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Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quotes

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Famous Wendell Berry Quotes

“I think of the old slavery, and of the way The Economy has now improved upon it. The new slavery has improved upon the old by giving the new slaves the illusion that they are free. The Economy does not take people's freedom by force, which would be against its principles, for it is very humane. It buys their freedom, pays for it, and then persuades its money back again with shoddy goods and the promise of freedom. "Buy a car," it says, "and be free. Buy a boat and be free." Is this not the raw material of bad dreams? Or is it maybe the very nightmare itself?”

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Book:Jayber Crow: A Novel
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“The economy is still substantially that of the fur trade, still based on the same general kinds of commercial items: technology, weapons, ornaments, novelties, and drugs. The one great difference is that by now the revolution has deprived the mass of consumers of any independent access to the staples of life: clothing, shelter, food, even water. Air access remains the only necessity that the average user can still get for himself, and the revolution has imposed a heavy tax on that by way of pollution. Commercial conquest is far more thorough and final than military defeat.”

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Book:The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture
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“The wrecking ball is characteristic of our way with materials. We 'cannot afford' to log a forest selectively, to mine without destroying topography, or to farm without catastrophic soil erosion. A production-oriented economy can indeed live in this way, but only so long as production lasts.”

WayLongLastsEconomyMinesMaterialsBallsEnvironmentalProductionsForestsCharacteristicsSoilFarmsDestroyingSustainabilityErosionTopographySoil Erosion
Author:Wendell Berry
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“Obviously, if Christianity is going to survive as more than a respecter and comforter of profitable inquiries, then Christians, regardless of their organizations, are going to have to interest themselves in economy-which is to say, in nature and in work. They are going to have to give workable answers to those who say we cannot live without this economy that is destroying us and our world, who see the murder of Creation as the only way of life.”

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Author:Wendell Berry
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“If you're a writer and you are at all inclined to speak as a Christian in some way, you realize very quickly that the conventional language is pretty much useless. It takes a long time to get past that, or it has taken me a long time. People in conventional Christianity have spoken lightly and sometimes frivolously of God for a long time. It's a word that needs to be used sparingly, in my opinion.”

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Author:Wendell Berry
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“If, on the other hand, conservationists are willing to insist on having the best food, produced in the best way, as close to their homes as possible, and if they are willing to learn to judge the quality of food and food production, then they are going to give economic support to an entirely different kind of land use in an entirely different landscape. This landscape will have a higher ratio of caretakers to acres, of care to use. It will be at once more domestic and more wild than the industrial landscape.”

IfsWayGivingKindDifferentUseHomeHandsCareQualitySupportEconomicLandWillingJudgingHigherProductionsBest WayLandscapeDifferent KindsRatiosAcresCaretakersBest FoodFood ProductionWilling To LearnLand Use
Book:Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food (Large Print 16pt)
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“We could say that the human race is a great coauthorship in which we are collaborating with God and nature in the making of ourselves and one another. From this there is no escape. We may collaborate either well or poorly or we may refuse to collaborate, but even to refuse to collaborate is to exert an influence and to affect the quality of the product. This is only a way of saying that by ourselves we have no meaning and no dignity; by ourselves we are outside the human definition, outside our identity.”

WayHumansWellsMayNatureRaceQualityInfluenceIdentityProductsDignityDefinitionsRefuseHuman RaceCollaboratingGod And Nature
Book:The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry
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“Good farmers, who take seriously their duties as stewards of Creation and of their land's inheritors, contribute to the welfare of society in more ways than society usually acknowledges, or even knows. These farmers produce valuable goods, of course; but they also conserve soil, they conserve water, they conserve wildlife, they conserve open space, they conserve scenery.”

KnowsWayCoursesWaterSpaceLandCreationProduceDutyValuableAcknowledgeWelfareSoilGoodsFarmsFarmersFarmingWildlifeSceneryStewardsOpen SpacesFarming And Farmers
Book:Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food (Large Print 16pt)
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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.”

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Author:Wendell Berry
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“I began to know my story then. Like everybody's, it was going to be the story of living in the absence of the dead. What is the thread that holds it all together? Grief, I thought for a while. And grief is there sure enough, just about all the way through. From the time I was a girl I have never been far from it. But grief is not a force and has no power to hold. You only bear it. Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery.”

KnowsWayEnoughStoriesTogetherGirlForceDarkLove IsGriefPiecesBearsGoldShiningAbsenceCarrieThreadStitchesEmbroideryShining Out
Author:Wendell Berry
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“Go with your love to the fields. Lie down in the shade. Rest your head in her lap. Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts. As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it. Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn't go. Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection.”

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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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