George Santayana
[Philosopher and writer, b. 1863, Madrid, Spain, d. 1952, Rome, Italy.]
As students of zoology put on their slides infinitely fine and numerous sections of the specimens they study, so the photographer can furnish for the instruction of posterity infinitely fine and numerous cross-sections of the present world of men.
(1912) 
Diane Arbus
[Photographer, b. 1923, New York, d. 1971, New York.]
Most people go through life dreading they’ll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They’ve already passed their test in life. They’re aristocrats. James Nachtwey
[Photographer, b. 1948, Syracuse, New York, lives in New York.]
For me the strength of photography lies in its ability to evoke humanity. If war is an attempt to negate humanity, then photography can be perceived as the opposite of war. Robert Coles
[Writer and psychiatrist, b. 1929, Boston, Massachusetts, lives in Concord, Massachusetts.]
Doing documentary work is a journey, and is a little more, too, a passage across boundaries (disciplines, occupational constraints, definitions, conventions all too influentially closed for traffic), a passage that can become a quest, even a pilgrimage, a movement toward the sacred truth enshrined not only on tablets of stone, but in the living hearts of those others whom we can hear, see, and get to understand. Thereby we hope to be confirmed in our own humanity—the creature on this earth whose very nature it is to make just that kind of connection with others during the brief stay we are permitted here. Richard Avedon
[Photographer, b. 1923, New York, d. 2004, San Antonio, Texas.]
Sometimes I think all my pictures are just pictures of me. My concern is, how would you say, well, the human predicament; only what I consider the human predicament may simply be my own. Harry Callahan
[Photographer, b. 1912, Detroit, Michigan, d. 1999, Atlanta, Georgia.]
I thought at one time I should benefit humanity, but I don’t even know what that means anymore, and then you think, well, you’re doing it to satisfy yourself, but there’s more to yourself than just satisfying yourself too, and so I really think that it’s just that I want to leave something for somebody. Massimo Vitali
[Photographer, b. 1944, Como, Italy, lives in Lucca, Italy.]
My photography comes from absolute matter-of-fact situations but also from a deep curiosity that I possess for people, for what they do and how they think. T.S. Elliot
[Poet and critic, b. 1888, St. Louis, Missouri, d. 1965, London.]
What are the roots that clutch, what branches growOut of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images.