E. B. White (1899-1985)

Quotes

• 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 a desire to improve the world, and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

• Loneliness is a strange gift.

• People are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being thought unjust.

• The only sense that is common in the long run, is the sense of change-and we all instinctively avoid it.

• Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.

• 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.

• 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.

• I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.

• The time not to become a father is eighteen years before a war.

• Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.