment ... but the emphasis became reversed until the camera stole the whole show.

In the last analysis, good photography is a question of art.

I have always been more interested in persons than in people.

Photography is an empathy towards the world.

While photographs may not lie, liars may photograph.

You and I know that this undoubted faith in the integrity of the photograph is often rudely shaken; for while photographs may not lie, liars may photograph. It becomes necessary, then, in our revelation of the truth, to see to it that the camera we depend on contracts no bad habits.

[Photographers are] the Human Document to keep the present and the future in touch with the past.

Photography can light-up darkness and expose ignorance

I’m sure I am right in my choice of work. My child labor photos have already set the authorities to work to see if such things can be possible.

Perhaps you are weary of child labor pictures. Well, so are the rest of us, but we propose to make you and the whole country so sick and tired of the whole business that when the time for action comes, child-labor pictures will be records of the past.

Whether it be a painting or photograph, the picture is a symbol that brings one immediately into close touch with reality. In fact, it is often more effective than the reality would have been, because, in the picture, the non-essential and conflicting interests have been eliminated.