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“Trust me, Wilbur. People are very gullible. They'll believe anything they see in print.”
-- E. B. White
#Believe #People #Trust Me
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“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? 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.”
-- E. B. White
#Life #Heaven #Trying
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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.”
-- E. B. White
#Book #People #Alive
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“Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.”
-- E. B. White
#Beauty #Powerful #Creativity
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“A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. 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.”
-- E. B. White
#Encouragement #Book #People
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“It's hard to know when to respond to the seductiveness of the world and when to respond to its challenge. If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between the desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
-- E. B. White
#Morning #Seductive #Challenges
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“I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all.”
-- E. B. White
#Writing #Admiration #Admire
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“Reading is the work of the alert mind, is demanding, and under ideal conditions produces finally a sort of ecstasy.”
-- E. B. White
#Reading #Mind #Produce
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“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
-- E. B. White
#Life #Morning #Time
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“Creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.”
-- E. B. White
#Distraction #Creation
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“The city is like poetry; it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines.”
-- E. B. White
#Islands #Race #Cities
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“Writing is both mask and unveiling.”
-- E. B. White
#Inspirational #Life #Writing
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“Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.”
-- E. B. White
#Funny #Senior #Witty
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“The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind.”
-- E. B. White
#People #Childhood #Tolerance
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“I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet and viewed it appreciatively instead of skeptically and dictatorially.”
-- E. B. White
#Inspirational #Life #Nature
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“Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.”
-- E. B. White
#Funny #Hilarious #Witty
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“Fern was up at daylight, trying to rid the world of injustice. As a result, she now has a pig. A small one to be sure, but nevertheless a pig. It just shows what can happen if a person gets out of bed promptly.”
-- E. B. White
#Pigs #Trying #Bed
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“A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning.”
-- E. B. White
#Art #Space #Add
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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.”
-- E. B. White
#Poetry #Doe #Veils
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“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.”
-- E. B. White
#Friendship #True Friend
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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.”
-- E. B. White
#Men #Years #Body
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“Once in everyone's life there is apt to be a period when he is fully awake, instead of half-asleep.”
-- E. B. White
#Half #Periods #Awake
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“I have always felt that the first duty of a writer was to ascend - to make flights, carrying others along if you can manage it. To do this takes courage, even a certain conceit.”
-- E. B. White
#Writing #Firsts #Flight
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“The living language is like a cowpath: it is the creation of the cows themselves, who, having created it, follow it or depart from it according to their whims or their needs. From daily use, the path undergoes change. A cow is under no obligation to stay”
-- E. B. White
#Needs #Use #Cows
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“Americans are willing to go to enormous trouble and expense defending their principles with arms, very little trouble and expense advocating them with words. Temperamentally we are ready to die for certain principles (or, in the case of overripe adults, send youngsters to die), but we show little inclination to advertise the reasons for dying.”
-- E. B. White
#Political #Dying #Adults
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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.”
-- E. B. White
#Time #Nature #Fall
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“It sometimes takes days, even weeks, before a dog's nerves tire. In the case of terriers it can run into months.”
-- E. B. White
#Funny #Running #Dog
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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.”
-- E. B. White
#Book #Reading #Men
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“Never hurry and never worry!”
-- E. B. White
#Worry
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“A despot doesn't fear eloquent writers preaching freedom- he fears a drunken poet who may crack a joke that will take hold.”
-- E. B. White
#Cracks #May #Poet
