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Although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one.

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
Merit
Although
Comes
Writing
Substitute
Substitutes
Closest
Clarity

More quotes by E. B. White

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Never hurry and never worry!
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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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Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
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Life is always rich and steady time when you are waiting for something to happen or to hatch.
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English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education - sometimes it's sheer luck, like getting across the street.
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A writer should tend to lift people up, not lower them down.
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I am always humbled by the infite ingenuity of the Lord, who can make a red barn cast a blue shadow.
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A good many of the special words of business seem designed more to express the user's dreams than to express a precise meaning.
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Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.
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By comparison with other less hectic days, the city is unconfortable and inconvenient but New Yorkers tempramentally do not crave comfort and convenience - if they did they would live elsewhere.
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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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In middle life, the human back is spoiling for a technical knockout and will use the flimsiest excuse, even a sneeze, to fall apart.
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A writer is like a bean plant - he has his little day, and then gets stringy.
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Einstein is loved because he is gentle, respected because he is wise. Relativity being not for most of us, we elevate its author to a position somewhere between Edison, who gave us a tangible gleam, and God, who gave us the difficult dark and the hope of penetrating it.
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I am still encouraged to go on. I wouldn't know where else to go.
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The rat had no morals, no conscience, no scruples, no consideration, no decency, no milk of rodent kindness, no compunctions, no higher feeling, no friendliness, no anything
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Democracy is itself, a religious faith. For some it comes close to being the only formal religion they have.
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I discovered, though, that once having given a pig an enema there is no turning back, no chance of resuming one of life's more stereotyped roles.
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Only a person who is congenially self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays
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Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.
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