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
About This Quote

The poet, John Keats, wrote in his Ode to a Nightingale that he considered the nightingale to be the perfect example of the human-bird connection. He believed that humans and birds have much in common. Some of us may have experienced this connection for ourselves. We may have seen a bird flying through our house or seen a bird sitting on our shoulder. Birds are so often associated with our feelings that when Keats says that he would feel more optimistic about man’s future if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness, he is alluding to just how special birds are.

Source: Letters Of E. B. White

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  1. 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...
  2. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die.
  3. Trust me, Wilbur. People are very gullible. They'll believe anything they see in print.
  4. This is what youth must figure out: Girls, love, and living. The having, the not having, The spending and giving, And the meloncholy time of not knowing. This is what age must learn about: The ABC of dying. The going, yet not going, The loving...
  5. Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do, In spider’s web a truth discerning, Attach one silken strand to you For my returning.
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