Wendell Berry: Living

Wendell Berry is author. Explore interesting quotes on living.
Wendell Berry: 378   quotes 7   likes

“A community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared, and that the people who share the place define and limit the possibilities of each other's lives.”

Wendell Berry

"The Loss of the Future".
The Long-Legged House (1969)
Context: A community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared, and that the people who share the place define and limit the possibilities of each other's lives. It is the knowledge that people have of each other, their concern for each other, their trust in each other, the freedom with which they come and go among themselves.

People , Communication

“It can be guaranteed only by our willingness that all other persons should live, be free, and be at peace — and by our willingness to use or give our own lives to make that possible.”

Wendell Berry

Citizenship Papers (2003), The Failure of War
Context: We are disposed, somewhat by culture and somewhat by nature, to solve our problems by violence, and even to enjoy doing so. And yet by now all of us must at least have suspected that our right to live, to be free, and to be at peace is not guaranteed by any act of violence. It can be guaranteed only by our willingness that all other persons should live, be free, and be at peace — and by our willingness to use or give our own lives to make that possible.

Peace , Personality

“We're living, it seems, in the culmination of a long warfare — warfare against human beings, other creatures and the Earth itself.”

Wendell Berry

Commencement address at Lindsey Wilson College (14 May 2005) http://www.lindsey.edu/index.cgi?id=10379.
Context: The line that connects the bombing of civilian populations to the mountain removed by strip mining … to the tortured prisoner seems to run pretty straight. We're living, it seems, in the culmination of a long warfare — warfare against human beings, other creatures and the Earth itself.

“We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong.”

Wendell Berry

"A Native Hill"
The Long-Legged House (1969)
Context: We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us... We must recover the sense of the majesty of the creation and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.

World

“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

"Economy and Pleasure".
What Are People For? (1990)

Justice , Law

“I dislike the thought that some animal has been made miserable to feed me. If I am going to eat meat, I want it to be from an animal that has lived a pleasant, uncrowded life outdoors, on bountiful pasture, with good water nearby and trees for shade.”

Wendell Berry

Source: What Are People For?

Life , Tree , Water , Animals

“It is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.”

Wendell Berry

Source: Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition

People , World , Imagination

“There are moments when the heart is generous, and then it knows that for better or worse our lives are woven together here, one with one another and with the place and all the living things.”

Wendell Berry

Source: Jayber Crow

Heart

“Battle with unconditioned breath the unconditioned air. Shun electric wire. Communicate slowly. Live a three-dimensional life; stay away from screens.”

Wendell Berry
Life , Communication

“If we do not live where we work and when we work we are wasting our lives and our work too.”

Wendell Berry

Source: The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture

“We are living in the most destructive and, hence, the most stupid period of the history of our species.”

Wendell Berry

"A Poem of Difficult Hope".
What Are People For? (1990)

Stupidity , History

“Let me say
and not mourn: the world
lives in the death of speech
and sings there.”

Wendell Berry

The Silence.
Poems

Death , World , Singing

“The most alarming sign of the state of our society now is that our leaders have the courage to sacrifice the lives of young people in war, but have not the courage to tell us that we must be less greedy and less wasteful.”

Wendell Berry

"Peaceableness Toward Enemies".
Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community (1993)

War , People , Courage

“We are living even now among punishments and ruins.”

Wendell Berry

"A Few Words in Favor of Edward Abbey".
What Are People For? (1990)

“There are, it seems, two Muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say, “It is yet more difficult than you thought.” This is the muse of form. The first muse is the one mainly listened to in a cheap-energy civilization, in which “economic health” depends on the assumption that everything desirable lies within easy reach of anyone. To hear the second muse one must move outside the cheap-energy enclosure. It is the willingness to hear the second muse that keeps us cheerful in our work. To hear only the first is to live in the bitterness of disappointment.”

Wendell Berry

Standing by Words: Essays (2011), Poetry and Marriage: The Use of Old Forms (1982)

Health , Disappointment , Dependency

“We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us... We must recover the sense of the majesty of the creation and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.”

Wendell Berry

"A Native Hill"
The Long-Legged House (1969)

Sense , World , Change

“The line that connects the bombing of civilian populations to the mountain removed by strip mining … to the tortured prisoner seems to run pretty straight. We're living, it seems, in the culmination of a long warfare — warfare against human beings, other creatures and the Earth itself.”

Wendell Berry

Commencement address at Lindsey Wilson College (14 May 2005) http://www.lindsey.edu/index.cgi?id=10379

Mountain

“Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know. So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.”

Wendell Berry

"Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC30/Berry.htm in Farming: A Hand Book (1970)
Poems

Understanding , Future , Hope , World

“We haven't accepted — we can't really believe — that the most characteristic product of our age of scientific miracles is junk, but that is so. And we still think and behave as though we face an unspoiled continent, with thousands of acres of living space for every man. We still sing "America the Beautiful" as though we had not created in it, by strenuous effort, at great expense, and with dauntless self-praise, an unprecedented ugliness.”

Wendell Berry

"The Rise"
The Long-Legged House (1969)

Singing , Beauty , Self-confidence , Thinking

“If I solve my dispute with my neighbor by killing him, I have certainly solved the immediate dispute. If my neighbor was a scoundrel, then the world is no doubt better for his absence. But in killing my neighbor, though he may have been a terrible man who did not deserve to live, I have made myself a killer — and the life of my next neighbor is in greater peril than the life of the last. In making myself a killer I have destroyed the possibility of neighborhood.”

Wendell Berry

"A Statement against the War in Vietnam"
The Long-Legged House (1969)

World , Life , Making love