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Thomas Berry

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Famous Thomas Berry Quotes

“We might summarize our present human situation by the simple statement: that in the 20th century, the glory of the human has become the desolation of the Earth and now the desolation of the Earth is becoming the destiny of the human. From here on, the primary judgment of all human institutions, professions, programs and activities will be determined by the extent to which they inhibit, ignore, or foster a mutually-enhancing human/Earth relationship.”

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Author:Thomas Berry
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“It's not possible to save the world by trying to save it. You need to find what is genuinely yours to offer the world before you can make it a better place. Discovering your unique gift to bring to your community is your greatest opportunity and challenge. The offering of that gift — your true self — is the most you can do to love and serve the world. And it is all the world needs.”

SoulcraftBill Plotkin
Book:Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche
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“We come here because we too feel a responsibility for the human community. To preserve and develop a human quality of life is the common responsibility of us all. It is not fitting that those concerned with the various aspects of the human be alienated from each other. Both you and ourselves represent forces too profound and aim at objectives too significant for either of us to succeed completely without the assistance of the other. The urgency of our work impels us to get on with our common task lest a new period of disaster erupt over the Earth.”

FeelsHumansEarthLife IsForceCommunityCommonQualityResponsibilityPeriodsSucceedConcernedAspectTasksAimProfoundVariousDisasterSignificantObjectivesPreservesAssistanceQuality Of LifeFittingUrgencyHuman QualitiesNot Fitting
Author:Thomas Berry
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“The human venture depends absolutely on this quality of awe and reverence and joy in the Earth and all that lives and grows upon the Earth. As soon as we isolate ourselves from these currents of life and from the profound mood that these engender within us, then our basic life-satisfactions are diminished. None of our machine-made products, none of our computer-based achievements can evoke that total commitment to life.”

HumansMadeEarthJoyGrowsQualityGrowing UpProductsDependsAchievementComputerCommitmentMachinesProfoundCurrentsSatisfactionMoodAweReverenceVentureEvoke
Book:The Great Work: Our Way into the Future
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“In relation to the earth we have been autistic for centuries. Only now have we begun to listen with some attention and with a willingness to respond to the earth's demands that we cease our industrial assault, that we abandon our inner rage against the conditions of our earthly existence, that we renew our human participation in the grand liturgy of the universe.”

HumansHas BeensEarthUniverseExistenceAttentionConditionsCenturyDemandRelationEnvironmentalRageCeaseAbandonWillingnessParticipationAssaultAutisticLiturgy
Book:Creative Energy: Bearing Witness for the Earth
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“During this period (of technological confinement / [and language]) the human mind has been placed in its narrowest confines it has experienced since consciousness emerged from its Paleolithic phase. Even the most primitive tribes have a larger vision of the universe, of our place and functioning within it, a vision that extends to celestial regions of space and to interior depths of the human in a manner far exceeding the parameters of our world of technological confinement.”

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Author:Thomas Berry
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“So long as we are under the illusion that we know best what is good for the earth and for ourselves, then we will continue our present course, with its devastating consequences on the entire Earth community... We need only listen to what the Earth is telling us... the time has come when we will listen, or we will die.”

KnowsNeedsLongEarthDiesCoursesCommunityIllusionConsequenceEnvironmentalSustainabilityEarth Community
Book:Creative Energy: Bearing Witness for the Earth
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“We can break the mountains apart; we can drain the rivers and flood the valleys. We can turn the most luxuriant forests into throw-away paper products. We can tear apart the great grass cover of the western plains and pour toxic chemicals into the soil and pesticides onto the fields until the soil is dead and blows away in the wind. We can pollute the air with acids, the rivers with sewage, the seas with oil - all this in a kind of intoxication with our power for devastation at an order of magnitude beyond all reckoning.”

KindOrderTurnsBreakAirSeaFieldsTearsWindProductsMountainPaperRiversEnvironmentalWesternBlowOilForestsGrassSoilChemicalsValleysToxicPollutionFloodAcidDrainsMagnitudeIntoxicationReckoningDevastationPesticidesSewageToxic Chemicals
Author:Thomas Berry
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“To attain peace among the nations in any dynamic or enduring form requires not simply political negotiation but a new mode of consciousness. The magnitude of this change is in the order of religious conversion or of spiritual rebirth rather than of treaty processes or even of inter-cultural understanding. Simply to recognize the basic nature and dimension of the issues we face is already an advance.”

FacesSpiritualFormPoliticalOrderNationsPeaceProcessUnderstandingReligiousConsciousnessIssuesEndureConversionDimensionsNegotiationRebirthTreatiesMagnitude
Author:Thomas Berry
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“But if a peaceful world is beyond politics it is also beyond religions as these presently exist. A change is needed in every phase of human life. This lies mainly in recognition that the micro phase, the particular or national traditions, must find their context and fulfillment in the macro phase, the global or panhuman phase of human existence.”

IfsWorldHumansLyingPeaceExistenceParticularNeededTraditionPeacefulRecognitionHuman LifeFulfillmentPhasesHuman ExistencePeaceful WorldMacro
Book:Evening Thoughts: Reflecting on Earth as Sacred Community
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“The future rests in the religious, political, economic and cultural capacity of humans to establish this larger context in which the particular traditions will find both support and fulfillment in a functional global community.”

HumansPoliticalPeaceCommunityReligiousSupportEconomicParticularCapacityTraditionFulfillmentGlobal Community
Book:Evening Thoughts: Reflecting on Earth as Sacred Community
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“What is clear is that the earth is mandating that the human community assume a responsibility never assigned to any previous generation...Our task at this critical moment is to awaken the energies needed to create the new world and to evoke a universal communion of all parts of life.”

WorldHumansMomentsEarthEnergyCommunityResponsibilityClearGenerationsNeededTasksUniversalAssumingCriticalNew WorldCommunionEvokeParts Of LifePrevious GenerationsCritical Moments
Author:Thomas Berry
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“Of one thing we can be sure: our own future is inseparable from the larger community that brought us into being and which sustains us in every expression of our human quality of life, in our aesthetic and emotional sensitivities, our intellectual perceptions, our sense of the divine, as well as in our physical nourishment and bodily healing.”

HumansWellsCommunityHealingQualityOne ThingEmotionalDivineExpressionPerceptionIntellectualAestheticSensitivityQuality Of LifeNourishmentInseparableHuman Qualities
Book:The Great Work: Our Way into the Future
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“The world of life, of spontaneity, the world of dawn and sunset and starlight, the world of soil and sunshine, of meadow and woodland, of hickory and oak and maple and hemlock and pineland forests, of wildlife dwelling around us, of the river and its wellbeing--all of this [is] the integral community in which we live.”

WorldNatureCommunityAnimalRiversForestsDawnSoilSunsetSunshineDwellingSpontaneityWildlifeWellbeingOaksMeadowsStarlightMapleWoodlandHemlock
Author:Thomas Berry
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“What is happening now is of a geological and biological order of magnitude. We are upsetting the entire earth system that, over some billions of years and through an endless sequence of groping, of trials and errors, has produced such a magnificent array of living forms, forms capable of seasonal self-renewal over vast periods of time.”

YearsSelfEarthFormOrderNatureAnimalPeriodsCapableHappeningsErrorsBillionsTrialsEndlessUpsetMagnificentSequenceRenewalMagnitudeTrial And Error
Author:Thomas Berry
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“Every being has its own interior, its self, its mystery, its numinous aspect. To deprive any being of this sacred quality is to disrupt the total order of the universe. Reverence will be total or it will not be at all. The universe does not come to us in pieces any more than a human individual stands before us with some part of his/her being.”

HumansDoeSelfOrderUniverseIndividualQualityPiecesMysteryCreationIntegrityAspectSacredReverenceInteriorsNuminous
Author:Thomas Berry
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“The universe must be experienced as the Great Self. Each is fulfilled in the other: the Great Self is fulfilled in the individual self, the individual self is fulfilled in the Great Self. Alienation is overcome as soon as we experience this surge of energy from the source that has brought the universe through the centuries. New fields of energy become available to support the human venture. These new energies find expression and support in celebration. For in the end the universe can only be explained in terms of celebration. It is all an exuberant expression of existence itself.”

HumansEndsSelfTimeUniverseIndividualEnergyTermExistenceSupportCenturyFieldsExpressionSourceExperienceOvercomingAvailableCelebrationFulfilledVentureAlienationNew Energy
Author:Thomas Berry
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“We find ourselves ethically destitute just when, for the first time, we are faced with ultimacy, the irreversible closing down of the earth's functioning in its major life systems. Our ethical traditions know how to deal with suicide, homicide and even genocide, but these traditions collapse entirely when confronted with biocide, the killing of the life systems of the earth, and geocide, the devastation of the earth itself.”

KnowsFirstsEarthDealsKnow HowMajorsFirst TimeTraditionSuicideEnvironmentalKillingEthicalGenocideCollapseClosingBiodiversityDevastationHomicideDestituteIrreversibleClosing Down
Book:The Great Work: Our Way into the Future
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“If the outer world is diminished in its grandeur, then the emotional, imaginative, intellectual, and spiritual life of the human is diminished or extinguished. Without the soaring birds, the great forests, the sounds and coloration of the insects, the free-flowing streams, the flowering fields, the sight of clouds by day and the stars at night, we become impoverished in all that makes us human.”

IfsWorldHumansSpiritualNightStarsSoundEnvironmentFieldsEmotionalIntellectualBirdSightCloudsForestsStreamsSpiritual LifeSoarInsectsImaginativeGrandeurFloweringOuter Worlds
Book:The Great Work: Our Way into the Future
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“Both education and religion need to ground themselves within the story of the universe as we now understand this story through empirical knowledge. Within this functional cosmology, we can overcome our alienation and begin the renewal of life on a sustainable basis. This story is a numinous revelatory story that could evoke the vision and the energy required to bring not only ourselves but the entire planet into a new order of magnificence.”

LifeNeedsStoriesReligionOrderUniverseEnergyVisionPlanetsOvercomingBasesRenewalAlienationEvokeCosmologyMagnificenceNuminousRenewal Of Life
Author:Thomas Berry
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“As in creating some significant work the artist first experiences something akin to dream awareness that becomes clarified in the creative process itself, so we must first have a vision of the future sufficiently entrancing that it will sustain us in the transformation of the human project that is now in process.”

FirstsHumansDreamArtistProcessVisionCreativeAwarenessFutureProjectsCreatingTransformationSignificantCreative ProcessVisions Of The Future
Book:The Great Work: Our Way into the Future
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“Wildness we might consider as the root of the authentic spontaneities of any being. It is that wellspring of creativity whence comes the instinctive activities that enable all living beings to obtain their food, to find shelter, to bring forth their young: to sing and dance and fly through the air and swim through the depths of the sea. This is the same inner tendency that evokes the insight of the poet, the skill of the artist and the power of the shaman.”

LifeMightYoungArtistCreativityAirSeaPoetActivitySkillsRootsDepthInsightTendenciesSwimShelterSpontaneityEvokeWildnessWellspring
Book:The Great Work: Our Way into the Future
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“Our present urgency is to recover a sense of the primacy of the Universe as our fundamental context, and the primacy of the Earth as the matrix from which life has emerged and on which life depends. Recovering this sense is essential to establishing the framework for mutually enhancing human-Earth relations for the flourishing of life on the planet.”

LifeHumansEarthUniversePlanetsDependsEssentialsRelationFundamentalsFrameworkUrgencyFlourishingRecoveringPrimacy
Book:Evening Thoughts
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“In reality, there is a single integral community of the Earth that includes all its component members whether human or other than human. In this community every being has its own role to fulfill, its own dignity, its own inner spontaneity. Every being has its own voice. Every being declares itself to the entire universe. Every being enters into communion with other beings. In every phase of our imaginative, aesthetic, and emotional lives we are profoundly dependent on this larger context of the surrounding world.”

WorldLifeHumansRealityEarthUniverseVoiceCommunityRolesEmotionalMembersDignityDependentAestheticPhasesCommunionComponentsImaginativeSpontaneityEmotional Life
Author:Thomas Berry
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“We might sometimes reflect and recall that the purpose of all our science, technology, industry, manufacturing, commerce, and finance is celebration, planetary celebration. This is what moves the stars through the heavens and the earth through its seasons. The final norm of judgment concerning the success or failure of our technologies is the extent to which they enable us to participate more fully in this grand festival.”

LifeSometimesMightEarthMovingPurposeHeavenStarsTechnologyIndustryJudgmentSeasonsFinalsAwakeningFinanceCelebrationCommerceRecallsNormFestivalsManufacturingSuccess Or FailureScience Technology
Author:Thomas Berry
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