Enthusiasm is the electricity of life. How do you get it? You act enthusiastic until you make it a habit. Enthusiasm is natural; it is being alive, taking the initiative, seeing the importance of what you do, giving it dignity and making what you do important to yourself and to others.

Gordon Parks

I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had to have a camera.

Gordon Parks

african-american cameras racism

I picked up a camera because it was my choice of weapons against what I hated most about the universe: racism, intolerance, poverty. I could have just as easily picked up a knife or a gun, like many of my childhood friends did... most of whom were murdered or put in prison... but I chose not to go that way. I felt that I could somehow subdue these evils by doing something beautiful that people recognize me by, and thus make a whole different life for myself, which has proved to be so.

Gordon Parks

knives gun beautiful

The guy who takes a chance, who walks the line between the known and unknown, who is unafraid of failure, will succeed.

Gordon Parks

success motivational inspirational

I feel it is the heart, not the eye, that should determine the content of the photograph. What the eye sees is its own. What the heart can perceive is a very different matter.

Gordon Parks

different eye heart

Enthusiasm is the electricity of life. How do you get it? You act enthusiastic until you make it a habit.

Gordon Parks

acting enthusiasm life

I picked up a camera because it was my choice of weapons against what I hated most about the universe: racism, intolerance, poverty.

Gordon Parks

cameras choices racism

Nothing came easy. I was just born with a need to explore every part of my mind. And with long searching and hard work, I became devoted to my restlessness.

Gordon Parks

african-american hard-work long

You have a 45mm automatic pistol on your lap, and I have a 35mm camera on my lap, and my weapon is just as powerful as yours. (To Black Panther militant Eldridge Cleaver)

Gordon Parks

powerful gun photography

If you don't have anything to say, your photographs aren't going to say much.

Gordon Parks

photograph ifs

The subject matter is so much more important than the photographer.

Gordon Parks

important photography matter

The camera could be a very powerful instrument against discrimination, against poverty, against racism.

Gordon Parks

cameras powerful racism

Think in terms of images and words. They can be mighty powerful when they are fitted together properly.

Gordon Parks

powerful together thinking

I've known both misery and happiness, lived in so many different skins it is impossible for one skin to claim me. And I have felt like a wayfarer on an alien planet at times - walking, running, wondering about what brought me to this particular place, and why. But once I was here the dreams started moving in, and I went about devouring them as they devoured me.

Gordon Parks

dream running moving

You know, the camera is not meant just to show misery. You can show things that you like about the universe, things that you hate about the universe. It's capable of doing both.

Gordon Parks

misery cameras hate

At first I wasn't sure that I had the talent, but I did know I had a fear of failure, and that fear compelled me to fight off anything that might abet it.

Gordon Parks

abet fighting might

I've been asked if I think there will ever come a time when all people come together. I would like to think there will. All we can do is hope and dream and work toward that end. And that's what I've tried to do all my life.

Gordon Parks

dream people thinking

I suffered first as a child from discrimination, poverty ... So I think it was a natural follow from that that I should use my camera to speak for people who are unable to speak for themselves.

Gordon Parks

photography children thinking

I have never known anyone important enough to consume me in anger beyond a few hours. Better to depart their existence before they poison your own.

Gordon Parks

hours poison important

If a man can reach the latter days of his life with his soul intact, he has mastered life.

Gordon Parks

latter soul men

I was born to a black childhood of confusion and poverty. The memory of that beginning influences my work today, It is impossible now to photograph a hungry child without remembering the hunger of my old childhood.

Gordon Parks

confusion memories children