Democracy is a request from a War Board, in the middle of a morning in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is.
E. B. WhiteWhen a man hangs from a tree it doesn't spell justice unless he helped write the law that hanged him.
E. B. WhiteIs there anything in the universe more beautiful and protective than the simple complexity of a spider's web?
E. B. WhiteLiberty is never out of bounds or off limits; it spreads wherever it can capture the imagination of men.
E. B. WhiteThe essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest. He is a fellow who thoroughly enjoys his work, just as people who enjoy bird walks enjoys theirs. Each new excursion of the essayist, each new 'attempt,' differs from the last and takes him into new country. This delights him. Only a person who is congenitally self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays.
E. B. WhiteAmericans 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