W. Eugene Smith Quotes

The possibility to mobilize the international community to act on human suffering is what drives me every day as a photojournalist.

There's a gap somehow between empathy and activism. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of 'soul force' - something that emanates from a deep truth inside of us and empowers us to act. Once you identify your inner genius, you will be able to take action, whether it's writing a check or digging a well.

Telling the truth -- telling thoughtful truths -- should not be a revolutionary act. Speaking truths to power should not be sacrificial, but they are. But I think if more of us chose to do this for the greater good, we'd be in better spaces than we are right now.

I have the kind of conscience that it doesn't feel right if I watch other people suffer and I do nothing about it.

I never had the guts to go to Calais. I didn't see for myself the conditions people were living in, or hear their stories firsthand. That doesn't sit well with my conscience.

Acting is, to me now, artificial. Seeing people suffer is real. It couldn't be more real. Some people don't like to look at it in the face because it's painful. But if nobody does, then nothing gets done.

The quiet conscience is the invention of the devil. No one of us may permit any preventable pain to be inflicted even though the responsibility for that pain is not ours. No one may shut his eyes and think that the pain which is therefore not visible, is non-existent.

Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people's pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else's responsibility and not our own.

You cannot wash the feet of a dirty world if you refuse to touch it

We cannot close ourselves off to information and ignore the fact that millions of people are out there suffering. I honestly want to help. I don't believe I feel differently from other people. I think we all want justice and equality, a chance for a life with meaning. All of us would like to believe that if we were in a bad situation someone would help us.

Compassion and justice are companions, not choices.

How can I act in an impersonal manner? When a man dies in the street for want of food, how can I ignore him? When I find a starving or naked man in the street, I cannot walk past him. I think no human being can do that.

Unless we endeavor to do good to our neighbor, through our cruelty we transgress this law

A large part of altruism, even when it is perfectly honest, is grounded upon the fact that it is uncomfortable to have unhappy people about one.

If once we admit, be it for a single hour or in a single instance, that there can be anything more important than compassion for a fellow human being, then there is no crime against man that we cannot commit with an easy conscience.

Cruelty might be very human and very cultural, but it is not acceptable and it is not an option.

I can think of no greater God-given responsibility we have than that of extending a helping hand to our fellow man.

The law of love and compassion for all living creatures is again a doctrine to which we are all too ready to pay slip service. However, if it is to become a reality, it requires a process of education, a veritable mental renaissance. Once it has become a reality, national as well as international problems will fall into perspectives and become easier to solve. Wars and conflicts, too, will then become a thing of the past, because wars begin in the minds of men, and in those minds love and compassion would have built the defenses of peace.

Being a man with a conscience I simply felt that I had to do something - anything! - about the world we live in.

All of us would like to believe that if we were in a bad situation someone would help us.

Just because we cannot do everything for everyone does not mean we should do nothing for anyone.

Other human beings have a right to peace and happiness that is equal to our own; therefore we have a responsibility to help those in need.

I think any film that asks its audience a degree of tolerance and acceptance of those less fortunate than themselves isn't a bad thing from whatever culture you're in or from whatever part of any political spectrum.

One victim lives in tragedy, another victim stops to stare, and still another walks on by pretending not to see