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Wendell Berry Quotes - Page 4

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

I go among trees and sit still. All my stirring becomes quiet around me like circles on water.

I go among trees and sit still. All my stirring becomes quiet around me like circles on water.

Circles, Water, Tree

Wendell Berry (2013). “This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems”, p.7, Counterpoint

There are some things the arrogant mind does not see; it is blinded by its vision of what it desires.

Mind, Vision, Desire

Wendell Berry (2011). “Standing by Words”, p.71, Counterpoint Press

The Christian gospel is a summons to peace, calling for justice beyond anger, mercy beyond justice, forgiveness beyond mercy, love beyond forgiveness.

Christian, Justice, Calling

Wendell Berry (2004). “Citizenship Papers: Essays”, p.25, Counterpoint Press

What I stand for is what I stand on.

Wendell Berry (2012). “New Collected Poems”, p.240, Counterpoint Press

Unless you absolutely have got to do it, don’t buy anything new.

Wendell Berry, Wesley Bates (2016). “Roots to the Earth: Poems and a Story”, p.29, Counterpoint

The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet. People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and know that the garden is healthy will remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of morning when gardens are at their best. Such a memory involves itself with the food and is one of the pleasures of eating. (pg. 326, The Pleasures of Eating)

Morning, Memories, Garden

Wendell Berry (2010). “What Are People For?: Essays”, p.151, Counterpoint Press

Can we actually suppose that we are wasting, polluting, and making ugly this beautiful land for the sake of patriotism and the love of God? Perhaps some of us would like to think so, but in fact this destruction is taking place because we have allowed ourselves to believe, and to live, a mated pair of economic lies: that nothing has a value that is not assigned to it by the market; and that the economic life of our communities can safely be handed over to the great corporations.

Beautiful, Lying, Believe

Wendell Berry, Daniel Kemmis, Courtney White (2006). “The Way of Ignorance: And Other Essays”, p.23, Counterpoint Press

It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.

Inspirational, Life, Wisdom

Wendell Berry (2011). “Standing by Words”, p.97, Counterpoint Press

A corporation, essentially, is a pile of money to which a number of persons have sold their moral allegiance.

Numbers, Corporations, Moral

Wendell Berry (2010). “What Matters?: Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth”, p.185, Counterpoint Press

If you start a conversation with the assumption that you are right or that you must win, obviously it is difficult to talk.

Winning, Assumption, Resolution

They learned to have a very high opinion of God and a very low opinion of His works—although they could tell you that this world had been made by God Himself. What they didn’t see was that it is beautiful, and that some of the greatest beauties are the briefest.

Beautiful, World, Opinion

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

Living without expectations is hard but, when you can do it, good. Living without hope is harder, and that is bad. You have got to have hope, and you must'nt shirk it. Love, after all, hopeth all things. But maybe you must learn, and it is hard learning, not to hope out loud, especially for other people. You must not let your hope turn into expectation.

People, Expectations, Loud

If the devil doesn't exist... how do you explain that some people are a lot worse than they're smart enough to be?

Smart, People, Devil

The aim of industrialization has always been to replace people with machines or other technology, to make the cost of production as low as possible, to sell the product as high as possible, and to move the wealth into fewer and fewer hands.

Moving, Technology, Hands

"Nature as an Ally: An Interview with Wendell Berry". Interview with Sarah Leonard, www.dissentmagazine.org. Spring 2012.

The world is not given by our fathers but borrowed from our children.

Children, Father, World

"Biography/ Personal Quote". www.imdb.com.

The law is meant to work for justice. But people who know themselves know that, at some point, justice had better be mitigated by mercy. And you don't get to mercy by a legal principle. You get to mercy by way of imagination, sympathy, tenderness of heart - which are not weaknesses.

Heart, Law, People

Source: www.neh.gov

I dislike the thought that some animal has been made miserable to feed me. If I am going to eat meat, I want it to be from an animal that has lived a pleasant, uncrowded life outdoors, on bountiful pasture, with good water nearby and trees for shade.

Animal, Water, Tree

Wendell Berry (2003). “The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry”, p.326, Counterpoint

History leaves no doubt that among of the most regrettable crimes committed by human beings have been committed by those human beings who thought of themselves as civilized. What, we must ask, does our civilization possess that is worth defending? One thing worth defending, I suggest, is the imperative to imagine the lives of beings who are not ourselves and are not like ourselves: animals, plants, gods, spirits, people of other countries, other races, people of the other sex, places and enemies.

Country, Sex, Animal

But the only possible guarantee of the future is responsible behavior in the present.

Future, Environmental, Guarantees

Wendell Berry (2015). “The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture”, p.51, Counterpoint

Nobody can discover the world for somebody else. Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground and a common bond and we cease to be alone.

Inspirational, Courage, Travel

Eating is an agricultural act. Eating ends the annual drama of the food economy that begins with planting and birth. Most eaters, however, are no longer aware that this is true. They think of food as an agricultural product, perhaps, but they do not think of themselves as participants in agriculture. They think of themselves as 'consumers.'

Drama, Thinking, Agriculture

Wendell Berry (2010). “What Are People For?: Essays”, p.145, Counterpoint Press

There’s nothing under the ground that’s worth more than the little layer of topsoil sitting on top of it.

Sitting, Littles, Layers

"The Mad Farmer Lives! A Night With Wendell Berry" by Rhea St. Julien, thirtythreadbaremercies.com. October 30, 2012.

Again I resume the long lesson: how small a thing can be pleasing, how little in this hard world it takes to satisfy the mind and bring it to its rest.

Long, Mind, World

Wendell Berry (2013). “This Day: New and Collected Sabbath Poems 1979 - 2012”, p.201, Counterpoint

Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.

Food, Cooking, Red Lipstick

Wendell Berry (2011). “Farming: A Hand Book”, p.49, Counterpoint Press

We do need a 'new economy,' but one that is founded on thrift and care, on saving and conserving, not on excess and waste. An economy based on waste is inherently and hopelessly violent, and war is its inevitable by-product. We need a peaceable economy.

Nature, War, Simplicity

Wendell Berry (2001). “In the Presence of Fear: Three Essays for a Changed World”

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