The industrial mind is a mind without compunction; it simply accepts that people, ultimately, will be treated as things and that things, ultimately, will be treated as garbage. (A Defense of the Family Farm, 1986) Wendell Berry More Quotes by Wendell Berry More Quotes From Wendell Berry If you can read and have more imagination than a doorknob, what need do you have for a 'movie version' of a novel? Wendell Berry novelimaginationneeds How do we submit? By not being radical enough. Or by not being thorough enough, which is the same thing. Wendell Berry thoroughradicalenough One of the most important resources that a garden makes available for use, is the gardener's own body. A garden gives the body the dignity of working in its own support. It is a way of rejoining the human race. Wendell Berry gardennaturerace No wonder so many sermons are devoted exclusively to "spiritual" subjects. If one is living by the tithes of history's most destructive economy, then the disembodiment of the soul becomes the chief of worldly conveniences. Wendell Berry soulspiritualwonder It is, of course, one of the miracles of science that the germs that used to be in our food have been replaced by poisons. Wendell Berry germsmiraclepoison We are living in the most destructive and, hence, the most stupid period of the history of our species. Wendell Berry speciesperiodsstupid It is therefore absurd to approach the subject of health piecemeal with a departmentalized band of specialists. A medical doctor uninterested in nutrition, in agriculture, in the wholesomeness of mind and spirit is as absurd as a farmer who is uninterested in health. Our fragmentation of this subject cannot be our cure, because it is our disease. The body cannot be whole alone. Persons cannot be whole alone. It is wrong to think that bodily health is compatible with spiritual confusion or cultural disorder, or with polluted air and water or impoverished soil. Wendell Berry spiritualairthinking Always in the big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place there will be, along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the Unknown, and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into. Wendell Berry riskchallengesfeelings Love changes, and in change is true. Wendell Berry There comes . . . a longing never to travel again except on foot. Wendell Berry hikingjourneyfeet ...And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here. Wendell Berry eyeheartheaven Condemnation by category is the lowest form of hatred, for it is cold-hearted and abstract, lacking even the courage of a personal hatred. Wendell Berry cold-heartedabstracthatred Praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed. Wendell Berry ignorancepraisemen What could be more superstitious than the idea that money brings forth food? Wendell Berry superstitiousideas [All the ancient wisdom] tells us that work is necessary to us, as much a part of our condition as mortality; that good work is our salvation and our joy; that shoddy or dishonest or self-serving work is our curse and our doom. We have tried to escape the sweat and sorrow promised in Genesis - only to find that, in order to do so, we must forswear love and excellence, health and joy. (pg. 44, "The Unsettling of America") Wendell Berry sweatorderamerica Without animals, something essential is removed from the minds of the farmers. Wendell Berry essentialsmindanimal It would not do for the consumer to know that the hamburger she is eating came from a steer who spent much of his life standing deep in his own excrement in a feedlot, helping to pollute the local streams. Or that the calf that yielded the veal cutlet on her plate spent its life in a box in which it did not have room to turn around. Wendell Berry hamburgersanimalrooms With its array of gadgets and machines, all powered by energies that are destructive of land or air or water, and connected to work, market, school, recreation, etc., by gasoline engines, the modern home is a veritable factory of waste and destruction. It is the mainstay of the economy of money. But within the economies of energy and nature, it is a catastrophe. It takes in the world's goods and converts them into garbage, sewage, and noxious fumes-for none of which have we found a use. Wendell Berry moneyhomeschool If you don't know where you are, you don't know who you are. Wendell Berry where-we-comehikingjourney My wish simply is to live my life as fully as I can. In both our work and our leisure, I think, we should be so employed. And in our time this means that we must save ourselves from the products that we are asked to buy in order, ultimately, to replace ourselves. Wendell Berry passionpositivelife
