The United States, almost alone today, offers the liberties and the privileges and the tools of freedom. In this land the citizens are still invited to write their plays and books, to paint their pictures, to meet for discussion, to dissent as well as to agree, to mount soapboxes in the public square, to enjoy education in all subjects without censorship, to hold court and judge one another, to compose music, to talk politics with their neighbors without wondering whether the secret police are listening, to exchange ideas as well as goods, to kid the government when it needs kidding, and to read real news of real events instead of phony news manufactured by a paid agent of the state. This is a fact and should give every person pause.

The United States, almost alone today, offers the liberties and the privileges and the tools of freedom. In this land the citizens are still invited to write their plays and books, to paint their pictures, to meet for discussion, to dissent as well as to agree, to mount soapboxes in the public square, to enjoy education in all subjects without censorship, to hold court and judge one another, to compose music, to talk politics with their neighbors without wondering whether the secret police are listening, to exchange ideas as well as goods, to kid the government when it needs kidding, and to read real news of real events instead of phony news manufactured by a paid agent of the state. This is a fact and should give every person pause.

E.B. White
Save QuoteView Quote
Similar Quotes by eb-white

The sea answers all questions, and always in the same way; for when you read in the papers the interminable discussions and the bickering and the prognostications and the turmoil, the disagreements and the fateful decisions and agreements and the plans and the programs and the threats and the counter threats, then you close your eyes and the sea dispatches one more big roller in the unbroken line since the beginning of the world and it combs and breaks and returns foaming and saying: "So soon?" E. B. White "On A Florida Key

E.B. White
Save QuoteView Quote

To confront death, in any guise, is to identify with the victim and face what is unsettling and sobering

E.B. White
Save QuoteView Quote

At this season of the year, darkness is a more insistent thing than cold. The days are short as any dream.

E.B. White, Essays of E.B. White
Save QuoteView Quote

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, Letters of E. B. White
Save QuoteView Quote

The critic leaves at curtain fall To find, in starting to review it, He scarcely saw the play at all For starting to review it.

E.B. White
Save QuoteView Quote

New York is the concentrate of art and commerce and sport and religion and entertainment and finance, bringing to a single compact arena the gladiator, the evangelist, the promoter, the actor, the trader and the merchant. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.

E.B. White
Save QuoteView Quote

Early summer days are a jubilee time for birds. In the fields, around the house, in the barn, in the woods, in the swamp - everywhere love and songs and nests and eggs.

E.B. White
Save QuoteView Quote

New York is to the nation what the white church spire is to the village - the visible symbol of aspiration and faith, the white plume saying the way is up

E.B. White
Save QuoteView Quote

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
Save QuoteView Quote

new york provides not only a continuing excitation but also a spectacle that is continuing.

E.B. White
Save QuoteView Quote