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Quote by Wendell Berry

“The form of a poem is invisible. A poem is not an "object." This is hard to accept in a mechanical age.”

Quote by Wendell Berry

Book:Standing by Words

Work

Standing by Words

This book is a compilation of thought-provoking essays that delve into the significance and influence of words in various contexts, including literature, culture, and personal expression. more

Author

Wendell Berry, an American novelist born on August 5, 1934, is renowned for his profound descriptions of rural life and his critical views on modern industrial civilization. more

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“Reverence makes it possible to be whole, though ignorant. It is the wholeness of understanding.”

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Book:Standing by Words

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“When the self is ones exclusive subject and limit, reference and measure, one has no choice but to make a world of words.”

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“As industrial technology advances and enlarges, and in the process assumes greater social, economic, and political force, it carries people away from where they belong by history, culture, deeds, association, and affection.”

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Book:Standing by Words

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“The hierarchy of power is not the same as the hierarchy of value. A good human is higher than the animals on both scales; an evil human is high on the scale of power, but at the very bottom of the scale of values.”

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Book:Standing by Words

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“I think the issues of identity mostly are poppycock. We are what we have done, which includes our promises, includes our hopes, but promises first.”

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Book:Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth

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“The world is whole beyond human knowing.”

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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.”

“It is a horrible fact that we can read in the daily paper, without interrupting our breakfast, numerical reckonings of death and destruction that ought to break our hearts or scare us out of our wits.”

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Book:It All Turns on Affection: The Jefferson Lecture and Other Essays

Source: It All Turns on Affection: The Jefferson Lecture and Other Essays

“I prayed like a man walking in a forest at night, feeling his way with his hands, at each step fearing to fall into pure bottomlessness forever. Prayer is like lying awake at night, afraid, with your head under the cover, hearing only the beating of your own heart.”

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Book:Jayber Crow: A Novel

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“These are people who are capable of devotion, public devotion, to justice. They meant what they said and every day that passes, they mean it more.”

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Author:Wendell Berry