Aaron Siskind Quotes

To know ahead of time what you're looking for means you're then only photographing your own preconceptions, which is very limiting, and often false.

If you are not willing to see more than is visible, you won't see anything.

What we see depends mainly on what we look for.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise, you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

It is popular to believe that in order to see clearly one must believe nothing. This may work well enough if you are observing cells under a microscope. It will not work if you are writing fiction. For the fiction writer, to believe nothing is to see nothing.

Look at what's in front of you, not what you've been told or what you expect or what you want to see.

Who travels far will often see things Far removed from what was believed as Truth.

Making art has first of all to do with honesty. My first lesson was to see objectively, to erase all meaning of the thing seen. Then only could the real meaning of it be understood and felt.

I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see, I swallow immediately. Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful.

Everyone has got some preconceptions, but you have to readjust them in front of reality. Reality has the last word.

Look at everything. Don't close your eyes to the world around you. Look and become curious and interested in what there is to see.

As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can't see how it is.

Don't let your eyes refuse to seeDon't let your ears refuse to hear

You learn nothing if you carry with you a journalistic system of values, which is invented to save reporters from experience.

You can only photograph a fragment of the here and now. The photograph presents the world as object; language, the world as idea.

We have to allow ourselves to see what there is to see, and we have to imagine.

The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa.

Truth happens to an idea

Consciousness is always open to many possibilities because it involves play. It is always an adventure.

No amount of effort could have stopped that, because our points of view - the way we perceive things - are inextricably linked to our beliefs, ... ,our beliefs color what we see.

What's happening is merely what's happening. How you feel about it is another matter.

To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.

Mysteries lie all around us, even in the most familiar things, waiting only to be perceived.