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The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry

Book by Wendell Berry · 5 quotes · Community, Thinking, World

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The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry Quotes

“In this state of total consumerism-which is to say a state of helpless dependence on things and services and ideas and motives that we have forgotten how to provide ourselves-all meaningful contact between ourselves and the earth is broken. We do not understand the earth in terms either of what it offers us or of what it requires of us, and I think it is the rule that people inevitably destroy what they do not understand.”

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“People use drugs, legal and illegal, because their lives are intolerably painful or dull. They hate their work and find no rest in their leisure. They are estranged from their families and their neighbors. It should tell us something that in healthy societies drug use is celebrative, convivial, and occasional, whereas among us it is lonely, shameful, and addictive. We need drugs, apparently, because we have lost each other.”

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“To think better, to think like the best humans, we are probably going to have to learn again to judge a person's intelligence, not by the ability to recite facts, but by the good order or harmoniousness of his or her surroundings. We must suspect that any statistical justification of ugliness and violence is a revelation of stupidity. (pg.192-193, People, Land, and Community)”

PeopleThinkingHumansPersonsFactsOrderCommunityAbilityViolenceLandJudgingStupidityRevelationsSuspectsJustificationSurroundingsUgliness
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“Soil is not usually lost in slabs or heaps of magnificent tonnage. It is lost a little at a time over millions of acres by the careless acts of millions of people. It cannot be saved by heroic feats of gigantic technology, but only by millions of small acts and restraints, conditioned by small fidelities, skills, and desires. Soil loss is ultimately a cultural problem; it will be corrected only by cultural solutions.”

PeopleLittlesProblemDesireLostLossMillionsTechnologyEnvironmentSkillsSolutionsSavedSoilHeroicMagnificentRestraintCarelessFidelityFeatsAcresSmall ActsSlabs
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