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Democracy is itself, a religious faith. For some it comes close to being the only formal religion they have.

E. B. White

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E. B. White
Age: 86 †
Born: 1899
Born: July 11
Died: 1985
Died: October 1
Editor
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Screenwriter
Writer
Mount Vernon
New York
Elwyn Brooks White
E.B. White
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Democracy
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Religion
Faith
Comes

More quotes by E. B. White

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We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.
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In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty. Only under a dictatorship is literature expected to exhibit an harmonious design or an inspirational tone.
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I have one share in corporate Earth, and I am nervous about the management.
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Use the smallest word that does the job.
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Creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.
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A candidate could easily commit political suicide if he were to come up with an unconventional thought during a presidential tour.
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We grow tyrannical fighting tyranny. . . . The most alarming spectacle today is not the spectacle of the atomic bomb in an unfederated world, it is the spectacle of the Americans beginning to accept the device of loyalty oaths and witch hunts, beginning to call anybody they don't like a Communist.
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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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New York is part of the natural world. I love the city, I love the country, and for the same reasons. The city is part of the country. When I had an apartment on East Forty-Eighth Street, my backyard during the migratory season yielded more birds than I ever saw in Maine.
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Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.
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Most people think of peace as a state of Nothing Bad Happening, or Nothing Much Happening. Yet if peace is to overtake us and make us the gift of serenity and well-being, it will have to be the state of Something Good Happening.
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A poet dares to be just so clear and no clearer he approaches lucid ground warily, like a mariner who is determined not to scrape his bottom on anything solid. A poet's pleasure is to withhold a little of his meaning, to intensify by mystification. He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.
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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.
E. B. White
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Writing is both mask and unveiling.
E. B. White
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A right is a responsibility in reverse.
E. B. White
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Although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one.
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New York blends the gift of privacy with the excitement of participation and better than most dense communities it succeeds in insulating the individual (if he wants it, and almost everybody wants or needs it) against all enormous and violent and wonderful events that are taking place every minute.
E. B. White
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It isn't silence you can cut with a knife any more, it's interchange of ideas. Intelligent discussion of practically everything is what is breaking up modern marriage.
E. B. White
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Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
E. B. White
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Television should be our Lyceum, our Chautauqua, our Minsky's and our Camelot.
E. B. White