Wendell Berry Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old Wendell Berry quotes, Wendell Berry sayings, and Wendell Berry proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.'

We can make ourselves whole only by accepting our partiality, by living within our limits, by being humans not by trying to be gods. Wendell Berry
Never forget: We are alive within mysteries. Wendell Berry
The soil is the great connector of our lives, the source and destination of all. Wendell Berry
The soil under the grass is dreaming of a young forest, and under the pavement the soil is dreaming of grass. Wendell Berry
We are far more concerned about the desecration of the flag than we are about the desecration of our land. Wendell Berry
The soil under the grass is dreaming of a young forest, and under the pavement the soil is dreaming of grass. Wendell Berry
The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life. Wendell Berry
We can grow good wheat and make good bread only if we understand that we do not live by bread alone. Wendell Berry
Sabbath observance invites us to stop. It invites us to rest. It asks us to notice that while we rest, the world continues without our help. It invites us to delight in the world's beauty and abundance. Wendell Berry
How do we submit? By not being radical enough. Or by not being thorough enough, which is the same thing. Wendell Berry
One cannot reduce terror by holding over the world the threat of what it most fears. Wendell Berry
To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival. Wendell Berry
Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery. Wendell Berry
The world is whole beyond human knowing. Wendell Berry
But we didn't speak of what was bothering us the most. Maybe we didn't need to. It couldn't have been 'talked out.' It had to be worn out. Wendell Berry
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. Wendell Berry
It would not do for the consumer to know that the hamburger she is eating came from a steer who spent much of his life standing deep in his own excrement in a feedlot, helping to pollute the local streams. Or that the calf that yielded the veal cutlet on her plate spent its life in a box in which it did not have room to turn around. Wendell Berry
There are not enough rich and powerful people to consume the whole world; for that, the rich and powerful need the help of countless ordinary people. Wendell Berry
I come into the peace of wild things / who do not tax their lives with forethought / of grief. I come into the presence of still water. / And I feel above me the day-blind stars / waiting for their light. Wendell Berry
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
People use drugs, legal and illegal, because their lives are intolerably painful or dull. They hate their work and find no rest in their leisure. They are estranged from their families and their neighbors. It should tell us something that in healthy societies drug use is celebrative, convivial, and occasional, whereas among us it is lonely, shameful, and addictive. We need drugs, apparently, because we have lost each other. Wendell Berry
We have neglected the truth that a good farmer is a craftsman of the highest order, a kind of artist. Wendell Berry
The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life. Wendell Berry
Good farmers, who take seriously their duties as stewards of Creation and of their land's inheritors, contribute to the welfare of society in more ways than society usually acknowledges, or even knows. These farmers produce valuable goods, of course; but they also conserve soil, they conserve water, they conserve wildlife, they conserve open space, they conserve scenery. Wendell Berry
But faith is not necessarily, or not soon, a resting place. Faith puts you out on a wide river in a boat, in the fog, in the dark. Even a man of faith knows that (as Burley Coulter used to say) we've all got to go through enough to kill us. Wendell Berry
Suppose we did our work like the snow, quietly, quietly, leaving nothing out. Wendell Berry
I have always loved a window, especially an open one. Wendell Berry
Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection. 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 legitimate hope. Wendell Berry
Breathe with unconditional breath the unconditioned air. Wendell Berry