The so-called science of poll-taking is not a science at all but mere necromancy. People are unpredictable by nature, and although you can take a nation’s pulse, you can’t be sure that the nation hasn’t just run up a flight of stairs.
E. B. WHITEBy helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.
More E. B. White Quotes
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To achieve style, begin by affecting none.
E. B. WHITE -
We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.
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The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear.
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I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. “Never worry about your heart till it stops beating.
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Understanding humor is like dissecting a live frog. It can be done, but the frog tends to die in the process.
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I have one share in corporate Earth, and I am nervous about the management.
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Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.
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I am often mad, but I would hate to be nothing but mad: and I think I would lose what little value I may have as a writer if I were to refuse, as a matter of principle, to accept the warming rays of the sun, and to report them, whenever, and if ever, they
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Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society – things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed.
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Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.
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There is nothing more likely to start disagreement among people or countries than an agreement.
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Nationalism has two fatal charms for its devotees: It presupposes local self-sufficiency, which is a pleasant and desirable condition, and it suggests, very subtly, a certain personal superiority by reason of one’s belonging to a place which is definable and familiar, as against a place that is strange, remote.
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I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.
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Nauseous. Nauseated. The first means “sickening to contemplate”; the second means “sick at the stomach.” Do not, therefore, say “I feel nauseous,” unless you are sure you have that effect on others.
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Never hurry and never worry!
E. B. WHITE