Taking photographs is more than pointing and clicking with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the memories of those you love, the faith that you live, the principles that you follow, the songs that you sing.

To some, photography is an act of capturing the moment. To others, an act of meditation and prayer. There are also those who see photography as an act showing who we truly are.

Whatever it is you think of photography, here’s ten quotes that will make you love photography all the more.

• “For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity.” — Henri Cartier-Bresson
• “People often say that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves.” — Salma Hayek
• “A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.” — Ansel Adams
• “All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.” — Susan Sontag
• “To photograph is to hold one’s breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It’s at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.” — Henri Cartier-Bresson
• “What’s really important is to simplify. The work of most photographers would be improved immensely if they could do one thing: get rid of the extraneous. If you strive for simplicity, you are more likely to reach the viewer.” — William Albert Allard
• “What the Photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the Photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially.” — Roland Barthes
• “Photography is simultaneously and instantaneously the recognition of a fact and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that express and signify that fact.” — Henri Cartier-Bresson
• “Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.” — Aaron Siskind
• “To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” — Elliott Erwitt

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hamed/389212454/