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Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quotes

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Famous Wendell Berry Quotes

“Only by restoring the broken connections can we be healed. Connection is health. And what our society does its best to disguise from us is how ordinary, how commonly attainable, health is. We lose our health -- and create profitable diseases and dependencies -- by failing to see the direct connections between living and eating, eating and working, working and loving.”

DoeLosesFailingBrokenDiseaseEatingOrdinaryDirectConnectionsOur SocietyDisguiseProfitableHealedDependencyRestoring
Author:Wendell Berry
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“There are, it seems, two muses: The Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say, 'It is yet more difficult than you thought.' It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.”

KnowsWayGivingMayTwoRealInspirationSeemsDesireDifficultVisionJourneyReturnRealizationAgain And AgainMuseReal WorkInarticulateWhich Way To Go
Author:Wendell Berry
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“The miraculous is not extraordinary but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread. Whoever really has considered the lilies of the field or the birds of the air and pondered the improbability of their existence in this warm world within the cold and empty stellar distances will hardly balk at the turning of water into wine which was, after all, a very small miracle. We forget the greater and still continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight) is turned into grapes.”

WorldStillsWaterForgetCommonExistenceGreaterAirFieldsColdBirdEmptyMiracleWineDistanceExtraordinaryWarmBreadSoilSunlightContinuingMiraculousGrapesLiliesDaily BreadStellarImprobabilityOur Daily BreadSmall Miracles
Author:Wendell Berry
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“Returning from the wilderness a man becomes a restorer of order, a preserver. He sees the truth, recognizes his true heir, honors his forbears and his heritage, and gives his blessing to his successors. He embodies the passing of human time, living and dying within the human limits of grief and joy.”

MenGivingHumansJoyOrderGriefDyingHonorBlessingLimitsPassingPassingsWildernessHeritageHeirsSuccessors
Book:The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture
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“To husband is to use with care, to keep, to save, to make last, to conserve. Old usage tells us that there is a husbandry also of the land, of the soil, of the domestic plants and animals. And so it appears that most and perhaps all of industrial agriculture's manifest failures are the result of an attempt to make the land produce without husbandry.”

UseCareLastsAnimalResultsLandProduceHusbandPlantSoilManifestAgricultureUsagePlants And Animals
Book:Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food
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“We clasp the hands of those who go before us, and the hands of those who come after us; we enter the little circle of each other's arms, and the larger circle of lovers whose hands are joined in a dance, and the larger circle of all creatures, passing in and out of life, who move also in a dance, to a music so subtle and vast that no ear hears it except in fragments.”

LittlesHandsMovingArmsLoversCreaturesEarsCirclesPassingPassingsSubtleFragments
Book:What Are People For?: Essays
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“Community, then, is an indispensable term in any discussion of the connection between people and land. A healthy community is a form that includes all the local things that are connected by the larger, ultimately mysterious form of the Creation. In speaking of community, then, we are speaking of a complex connection not only among human beings or between humans and their homeland but also between human economy and nature, between forest or prairie and field or orchard, and between troublesome creatures and pleasant ones. All neighbors are included.”

PeopleHumansFormTermCommunityHuman BeingsEconomyLandCreationFieldsHealthyCreaturesConnectionsComplexesConnectedNeighborLocalsForestsMysteriousDiscussionPleasantIndispensableHomelandTroublesomePrairieOrchard
Book:Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays
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“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.”

PeopleHumansDoeHas BeensCountrySpiritAsksSexHuman BeingsAnimalRaceEnemyDoubtImagineOne ThingCrimeCivilizationPlantCommittedToleranceNo DoubtCivilizedOther CountriesImperatives
Author:Wendell Berry
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