American - Poet | August 5, 1934 -
We cannot comprehend what comprehends us.
Wendell Berry
UsCannotWe CannotComprehend
There are no sacred and unsacred places; there are only sacred and desecrated places. My belief is that the world and our life in it are conditional gifts.
LifeWorldPlacesBeliefGiftsOnly
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.
BestWalkHelpYouNewKnow
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.
TryingThingsMayOpposeComplicit
Why should conservationists have a positive interest in... farming? There are lots of reasons, but the plainest is: Conservationists eat.
PositiveFarmingWhyEatInterest
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. It means that your will and God's will may not be the same. It means there's a good possibility that you won't get what you pray for. It means that in spite of your prayers you are going to suffer.
GoodGodTimePrayerThinkingYou
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.
DeathWarKnowMoreHeartsTerrible
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.
FoodFeelFarmingFarmersProduction
The uplands of my home country in north central Kentucky are sloping and easily eroded, dependent for safekeeping upon year-round cover of perennial plants.
HomePlantsCountryYear-RoundCover
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.
MoneyProblemsGrowYearYouPrice
The fertility cycle is a cycle entirely of living creatures passing again and again through birth, growth, maturity, death, and decay.
GrowthDeathMaturityLivingBirth
Annual plants are nature's emergency medical service, seeded in sounds and scars to hold the land until the perennial cover is re-established.
NatureServiceMedicalPlantsScars
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict Wendell Berry quotes