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Wendell Berry Quotes - Page 3

All Quotes Abuse Affection Age Ambition Art Assumption Character Children Choices Christianity Commitment Community Country Culture Darkness Desire Doubt Drinking Eating Economy Energy Environment Expectations Failing Farming Feelings Food Freedom Generosity Genius Giving Giving Up Grace Greed Grief Growth Hatred Healing Heart Heaven Home House Humility Hurt Ignorance Imagination Inspirational Inspiring Jesus Journey Joy Justice Language Life Loneliness Lying Memories Military Morning Mountain Nature Past Pleasure Poverty Prayer Quality Rain Reading Responsibility Running Sacrifice Silence Simplicity Sin Soul Suffering Survival Sustainability Taxes Technology Understanding Violence Vision Waiting War Water Weakness Work Writing

For the true measure of agriculture is not the sophistication of its equipment the size of its income or even the statistics of its productivity but the good health of the land.

For the true measure of agriculture is not the sophistication of its equipment the size of its income or even the statistics of its productivity but the good health of the land.

Land, Agriculture, Income

Wendell Berry (2015). “The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture”, p.144, Counterpoint

As I have read the Gospels over the years, the belief has grown in me that Christ did not come to found an organized religion but came instead to found an unorganized one. He seems to have come to carry religion out of the temples into the fields and sheep pastures, onto the roadsides and the banks of the rivers, into the houses of sinners and publicans, into the town and the wilderness, toward the membership of all that is here. Well, you can read and see what you think.

Thinking, Sheep, Years

Wendell Berry (2000). “Jayber Crow: A Novel”, Counterpoint LLC

Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating.

Independent, Garden, Thinking

The past is our definition. We may strive with good reason to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it. But we will escape it only by adding something better to it.

Inspirational, Wise, Memories

Wendell Berry (2011). “Standing by Words”, p.14, Counterpoint Press

Good farmers, who take seriously their duties as stewards of Creation and of their land's inheritors, contribute to the welfare of society in more ways than society usually acknowledges, or even knows. These farmers produce valuable goods, of course; but they also conserve soil, they conserve water, they conserve wildlife, they conserve open space, they conserve scenery.

Land, Space, Water

Wendell Berry (2010). “Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food (Large Print 16pt)”, p.93, ReadHowYouWant.com

The great enemy of freedom is the alignment of political power with wealth. This alignment destroys the commonwealth - that is, the natural wealth of localities and the local economies of household, neighborhood, and community - and so destroys democracy, of which the commonwealth is the foundation and practical means.

Mean, Community, Political

Wendell Berry (2003). “The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry”, p.58, Counterpoint

The grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming, whose hands reach into the ground and sprout, to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.

Lying, Men, Garden

Wendell Berry (2011). “Farming: A Hand Book”, p.15, Counterpoint Press

It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are.

True solitude is found in the wild places, where one is without human obligation. One's inner voices become audible... In consequence, one responds more clearly to other lives.

Wild Places, Voice, Solitude

Wendell Berry (2010). “What Are People For?: Essays”, p.11, Counterpoint

I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love.

Life, Believe, Redemption

Wendell Berry (2003). “The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry”, p.146, Counterpoint

There are moments when the heart is generous, and then it knows that for better or worse our lives are woven together here, one with one another and with the place and all the living things.

Heart, Together, Woven

Wendell Berry (2000). “Jayber Crow: A Novel”, Counterpoint LLC

To be interested in food but not in food production is clearly absurd.

Absurd, Food Production, Productions

Wendell Berry (2010). “Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food (Large Print 16pt)”, p.10, ReadHowYouWant.com

Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.

Law, Justice, Competition

Wendell Berry (2003). “The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry”, p.212, Counterpoint

For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Grace, World, Still Waters

Wendell Berry (2012). “New Collected Poems”, p.79, Counterpoint Press

New grief, when it came, you could feel filling the air. It took up all the room there was. The place itself, the whole place, became a reminder of the absence of the hurt or the dead or the missing one. I don't believe that grief passes away. It has its time and place forever. More time is added to it; it becomes a story within a story. But grief and griever alike endure.

Hurt, Grief, Believe

Wendell Berry (2000). “Jayber Crow: A Novel”, Counterpoint LLC

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings, and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

Dark, Light, Sight

Wendell Berry (2012). “New Collected Poems”, p.121, Counterpoint Press

I would like you to show me, if you can, where the line can be drawn between an organism and it's environment. The environment is in you. It's passing through you. You're breathing it in and out. You and every other creature.

Breathing, Lines, Environment

You mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this: “Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks.” I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.

Giving, Wish, Way

There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.

Sacred, Sacred Places, Gathering Places

Wendell Berry (2006). “Given: Poems”, p.18, Counterpoint Press

People are always talking about the first church. The real first church was that gaggle of people who followed Jesus around. We don't know anything about them. But he apparently didn't ask them what creed they subscribed to, or what their sexual preference was, or any of that. He fed them. He healed them. He forgave them. He is clear about sin, but he was also for forgiveness.

Jesus, Real, Talking

The most alarming sign of the state of our society now is that our leaders have the courage to sacrifice the lives of young people in war but have not the courage to tell us that we must be less greedy and wasteful.

War, Sacrifice, People

Wendell Berry (1993). “Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays”, Pantheon

When going back makes sense, you are going ahead.

Make Sense

It is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.

People, Wish, Division

Wendell Berry (2001). “Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition”, Counterpoint Press

Don't own so much clutter that you will be relieved to see your house catch fire.

Fire, House, Relieved

Wendell Berry (2012). “New Collected Poems”, p.148, Counterpoint Press

So, friends, every day do something that won't compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it. Denounce the government and embrace the flag. Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands.

Government, Simplicity, Doe

Wendell Berry (2013). “A Country of Marriage: Poems”, p.16, Counterpoint Press

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