Henri Quotes
Waiting time is not wasting time. Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.
Learn to... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not.
There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation.
Logistics comprises the means and arrangements which work out the plans of strategy and tactics. Strategy decides where to act; logistics brings the troops to this point.
When I go out into the countryside and see the sun and the green and everything flowering, I say to myself "Yes indeed, all that belongs to me!"
Life is the twofold internal movement of composition and decomposition at once general and continuous.
Women wish to be loved without a why or a wherefore; not because they are pretty, or good, or well-bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because they are themselves.
In laughter we always find an unavowed intention to humiliate and consequently to correct our neighbour.
When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become.
A work of art is the trace of a magnificent struggle.
Spiritual maturity is not knowing what to do with your whole life, but just knowing what to do next.
Hatred, rancor, and the spirit of vengeance are useless baggage to the artist. His road is difficult enough for him to cleanse his soul of everything which could make it more so.
We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe.
Good composition is like a suspension bridge - each line adds strength and takes none away.
It's seldom you make a great picture. you have to milk the cow quite a lot to get plenty of milk to make a little cheese.
Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.
Destiny has two ways of crushing us - by refusing our wishes and by fulfilling them.
I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.
Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera.
The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful.
In every loving woman there is a priestess of the past - a pious guardian of some affection, of which the object has disappeared.
Photography is, for me, a spontaneous impulse coming from an ever attentive eye which captures the moment and its eternity.
It is not genius, nor glory, nor love that reflects the greatness of the human soul; it is kindness.
Doubt everything or believe everything: these are two equally convenient strategies. With either we dispense with the need for reflection.
Anyone who believes that anything can be suited to everyone is a great fool, because medicine is practised not on mankind in general, but on every individual in particular.
Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.
To photograph is to hold one's breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It's at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.
Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour springs and germinates no more.
The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.
I am certainly a romantic, but with a good scientific and rationalist half: thus, from this conflict I sometimes come out victorious, but exhausted.
If reality impacted directly on our senses and our consciousness, if we could have direct communication between the material world and ourselves, art would be unnecessary.
In a strange way the spiritual life isn't "useful" or "successful." But it is meant to be fruitful. And fruitfulness comes out of brokenness.