Jacob Riis Quotes

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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 Riis

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

Jacob Riis

Look at a stone cutter 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 the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.

Jacob Riis

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

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.

Jacob Riis

Jacob Riis

Jacob Riis

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Born: May 3, 1849

Died: May 26, 1914 (aged 65)

Bio: Jacob August Riis was a Danish-American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer.

Known for:

How the Other Half Lives (1890)
The Children of the Poor (1892)
The Battle with the Slum (1902)
Children of the Tenements (1903)
Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen (1900)

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