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We’re all complicit in the things we may be trying to oppose. I’m complicit in the things that I’m trying to oppose.

Wendell Berry

If we can’t afford to take good care of the land that feeds us, we’re in an insurmountable mess.
WENDELL BERRY

Afford Care Feed God Land Take Us
The 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 BERRY

Add Bad Better Definition Escape Food May Past Reason Something Strive
The 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 BERRY

Call Each Gift God Honorable Idea Kind Old Our Preference Simply Vocation
My belief is that the world and our life in it are conditional gifts.
WENDELL BERRY

Belief Condition Gift Life Our World
I am not bound for any public place, but for ground of my own where I have planted vines and orchard trees, and in the heat of the day climbed up into the healing shadow of the woods.
WENDELL BERRY

Any Bound Climb Ground Heal Orchard Own Place Plant Public Shadow Tree Vine Wood
Industrial agriculture characteristically proceeds by single solutions to single problems: If you want the most money from your land this year, grow the crops for which the market price is highest.
WENDELL BERRY

Agriculture Characteristically Industrial Problem Proceed Single Solution
For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
WENDELL BERRY

For Free Grace Rest Time World
This, I thought, is what is meant by ‘thy will be done’ in the Lord’s Prayer, which I had prayed time and again without thinking about it.
WENDELL BERRY

Again Done Lord Meant Prayer Think Thought Thy Time Without
Annual plants are nature’s emergency medical service, seeded in sounds and scars to hold the land until the perennial cover is re-established.
WENDELL BERRY

Annual Cover Emergency Hold Medical Nature Perennial Plant Scar Seed Service Sound Until
I’ve had a good life, and was born to and among people I’ve admired and loved.
WENDELL BERRY

Admire Among Born Good Life Loved People
To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival.
WENDELL BERRY

Cherish Earth Foster Hope Legitimate Our Remain Renewal Survival
When 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 BERRY

All Help Impulse IT Lamb New Nurse Raise See Sheep Stay When
To hear of a thousand deaths in war is terrible, and we ‘know’ that it is. But as it registers on our hearts, it is not more terrible than one death fully imagined.
WENDELL BERRY

Death Hear Know Terrible Thousand War
Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.
WENDELL BERRY

Argument Berry Better Cup Dew Drawn Pick Red Rise Than Wet
Prayer is like lying awake at night, afraid, with your head under the cover, hearing only the beating of your own heart.
WENDELL BERRY

Afraid Awake Beat Cover Head Hear Heart Lying Own Prayer
The ecosystems, the ecosphere, those are good gifts.
WENDELL BERRY

Ecosphere Ecosystem Gift Good

We’re all complicit in the things we may be trying to oppose. I’m complicit in the things that I’m trying to oppose.

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We’re all complicit in the things we may be trying to oppose. I’m complicit in the things that I’m trying to oppose.

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Popular Authors

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