E. B. White Quotes

If you sit on the doorstep long enough, I daresay you will think of something

I think when we don't know what to do it's wise to do nothing. Sit down quietly; quiet our hearts and minds and breathe deeply.

Now the mountains were getting that pink tinge, I mean the rocks, they were just solid rock covered with the atoms of dust accumulated there since beginningless time. In fact I was afraid of those jagged monstrosities all around and over our heads. "They're so silent!" I said. "Yeah man, you know to me a mountain is a Buddha. Think of the patience, hundreds of thousands of years just sitting there bein perfectly perfectly silent and like praying for all living creatures in that silence and just waitin for us to stop all our frettin and foolin.

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope, For hope would be hope for the wrong thing.

The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea.

Never be afraid to sit a while and think.

I want to live quietly.

As before, there is a great silence, with no end in sight. The writer surrenders, listening.

Truth walks toward us on the paths of our questions. As soon as you think you have the answer, you have closed the path and may miss the vital new information. Wait awhile in the stillness, and do not rush to conclusions, no matter how uncomfortable the unknowing.

Real worship involves waiting.

Wait, and thy soul shall speak.

We switch to another language-- not our invented language or the language we've learned from our lives. As we walk further up the mountain, we speak the language of silence. This language gives us time to think and move. We can be here and elsewhere at the same time.

A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.

Fishing provides time to think, and reason not to. If you have the virtue of patience, an hour or two of casting alone is plenty of time to review all you’ve learned about the grand themes of life.

And the lesson was this; sit in the sun, head down, within a prickly vine, in a flickery light, or open light, and the world will come to you. The sky will come in its time, bringing rain, and the earth will rise through you, from beneath, and make you rich and make you full.

As my prayer became more attentive and inward, I had less and less to say. I finally became completely silent... This is how it is. To pray does not mean to listen to oneself speaking. Prayer involves becoming silent, and being silent, and waiting until God is heard.

Meditation is waiting on God.

The most potent and sacred command which can be laid upon any artist is the command: wait.

Solitude is the audience-chamber of God.

Meditation is the key to open the door, the door of absolute contentment. Mind is always discontented., hence meditation means creating a state of no-mind. That space is always contented.

I would like to spend the rest of my days in a place so silent–and working at a pace so slow–that I would be able to hear myself living.

You ask me, How much time? I do not know. I know it means time enough to forget time.

I'm so much more famous than I am financially successful. I mean, I live in a three-room apartment. I mostly make free videos on my couch. But I am fine.