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Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quotes

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Famous Wendell Berry Quotes

“Perhaps it is to prepare to hear some day the music of the spheres that I am always turning my ears to the music of streams. There is indeed a music in streams, but it is not for the hurried. It has to be loitered by and imagined. Or imagined toward, for it is hardly for men at all. Nature has a patient ear. To her the slowest funeral march sounds like a jig. She is satisfied to have the notes drawn out to the lengths of days or weeks or months. Small variations are acceptable to her, modulations as leisurely as the opening of a flower.”

MenSoundWeekFlowerMonthsEarsNotesPatientSatisfiedOpeningStreamsLengthMarchFuneralSpheresAcceptableVariation
Book:The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry
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“If love could force my own thoughts over the edge of the world and out of time, then could I not see how even divine omnipotence might by the force of its own love be swayed down to the world? ...how it might, because it could know its own creatures only by compassion, put on mortal flesh, become a man, and walk among us, assume our nature and our fate, suffer our faults and our death?”

IfsKnowsMenWorldMightSufferingForceMy OwnWalksLove IsCompassionFateDivineCreaturesAssumingFaultsEdgesFleshMortalsOmnipotenceOver The EdgeEdge Of The World
Author:Wendell Berry
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“I have this love for Mattie. It was formed in me as he himself was formed. It has his shape, you might say. He fits it. He fits into it as he fits into his clothes. He will always fit into it. When he gets out of the car and I meet him and hug him, there he is, him himself, something of my very own forever, and my love for him goes all around him just as it did when he was a baby and a little boy and a young man grown.”

MenLittlesMightYoungBoysForeverCarBabyFitShapesClothesYoung ManHugLittle Boys
Author:Wendell Berry
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“When you are old you can look back and see yourself when you are young. It is almost like looking down from heaven. And you see yourself as a young woman, just a big girl really, half awake to the world. You see yourself happy, holding in your arms a good, decent, gentle, beloved young man with the blood keen in his veins, who before long is going to disappear, just disappear, into a storm of hate and flying metal and fire. And you just don't know it.”

KnowsMenWorldLooksLongBigsYoungHateGirlHeavenHalfFireBloodArmsStormDisappearFlyingGentleBelovedYoung ManAwakeDecentMetalsYoung WomenVeinsOld YouLooking DownBig Girl
Author:Wendell Berry
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“There are endless ways to amuse oneself and be idle, and most of them lie outside the woods. I assume that when a man goes to the woods he goes because he needs to. I think he is drawn to the wilderness much as he is drawn to a woman: it is, in its way, his opposite. It is as far as possible unlike his home or his work or anything he will ever manufacture. For that reason he can take from it a solace-an understanding of himself, of what he needs and what he can do without-such as he can find nowhere else.”

ThinkingMenWayNeedsReasonHomeLyingUnderstandingCan DoOppositesAssumingOneselfWoodsEndlessWildernessIdleSolace
Author:Wendell Berry
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“You may say that I am just another outdated old man complaining about progress and the changes of time. But, you see, I have well considered that possibility myself, and am prepared o submit to correction by anybody who cares about a community, who can show me how the world is improved by that community's dying.”

MenWorldWellsMayShowsCareCommunityProgressDyingPossibilityPreparedComplainingOld ManSubmitShow MeWho CaresCorrectionsOutdated
Book:Jayber Crow: A Novel
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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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