JACOB RIIS

He [Jacob Riis] had the most flaming intensity of passion for righteousness.

I think that perhaps if I looked through the sweatshops myself, we might be in a condition to put things on a new basis, just as … in the police department after you and I began our midnight tours.

I'd look at one of my stonecutters hammering away at the rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet, at the hundred and first blow it would split in two, and I knew it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.

You cannot let men live like pigs …. We need not wait for the Millennium to get rid of the slum. We can do it now.

Why should a man have a better right to kill his neighbor with a house than with an axe in the street?

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.

Some defeats are only installments to victory.

The slum is the measure of civilization.

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

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.

The houses were built to sell. That they killed the tenants was no concern of the builder’s.

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

The slum is the measure of civilization.

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.

I'd look at one of my stonecutters hammering away at the rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet, at the hundred and first blow it would split in two, and I knew it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.

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

Some defeats are only installments to victory.

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.

The houses were built to sell. That they killed the tenants was no concern of the builder’s.

It is not squalid people who produce the squalid housing; it is the squalid housing that makes squalid people.

You cannot let men live like pigs …. We need not wait for the Millennium to get rid of the slum. We can do it now.

Why should a man have a better right to kill his neighbor with a house than with an axe in the street?

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.

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

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.