“If in the human economy, a squash in the field is worth more than a bushel of soil, that does not mean that food is more valuable than soil; it means simply that we do not know how to value the soil. In its complexity and its potential longevity, the soil exceeds our comprehension; we do not know how to place a just market value on it, and we will never learn how. Its value is inestimable; we must value it, beyond whatever price we put on it, by respecting it.” IfsKnowsHumansMeanDoeValuesKnow HowEconomyLandFieldsValuableComplexitySoilLongevityExceedComprehensionSquash Author:Wendell Berry
“It happens from time to time in every complex and active society, that certain persons feel the complexity and insistence as a tangle, and seek freedom in retirement, as Thoreau sought at Walden Pond. They do not, however, in this manner escape from the social institutions of their time, nor do they really mean to do so; what they gain, if they are successful, is a saner relation to them.” IfsFeelsMeanPersonsHappensCertainSocialSuccessfulGainsRelationInstitutionsComplexesActiveComplexityRetirementReally MeanPondsInsistenceSocial InstitutionsWalden Pond Book:Human Nature and the Social Order Source: Human Nature and the Social Order
“Art arises in those strange complexities of action that are called human beings. It is a kind of human behavior. As such it is not magic, except as human beings are magical. Nor is it concerned in absolutes, eternities, "forms," beyond those that may reside in the context of the human being and be subject to his vicissitudes. Art is not an inner state of consciousness, whatever that may mean. Neither is it essentially a supreme form of communication. Art is human behavior, and its values are contained in human behavior.” HumansKindMayMeanArtStatesActionFormValuesHuman BeingsConsciousnessMagicSubjectsStrangeCommunicationBehaviorArt IsConcernedEternityAbsolutesSupremeAriseComplexityHuman BehaviorStates Of ConsciousnessVicissitudes Author:Baker Brownell