Television will enormously enlarge the eye’s range, and, like radio, will advertise the Elsewhere. Together with the tabs, the mags, and the movies, it will insist that we forget the primary and the near in favor of the secondary and the remote.
E. B. WHITEI 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.
More E. B. White Quotes
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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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In a man’s middle years there is scarcely a part of the body he would hesitate to turn over to the proper authorities.
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Use the smallest word that does the job.
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Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people– people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.
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I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a Ferris wheel.
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Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had. And when you are reading a book, you and the author are alone together-just the two of you.
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A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer… He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.
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You can dissect a joke just as you can a frog. But it tends to die on you.
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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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There is hardly a waiting room in the east that has not served as my cockpit, whether I was waiting to board a train or to see a dentist. And I am usually still trimming sheets when the train starts or drill begins to whine.
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It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck.
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Semi-colons only prove that the author has been to college.
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Every morning I awake torn between a desire to save the world and an inclination to savor it. This makes it hard to plan the day. But if we forget to savor the world, what possible reason do we have for saving it? In a way, the savoring must come first.
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Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.
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Trust me, Wilbur. People are very gullible. They’ll believe anything they see in print.
E. B. WHITE