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Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quotes

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Famous Wendell Berry Quotes

“The 'environmental crisis' has happened because the human household or economy is in conflict at almost every point with the household of nature. We have built our household on the assumption that the natural household is simple and can be simply used. We have assumed increasingly over the last five hundred years that nature is merely a supply of 'raw materials,' and that we may safely possess those materials by taking them.... And so we will be wrong if we attempt to correct what we perceive as 'environmental' problems without correcting the economic oversimplification that caused them.”

IfsYearsHumansMayProblemLastsUsedNaturalSimpleInspiringEconomyFiveHappenedEconomicMaterialsConflictHundredBuiltCrisisEnvironmentalPerceiveAssumptionHouseholdRaw MaterialsCorrectingEnvironmental ProblemsEnvironmental CrisisOversimplification
Book:What Matters?: Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth
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“There are two laws that we had better take to be absolute. The first is that as we cannot exempt ourselves from living in this world, then if we wish to live, we cannot exempt ourselves from using the world. If we cannot exempt ourselves from use, then we must deal with the issues raised by use. And so the second law is that if we want to continue living, we cannot exempt use from care.”

IfsWorldWantFirstsTwoUseCareLawWishInspiringDealsIssuesThis WorldAbsolutesRaised
Author:Wendell Berry
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“If one accepts the 24th and 104th Psalms as scriptural norms, then surface mining and other forms of earth destruction are perversions. If we take the Gospels seriously, how can we not see industrial warfare - with its inevitable massacre of innocents - as a most shocking perversion? By the standard of all scriptures, neglect of the poor, of widows and orphans, of the sick, the homeless, the insane, is an abominable perversion.”

IfsEarthFormPoorAcceptingStandardsDestructionSickSurfaceScriptureInsaneInevitableNeglectWarfareHomelessShockingNormWidowsOrphanPerversionMiningMassacresPsalmsWidows And Orphans
Author:Wendell Berry
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“WE ARE DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY - I mean our country itself, our land. This is a terrible thing to know, but it is not a reason for despair unless we decide to continue the destruction. If we decide to continue the destruction, that will not be because we have no other choice. This destruction is not necessary. It is not inevitable, except that by our submissiveness we make it so.”

IfsKnowsMeanCountryReasonChoicesLandTerribleDespairDestructionOur CountryInevitableDestroyingTerrible Things
Book:The Way of Ignorance: And Other Essays
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“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.”

IfsWorldNeedsHumansChildrenCareCultureJusticeRaceTeachPlansMountainOceanRiversOur ChildrenGood ThingsAvailableTake CareForestsDesertHuman RaceSoilLakesStewardshipImplicitMarshesGood FutureGrasslands
Book:What Are People For?: Essays
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“Our destruction of nature is not just bad stewardship, or stupid economics, or a betrayal of family responsibility; it is the most horrid blasphemy. It is flinging God's gifts into His face, as if they were of no worth beyond that assigned to them by our destruction of them.”

IfsFacesResponsibilityStupidEconomicsDestructionEnvironmentalConservativeBetrayalStewardshipBlasphemyDestruction Of NatureFamily Responsibility
Book:The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry
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“In Kentucky, we're destroying mountains, including their soils and forests, in order to get at the coal. In other words, we're destroying a permanent value in order to get at an almost inconceivably transient value. That coal has a value only if and when it is burnt. And after it is burnt, it is a pollutant and a waste-a burden.”

IfsValuesOrderMountainWasteIncludingConservativeBurdenForestsPermanentSoilDestroyingCoalTransientKentuckyIfs And
Author:Wendell Berry
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