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
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
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
It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are. – Wendell Berry
Urban conservationists may feel entitled to be unconcerned about food production because they are not farmers. But they cant be let off so easily, for they are all farming by proxy. – Wendell Berry
Why should conservationists have a positive interest in… farming? There are lots of reasons, but the plainest is: Conservationists eat. – Wendell Berry
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
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
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
To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival. – Wendell Berry
To be interested in food but not in food production is clearly absurd. – Wendell Berry
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
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
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. Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup. – Wendell Berry
We have neglected the truth that a good farmer is a craftsman of the highest order, a kind of artist. – Wendell Berry
