The only true and effective "operator's manual for spaceship earth" is not a book that any human will ever write; it is hundreds of thousands of local cultures. Wendell Berry More Quotes by Wendell Berry More Quotes From Wendell Berry So friends, every day do something that won't compute. Wendell Berry simplicity We live beyond words, as also we live beyond computation and beyond theory. Wendell Berry computation theory There is a religious principle: Love thy neighbour as thyself. But it's also an economic asset. If you've got a neighbour, you've got help, and this implies another limit. If you want to have neighbours, you can't have a limitless growth economy. You have to prefer to have a neighbour rather than to own your neighbour farm. Wendell Berry growth religious want You have to be able to imagine lives that are not yours. Wendell Berry imagine able Having hope is hard; harder when you get older. Wendell Berry having-hope harder hard In living in the world by his own will and skill, the stupidest peasant or tribesman is more competent than the most intelligent worker or technician or intellectual in a society of specialists. Wendell Berry intelligent skills work As long as we insist on relating to it strictly on our own terms-as strange to us or subject to us-the wilderness is alien, threatening, fearful. We have no choice then but to become its exploiters, and to lose, by consequence, our place in it. It is only when, by humility, openness, generosity, courage, we make ourselves able to relate to it on its terms that it ceases to be alien. Wendell Berry generosity humility long The ecological principle in agriculture is to connect the genius of the place, to fit the farming to the farm. Wendell Berry agriculture genius principles If conservationists will attempt to resume responsibility for their need to eat, they will be led back fairly directly to all their previous concerns for the welfare of nature. Wendell Berry welfare responsibility needs Reverence makes it possible to be whole, though ignorant. It is the wholeness of understanding. Wendell Berry ignorant respect understanding I finally knew... why Christ's prayer in the garden could not be granted. He had been seeded and birthed into human flesh. He was one of us. Once He had become mortal, He could not become immortal except by dying. That He prayed the prayer at all showed how human He was. That He knew it could not be granted showed his divinity; that He prayed it anyhow showed His mortality, His mortal love of life that His death made immortal. Wendell Berry love-life garden prayer There is change by necessity or adaptation, and there is contrived change or novelty. Wendell Berry adaptation novelty internet If you're a writer and you are at all inclined to speak as a Christian in some way, you realize very quickly that the conventional language is pretty much useless. It takes a long time to get past that, or it has taken me a long time. People in conventional Christianity have spoken lightly and sometimes frivolously of God for a long time. It's a word that needs to be used sparingly, in my opinion. Wendell Berry taken christian past We cannot comprehend what comprehends us. Wendell Berry comprehension No individual life is an end in itself. One can live fully only by participating fully in the succession of the generations, in death as well as in life. Some would say (and I am one of them) that we can live fully only by making ourselves answerable to the claims of eternity as to those of time. Wendell Berry environmental generations life-is Young lovers see a vision of the world redeemed by love. That is the truest thing they ever see, for without it life is death. Wendell Berry vision lovers world It is only by understanding the cultural complexity and largeness of the concept of agriculture that we can see the threatening diminishments implied by the term 'agribusiness.' Wendell Berry agribusiness agriculture understanding Geese appear high over us, / pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, / as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear / in the ancient faith: what we need / is here. 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 eye sleep heart The more artificial a human environment becomes, the more the word ‘natural’ becomes a term of value. Wendell Berry environment term natural I prayed like a man walking in a forest at night, feeling his way with his hands, at each step fearing to fall into pure bottomlessness forever. Prayer is like lying awake at night, afraid, with your head under the cover, hearing only the beating of your own heart. Wendell Berry prayer lying fall
