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Wendell Berry Quotes about Children

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When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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

I am speaking of the life of a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children; who has undertaken to cherish it and do it no damage, not because he is duty-bound, but because he loves the world and loves his children...

Wendell Berry
Nature, Children, Father
"The Unforeseen Wilderness : An Essay on Kentucky's Red River Gorge". Book by Wendell Berry, 1971.

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

Wendell Berry
Children, Father, World
"Biography/ Personal Quote". www.imdb.com.

We do not need to plan or devise a "world of the future"; if we take care of the world of the present, the future will have received full justice from us. A good future is implicit in the soils, forests, grasslands, marshes, deserts, mountains, rivers, lakes, and oceans that we have now, and in the good things of human culture that we have now; the only valid "futurology" available to us is to take care of those things. We have no need to contrive and dabble at "the future of the human race"; we have the same pressing need that we have always had - to love, care for, and teach our children.

Wendell Berry
Children, Ocean, Lakes
Wendell Berry (2010). “What Are People For?: Essays”, p.188, Counterpoint Press

Our Children no longer learn how to read the great book of Nature from their own direct experience, or how to interact creatively with the seasonal transformations of the planet. They seldom learn where their water come from or where it goes. We no longer coordinate our human celebration with the great liturgy of the heavens.

Wendell Berry
Nature, Children, Book

The Captains of Industry have always counseled the rest of us "to be realistic." Let us, therefore, be realistic. Is it realistic to assume that the present economy would be just fine if only it would stop poisoning the air and water, or if only it would stop soil erosion, or if only it would stop degrading watersheds and forest ecosystems, or if only it would stop seducing children, or if only it would stop buying politicians, or if only it would give women and favored minorities an equitable share of the loot?

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

Want of imagination makes things unreal enough to be destroyed. By imagination I mean knowledge and love. I mean compassion. People of power kill children, the old send the young to die, because they have no imagination. They have power. Can you have power and imagination at the same time? Can you kill people you don’t know and have compassion for them at the same time?

Wendell Berry
Children, Mean, Compassion
Wendell Berry (2005). “Hannah Coulter: A Novel”, p.168, Counterpoint Press

The world is so full and abundant it is like a pregnant woman carrying a child in one arm and leading another by the hand. Every puddle in the lane is ringed with sipping butterflied that fly up in flutter when you walk past in the late morning on your way to get the mail.

Wendell Berry
Morning, Children, Past

You're making the grant of affection, forbearance, mercy, out of your own experience and, of course, out of cultural tradition. You're saying, to use the well-worn analogy, if I love my children, that puts me under obligation to assume that other people love theirs.

Wendell Berry
Children, People, Analogies
Source: www.neh.gov

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