“What we lose in our great human exodus from the land is a rooted sense, as deep and intangible as religious faith, of why we need to hold on to the wild and beautiful places that once surrounded us.”

—  Barbara Kingsolver , book Small Wonder

Source: Small Wonder

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "What we lose in our great human exodus from the land is a rooted sense, as deep and intangible as religious faith, of w…" by Barbara Kingsolver?
Barbara Kingsolver photo
Barbara Kingsolver 119
American author, poet and essayist 1955

Related quotes

Barack Obama photo

“For if we lose that faith — if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace — then we lose what's best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 2009)
Context: We do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached — their fundamental faith in human progress — that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.
For if we lose that faith — if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace — then we lose what's best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.
Like generations have before us, we must reject that future. As Dr. King said at this occasion so many years ago, "I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present condition makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him."
Let us reach for the world that ought to be — that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls.

Stephen Hawking photo

“We find ourselves in a bewildering world. We want to make sense of what we see around us and to ask: What is the nature of the universe? What is our place in it and where did it and we come from? Why is it the way it is?”

Stephen Hawking book A Brief History of Time

Source: A Brief History of Time

“Faith is accepting what makes no sense, what we cannot prove, but know down deep in our souls is real.”

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Source: Bumped

Robert Fulghum photo

“There are places we all come from — deep-rooty-common places — that make us who they are. And we disdain them or treat them lightly at our peril. We turn our backs on them at the risk of self-contempt. There is a sense in which we need to go home again — and can go home again. Not to recover home, no. But to sanctify memory.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1986)

Kazuo Ishiguro photo

“What is pertinent is the calmness of beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it.”

Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day

Source: The Remains of the Day

Nikos Kazantzakis photo

“Today, in the unstable period of wrath, vengeance, and violence through which we are passing, the Jews are of necessity once again the chosen people of the terrible God of Exodus from the land of bondage.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Report to Greco

"Jerusalem", Ch. 20, p. 265
Report to Greco (1965)
Context: How can anyone have a true sense of the Hebrew race without crossing this terrifying desert, without experiencing it? For three interminable days we crossed it on our camels. Your throat sizzles from thirst, your head reels, your mind spins about as serpent-like you follow the sleek tortuous ravine. When a race is forged for two score years in this kiln, how can such a race die? I rejoiced at seeing the terrible stones where the Hebrews' virtues were born: their perseverance, will power, obstinacy, endurance, and above all, a God flesh of their flesh, flame of their flame, to whom they cried, "Feed us! Kill our enemies! Lead us to the Promised Land!"
To this desert the Jews owe their continued survival and the fact that by means of their virtues and vices they dominate the world. Today, in the unstable period of wrath, vengeance, and violence through which we are passing, the Jews are of necessity once again the chosen people of the terrible God of Exodus from the land of bondage.

“To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from.”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer
Ben Carson photo

“Responsible human beings must be concerned about our surroundings and what we will pass on to future generations. However, to use climate change as an excuse not to develop our God-given resources makes little sense.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

"CARSON: Expanding our energy resources serves peace" http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/25/carson-energys-role-in-the-path-to-peace/, The Washington Times (March 25, 2014)

Mahadev Govind Ranade photo

“This is the land of religion, Be it be for good or for evil, we cannot do without religion. Religious thoughts are in our blood. If we try to flee from it, it will pursue us.”

Mahadev Govind Ranade (1842–1901) Indian scholar, social reformer and author

Quoted in page=102

Luiz Fernando Lisboa photo

“The mission is of God, it is not ours. We are simply the instruments of God. Within the Church, one of the characteristics of the missionary, and especially of the religious – for I myself am also a religious – is itinerancy. We are never fixed in one place, but are transferred wherever the Church needs us, wherever God sends us, which is why we must always be ready to dismantle our tent and set it up again elsewhere.”

Luiz Fernando Lisboa (1955) 21st-century Brazilian Catholic bishop

Source: Mozambique: the last three years have been “an experience of the cross” https://acninternational.org/mozambique-the-last-three-years-have-been-an-experience-of-the-cross/ (25 February 2021)

Related topics