Wendell Berry is an American poet, cultural critic, environmental activist and novelist. He lives on a farm that he has maintained in Port Royal, Kentucky, for about 40 years. A farmer by profession, Berry holds deep reverence for agrarian values, marital fidelity and traditions. Being mistrustful of technology, Wendell believes in the holiness of life. In his lifetime, he has written over 40 books comprising of essays, fiction and poetry. His beliefs and values are reflected in his life and works. His classics include 'The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture' that highlights the failure of modern, machine-based life, 'New Farm Magazine and Organic Gardening and Farming' and agricultural treatises that touch green aspects of farming. In 'The Broken Ground', he wrote about farm life and family bonds and 'The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture' traces the foundation of American culture on modern agriculture. In today's technological world, authors like Berry represent the beauty and simplicity of life. The prolific author is a recipient of 'Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement' award (2013), 'National Humanities Medal' and the Jefferson Lecturer in 2012. He's the first living writer to make it to the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame. There is so much we can learn from Berry’s commitment to simple living, and value of nature. We have excerpted some of Wendell Berry Quotes from his writings, his take on several subjects and everyday life. Here are some of Wendell Berry's most memorable quotes.
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.
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
It may be that when we no longer know which way to go that we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.
Wendell Berry
You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it.
Nobody can discover the world for somebody else. Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground and a common bond and we cease to be alone.
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.
I don't believe that grief passes away. It has its time and place forever. More time is added to it; it becomes a story within a story. But grief and griever alike endure.
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.
One of the most important resources that a garden makes available for use, is the gardener's own body. A garden gives the body the dignity of working in its own support. It is a way of rejoining the human race.
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.
After a while, though the grief did not go away from us, it grew quiet. What had seemed a storm wailing through the entire darkness seemed to come in at last and lie down.
