If I was freer than I had ever been in my life, I was not yet entirely free, for I still hung on to an idea that had been set deep in me by all my schooling so far:
WENDELL BERRYIf I was freer than I had ever been in my life, I was not yet entirely free, for I still hung on to an idea that had been set deep in me by all my schooling so far:
WENDELL BERRYAnd if we offend gravely enough against what we know to be true, as by failing badly enough to deal affectionately and responsibly with our land and our neighbors, truth will retaliate with ugliness, poverty, and disease.
WENDELL BERRYTo cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival.
WENDELL BERRYWhen you are new at sheep-raising and your ewe has a lamb, your impulse is to stay there and help it nurse and see to it and all. After a while, you know that the best thing you can do is walk out of the barn.
WENDELL BERRYThere are no sacred and unsacred places; there are only sacred and desecrated places.
WENDELL BERRYThe two great aims of industrialism – replacement of people by technology and concentration of wealth into the hands of a small plutocracy – seem close to fulfillment.
WENDELL BERRYThe old and honorable idea of ‘vocation’ is simply that we each are called, by God, or by our gifts, or by our preference, to a kind of good work for which we are particularly fitted.
WENDELL BERRYThe past is our definition. We may strive with good reason to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it. But we will escape it only by adding something better to it.
WENDELL BERRYAnnual plants are nature’s emergency medical service, seeded in sounds and scars to hold the land until the perennial cover is re-established.
WENDELL BERRYThe atmosphere, the earth, the water and the water cycle – those things are good gifts.
WENDELL BERRYBetter than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.
WENDELL BERRYThe ecosystems, the ecosphere, those are good gifts.
WENDELL BERRYWe have to regard them as gifts because we couldn’t make them. We have to regard them as good gifts because we couldn’t live without them.
WENDELL BERRYFor any sin, we all suffer. That is why our suffering is endless.
WENDELL BERRYMy belief is that the world and our life in it are conditional gifts.
WENDELL BERRYIf we can’t afford to take good care of the land that feeds us, we’re in an insurmountable mess.
WENDELL BERRY