Stephen Lewis Quotes


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 Adding 125
Nobody can discover the world for somebody else. Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground and a common bond and we cease to be alone. Wendell Berry Travel 105
The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope. Wendell Berry Ancient 99
Healing is impossible in loneliness it is the opposite of loneliness. Conviviality is healing. To be healed we must come with all the other creatures to the feast of Creation. pg.99 The Body and the Earth Wendell Berry Health 86
Whether we and 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 Nature 86
The freedom of affluence opposes and contradicts the freedom of community life. Wendell Berry Wealth 86
To be interested in food but not in food production is clearly absurd. Wendell Berry Food 83
The shoddy work of despair the pointless work of pride equally betray Creation. They are wastes of life. Wendell Berry Work 82
We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough? Wendell Berry Deal 76
It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are. Wendell Berry Excellence 75
There comes . . . a longing never to travel again except on foot. Wendell Berry Walking 75
I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief... For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. Wendell Berry History 72
Thinking is the most overrated human activity. Wendell Berry Thought 69
To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival. Wendell Berry Nature 68
Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup. Wendell Berry Argument 66
Let us have the candor to acknowledge that what we call the economy or the free market is less and less distinguishable from warfare. Wendell Berry Kentucky 64
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 Uncategorized 64
An economy genuinely local and neighborly offers to localities a measure of security that they cannot derive from a national or a global economy controlled by people who, by principle, have no local commitment. Wendell Berry Uncategorized 57
The world is whole beyond human knowing. Wendell Berry Life 51
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 Food 50
I believe that the community in the fullest sense a place and all its creatures is the smallest unit of health and that to speak of the health of an isolated individual is a contradiction in terms. pg. 146 Health is Membership Wendell Berry Health 47
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 Nature 47
As industrial technology advances and enlarges, and in the process assumes greater social, economic, and political force, it carries people away from where they belong by history, culture, deeds, association and affection. Wendell Berry Technology 46
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 Death 45
Novelty is a new kind of loneliness. Wendell Berry Anxiety 45
I think the issues of identity mostly are poppycock. We are what we have done, which includes our promises, includes our hopes, but promises first. Wendell Berry Identity 44
He imagines a necessary joy in things that must fly to eat. Wendell Berry Joy 44
The primary motive for good care and good use of the land-community is always going to be affection, which is too often lacking. Wendell Berry Uncategorized 44
We cannot comprehend what comprehends us. Wendell Berry Uncategorized 42
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 Uncategorized 42
The principle of neighborhood at home always implies the principle of charity abroad. pg. 260 The Idea of a Local Economy Wendell Berry Charity 41
We walked always in beauty it seemed to me. We walked and looked about or stood and looked. Sometimes less often we would sit down. We did not often speak. The place spoke for us and was a kind of speech. We spoke to each other in the things we saw. Wendell Berry Speech 41
Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy. Wendell Berry Competition 40
For any sin, we all suffer. That is why our suffering is endless. Wendell Berry Uncategorized 40
Marriage has now taken the form of divorce a prolonged and impassioned negotiation as to how things shall be divided. from Feminism the Body and the Machine Wendell Berry Marriage 38
Why should conservationists have a positive interest in… farming? There are lots of reasons, but the plainest is: Conservationists eat. Wendell Berry Uncategorized 36
Perhaps all the good that ever has come here has come because people prayed it into the world. Wendell Berry Goodness 34
Charity even for one person does not make sense except in terms of an effort to love all Creation in response to the Creators love for it. Wendell Berry Charity 34
Again I resume the long lesson how small a thing can be pleasing how little in this hard world it takes to satisfy the mind and bring it to its rest. Wendell Berry Poets 34
One thing work gives is the joy of not working a minute here or there when I stand and only breathe receiving the good of the air. It comes back. Good work done comes back into the mind a free breath drawn. Wendell Berry Work 33
The cloud is free only to go with the wind. The rain is free only in falling. Wendell Berry Change 33
We have made it our overriding ambition to escape work and as a consequence have debased work until it is only fit to escape from. We have debased the products of work and have been in turn debased by them. pg. 43 The Unsettling of America Wendell Berry Work 33
Eating is an agricultural act. Wendell Berry Food 32
You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it. Wendell Berry Rebellion 32
A tree forms itself in answer to its place and the light. Explain it how you will the only thing explainable will be your explanation. Sabbaths 1999 IV Wendell Berry Light 31
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 Economics 31
Dont own so much clutter that you will be relieved to see your house catch fire. Wendell Berry Advice 30
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 30

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Stephen Lewis Quotes

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