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Wendell Berry Quotes about Heart

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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.

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.

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

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.

Wendell Berry
Heart, Law, People
Source: www.neh.gov

Protest that endures, I think, is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one's own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence.

Wendell Berry
Freedom, Heart, Thinking
Wendell Berry (2010). “What Are People For?: Essays”, p.62, Counterpoint Press

To be sane in a mad time is bad for the brain, worse for the heart.

Wendell Berry
Heart, Mad, Brain
Wendell Berry, Morris Allen Grubbs (2007). “Conversations with Wendell Berry”, p.16, Univ. Press of Mississippi

It is a horrible fact that we can read in the daily paper, without interrupting our breakfast, numerical reckonings of death and destruction that ought to break our hearts or scare us out of our wits.

Wendell Berry
Heart, Scare, Paper
Wendell Berry (2012). “It All Turns on Affection: The Jefferson Lecture and Other Essays”, p.28, Counterpoint

...And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here.

Wendell Berry
Heart, Eye, Heaven
Wendell Berry (2012). “New Collected Poems”, p.180, Counterpoint Press

THE WILD ROSE” – BY WENDELL BERRY Sometimes, hidden from me in daily custom and in ritual I live by you unaware, as if by the beating of my heart. Suddenly you flare again in my sight A wild rose at the edge of the thicket where yesterday there was only shade And I am blessed and choose again, That which I chose before.

Wendell Berry
Blessed, Heart, Wild Roses

Geese appear high over us, / pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, / as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear / in the ancient faith: what we need / is here. And we pray, not / for new earth or heaven, but to be / quiet in heart, and in eye, / clear. What we need is here.

Wendell Berry
Sleep, Eye, Heart
Wendell Berry (2012). “New Collected Poems”, p.180, Counterpoint Press

A change of heart or of values without a practice is only another pointless luxury of a passively consumptive way of life.

Wendell Berry
Heart, Practice, Luxury
Wendell Berry (2003). “The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry”, p.250, Counterpoint

To hear of a thousand deaths in war is terrible, and we 'know' that it is. But as it registers on our hearts, it is not more terrible than one death fully imagined.

Wendell Berry
War, Heart, Terrible
Wendell Berry (2012). “It All Turns on Affection: The Jefferson Lecture and Other Essays”, p.28, Counterpoint

Sometimes I knew in all my mind and heart why I had done what I had done, and I welcomed the sacrifice. But there were times too when I lived in a desert and felt no joy and saw no hope and could not remember my old feelings. Then I lived by faith alone, faith without hope. What good did I get from it? I got to have love in my heart.

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

Prayer is like lying awake at night, afraid, with your head under the cover, hearing only the beating of your own heart. It is like a bird that has blundered down the flue and is caught indoors and flutters at the windowpanes. It is like standing a long time on a cold day, knocking at a shut door.

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

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