Quotes by Gordon Parks - Page 1

Photography was my choice of weapons.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Choices
Photography
Weapons
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Enthusiasm is the electricity of life
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Electricity
Enthusiasm
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You know, the camera is not meant just to show misery.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Cameras
Misery
Shows
Show
Meant
Camera
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I have always felt as though I needed a weapon against evil.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Evil
Needed
Weapons
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I think most people can do a whole lot more if they just try.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
People
Thinking
Trying
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And now, I feel at 85, I really feel that I'm just ready to start.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Feels
Mastery
Ready
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The subject matter is so much more important than the photographer.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Important
Matter
Photographer
Photography
Subject Matter
Important More Than
More
Much
Subject
Than
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If you don't have anything to say, your photographs aren't going to say much.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Ifs
Photograph
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I have been born again and again and each time, I have found something to love.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Again And Again
Born Again
Found
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I suffered evils, but without allowing them to rob me of the freedom to expand.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Allowing
Evil
Without
Suffered
Evils
Expand
Rob
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Washington, D.C. in 1942 was not the easiest place in the world for a Negro to get along.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Places In The World
World
Washington
Easiest
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If a man can reach the latter days of his life with his soul intact, he has mastered life.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Men
Latter
Soul
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I bought my first camera in Seattle, Washington. Only paid about seven dollars and fifty cents for it.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Cameras
Cents
Dollars
Fifty
Paid
Seattle
Seven
Bought
Camera
Washington
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Think in terms of images and words. They can be mighty powerful when they are fitted together properly.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Powerful
Thinking
Together
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The camera could be a very powerful instrument against discrimination, against poverty, against racism.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Cameras
Powerful
Racism
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Enthusiasm is the electricity of life. How do you get it? You act enthusiastic until you make it a habit.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Life
Acting
Enthusiasm
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Use anger to emotionalize whatever thing you intend to do in life - being a painter, a poet or a photographer
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Photographer
Poet
Use
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The guy who takes a chance, who walks the line between the known and unknown, who is unafraid of failure, will succeed.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Inspirational
Motivational
Success
Failure
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I had known poverty firsthand, but there I learned how to fight its evil - along with the evil of racism - with a camera.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Evil
Fighting
Racism
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Many times I wondered whether my achievement was worth the loneliness I experienced, but now I realize the price was small.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Achievement
Loneliness
Realizing
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But I do feel a little teeny right now that I'm just about ready to start, and winter is entering. Half past autumn has arrived.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Autumn
Entering
Half
Past
Ready
Winter
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I picked up a camera because it was my choice of weapons against what I hated most about the universe: racism, intolerance, poverty.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Cameras
Choices
Racism
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I do find a certain fascination with the unpredictable. The transitory years we wade through are what they are- what we make of them.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Fascination
Wade
Years
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I think maybe the rural influence in my life helped me in a sense, of knowing how to get close to people and talk to them and get my work done.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Influence
Knowing
People
Thinking
Life Work Me
Helped
Rural
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The man at Kodak told me the shots were very good and if I kept it up, they would give me an exhibition. Later, Kodak gave me my first exhibition.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Give Me
Good Man Me
Exhibition
Gave
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I have never known anyone important enough to consume me in anger beyond a few hours. Better to depart their existence before they poison your own.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Hours
Important
Poison
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I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had to have a camera.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
African American
Cameras
Racism
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At first I wasn't sure that I had the talent, but I did know I had a fear of failure, and that fear compelled me to fight off anything that might abet it.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Failure
Abet
Compelled
Fighting
Might
Talent
Anything
Had
Sure
Did
First
Fight
Off
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Nothing came easy. I was just born with a need to explore every part of my mind. And with long searching and hard work, I became devoted to my restlessness.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
African American
Hard Work
Long
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Success can be wracking and reproachful, to you and those close to you. It can entangle you with legends that are consuming and all but impossible to live up to.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Consuming
Impossible
Legends
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You have a 45mm automatic pistol on your lap, and I have a 35mm camera on my lap, and my weapon is just as powerful as yours. (To Black Panther militant Eldridge Cleaver)
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Gun
Photography
Powerful
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So I went to Chicago in 1940, I think, '41, and the photographs that I made there, aside from fashion, were things that I was trying to express in a social conscious way.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Chicago
Conscious
Fashion
Thinking
Trying
Aside
Photographs
Express
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There's another horizon out there, one more horizon that you have to make for yourself and let other people discover it, and someone else will take it further on, you know.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Horizon
Yourself People Will
Discover
Else
Further
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I feel it is the heart, not the eye, that should determine the content of the photograph. What the eye sees is its own. What the heart can perceive is a very different matter.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Different
Eye
Heart
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You know, the camera is not meant just to show misery. You can show things that you like about the universe, things that you hate about the universe. It's capable of doing both.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Cameras
Hate
Misery
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I've been with Life now for seventeen years and I have written several articles for them and will be doing more writing and do at least two assignments a year besides my writing.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Articles
Assignments
Seventeen
Two
Writing
Years
Besides
Seventeen Years
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And I think that after nearly 85 years upon this planet that I have a right after working so hard at showing the desolation and the poverty, to show something beautiful for somebody as well.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Beautiful
Desolation
Poverty
Thinking
Years
Nearly
Planet
Showing
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I suffered first as a child from discrimination, poverty ... So I think it was a natural follow from that that I should use my camera to speak for people who are unable to speak for themselves.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Children
Photography
Thinking
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People in millenniums ahead will know what we were like in the 1930's and the thing that, the important major things that shaped our history at that time. This is as important for historic reasons as any other.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Historic
Important
People
Time History People
Ahead
Major
Shaped
Reasons
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I was born to a black childhood of confusion and poverty. The memory of that beginning influences my work today, It is impossible now to photograph a hungry child without remembering the hunger of my old childhood.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Children
Confusion
Memories
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I'd become sort of involved in things that were happening to people. No matter what color they be, whether they be Indians, or Negroes, the poor white person or anyone who was I thought more or less getting a bad shake.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Color
Involved
People
Poor
White
Happening
Indians
More Or Less
Shake
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I've been asked if I think there will ever come a time when all people come together. I would like to think there will. All we can do is hope and dream and work toward that end. And that's what I've tried to do all my life.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Dream
People
Thinking
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But I was very disappointed that I didn't get a chance to go overseas with that group, might not have gotten back but I wanted very much to go because there's not much of a record of the exploits of the first Negro fighter group.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Chance
Disappointed
Exploits
Groups
Might
Records
Gotten
Group
Record
Overseas
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The photographer begins to feel big and bloated and so big he can't walk through one of these doors because he gets a good byline; he gets notices all over the world and so forth; but they're really - the important people are the people he photographs.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Doors
People
Photographer
Photography
Good World Walk
Begins
Bloated
Forth
Important People
Notices
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I was there less than a year before I was assigned to the Paris bureau. I spent two years there and, in fact, before I even went on the staff I was sent to Europe to do assignments which they wouldn't normally do for a young photographer just starting out.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Europe
Photographer
Photography
Staff
Years
Assigned
Bureau
In Fact
Normally
Sent
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Enthusiasm is the electricity of life. How do you get it? You act enthusiastic until you make it a habit. Enthusiasm is natural; it is being alive, taking the initiative, seeing the importance of what you do, giving it dignity and making what you do important to yourself and to others.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Alive
Giving
Important
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I've known both misery and happiness, lived in so many different skins it is impossible for one skin to claim me. And I have felt like a wayfarer on an alien planet at times - walking, running, wondering about what brought me to this particular place, and why. But once I was here the dreams started moving in, and I went about devouring them as they devoured me.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Dream
Running
Moving
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I picked up a camera because it was my choice of weapons against what I hated most about the universe: racism, intolerance, poverty. I could have just as easily picked up a knife or a gun, like many of my childhood friends did... most of whom were murdered or put in prison... but I chose not to go that way. I felt that I could somehow subdue these evils by doing something beautiful that people recognize me by, and thus make a whole different life for myself, which has proved to be so.
Gordon Parks / Photographer
Beautiful
Gun
Knives
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Gordon Parks Quotes - Page 1

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