Riis Quotes & Sayings

How shall the love of God be understood by those who have been nurtured in sight only of the greed of man? — Jacob A. Riis

He may have been a trifle wild. — Jacob A. Riis

Svava: "Rule number one: Never make a fool of yourself."
Riis: "Rule number two: Never be a burden to any one."
Svava: "Rule number three: Always be in the fashion. — Bjornstjerne Bjornson

The world forgets easily, too easily, what it does not like to remember. — Jacob A. Riis

CSC and Bjarne Riis, who said something that's stuck with me for ten years: his philosophy was 'You never know how hard you can tighten something until it breaks'. Whether you are training, overtraining, or trying to get to your perfect race weight, you never know how far to push yourself until you actually break down. — Bradley Wiggins

When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter
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 that last
blow that did it, but all that had gone before. — Jacob A. Riis

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

Oh, God! That bread should be so dear, And flesh and blood so cheap! — Jacob A. Riis

In self-defence, you know, all life eventually accommodates itself to its environment, and human life is no exception. — Jacob A. Riis

This will remain so after Hurricane Katrina disappears from the front pages of our newspapers. Long ago. it was said that 'one half of the world does not know how the other half lives. ' ... It did not know because it did not care ... until some flagrant outrage on decency and the health of the community aroused it to noisy but ephemeral indignation. — Jacob August Riis

Reporter Jacob Riis made it his mission to expose the horrors of poverty in New York. New to working with a camera, his flash actually set the walls of One apartment inhabited by five blind people on fire. — H.W. Brands

His two podium candidates looked like two blokes who had just got up from the Christmas buffet. — Bjarne Riis

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. — Jacob Riis

Some defeats are only installments to victory. — Jacob Riis

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. — Jacob August Riis

The slum is the measure of civilization. — Jacob Riis

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. There came a time when the discomfort and consequent upheavals so violent, that it was no longer an easy thing to do, and then the upper half fell to inquiring what was the matter. Information on the subject has been accumulating rapidly since, and the whole world has had its hands full answering for its old ignorance. — Jacob A. Riis

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

Jacob Riis in his How the Other Half Lives — David McCullough