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We have the world to live in on the condition that we will take good care of it.

Wendell Berry

Urban conservationists may feel entitled to be unconcerned about food production because they are not farmers. But they can’t be let off so easily, for they are all farming by proxy.
WENDELL BERRY

Conservationist Entitle Farmer Feel Food Production Unconcern Urban
There are no sacred and unsacred places; there are only sacred and desecrated places.
WENDELL BERRY

Decreased Place Scared Unsacred
To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope.
WENDELL BERRY

Cherish Foster Hope Only Our Remain Renewal
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.
WENDELL BERRY

Breakfast Daily Fact Horrible Interrupting Paper Read
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
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
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
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
We cannot know the whole truth, which belongs to God alone, but our task nevertheless is to seek to know what is true.
WENDELL BERRY

Alone Belong God Know Nevertheless Seek Take True Truth Whose
The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility.
WENDELL BERRY

After All Ancient Case Earth Most Please Responsibility Worthy
I was a bright boy and I ought to make something out of myself… something else that would be a cut or two above my humble origins.
WENDELL BERRY

Above Boy Bright Else Humble Make Myself Origin Out Something
Whether we or our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.
WENDELL BERRY

All Deal Deciosn Know More Nature Out Party Politician Vote Whether
The 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 BERRY

Aim Concentration Great Hand Industrialism People Plutocracy Replacement Small Technology Two Wealth
The only time I’ve been arrested was in opposing the Marble Hill nuclear power plant in Indiana. That was in 1979.
WENDELL BERRY

Arrest Hill Indiana Marble Nuclear Only Oppose Plant Power Time Year
To be interested in food but not in food production is clearly absurd.
WENDELL BERRY

Absurd Clearly Food Interest Production
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.
WENDELL BERRY

Capable Devotion Justice People Public
We have the world to live in on the condition that we will take good care of it.
WENDELL BERRY

Care Condition Good Live Take World
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 fertility cycle is a cycle entirely of living creatures passing again and again through birth, growth, maturity, death, and decay.
WENDELL BERRY

Again Birth Creature Cycle Death Decay Entirely Fertility Growth Live Maturity Pass Through
We 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 BERRY

Gift Good Live Make Makem Them Regard
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
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 BERRY

Been Deep Entirely Ever Far Free Idea Life Schooling Set So Still
A longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.
WENDELL BERRY

Do Justice Longer Memory Sense Sterner We
It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are.
WENDELL BERRY

Are Better From Learn Ourselves We
I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief…
WENDELL BERRY

Come Forethought Grief Into Live Peace Tax Thing Wild
We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough?
WENDELL BERRY

Deal Enough Garden Learn Most Much Question Time Urgent
And to take good care of it, we have to know it. And to know it and to be willing to take care of it, we have to love it.
WENDELL BERRY

Care Good Know Love Take Willing

We have the world to live in on the condition that we will take good care of it.

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We have the world to live in on the condition that we will take good care of it.

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