Wendell Berry Quotes About Sustainability

Quotes about: Sustainability

• It is better to buy from a small, privately owned local store than from a chain store. It is better to buy a good product than a bad one. Do not buy anything you don't need. Do as much as you can for yourself. If you cannot do something for yourself, see if you have a neighbor who can do it for you. Do everything you can to see that your money stays as long as possible in the local community.

  Wendell Berry

  Long, Community, Environmental

  Wendell Berry (1993). “Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays”, Pantheon

• But the only possible guarantee of the future is responsible behavior in the present.

  Wendell Berry

  Future, Environmental, Guarantees

  Wendell Berry (2015). “The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture”, p.51, Counterpoint

• The Captains of Industry have always counseled the rest of us "to be realistic." Let us, therefore, be realistic. Is it realistic to assume that the present economy would be just fine if only it would stop poisoning the air and water, or if only it would stop soil erosion, or if only it would stop degrading watersheds and forest ecosystems, or if only it would stop seducing children, or if only it would stop buying politicians, or if only it would give women and favored minorities an equitable share of the loot?

  Wendell Berry

  Children, Air, Ecosystems

  Wendell Berry (2001). “In the Presence of Fear: Three Essays for a Changed World”

• Despite its protests to the contrary, modern Christianity has become willy-nilly the religion of the state and the economic status quo. Because it has been so exclusively dedicated to incanting anemic souls into Heaven, it has been made the tool of much earthly villainy. It has, for the most part, stood silently by while a predatory economy has ravaged the world, destroyed its natural beauty and health, divided and plundered its human communities and households.

  Wendell Berry

  Community, Heaven, Soul

  Wendell Berry (2003). “The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry”, p.319, Counterpoint

• The real work of planet-saving will be small, humble, and humbling, and (insofar as it involves love) pleasing and rewarding. Its jobs will be too many to count, too many to report, too many to be publicly noticed or rewarded, too small to make anyone rich or famous.

  Wendell Berry

  Jobs, Real, Humble

  Wendell Berry (1993). “Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays”, Pantheon

• We are now, measurably, reducing the availability of these life-supporting goods which we can think of (though only on the conditions of good health and good care) as self-renewing or "sustainable." We are also destroying rapidly the supplies of the fossil fuels, which are limited and not renewable, and on which we have become totally dependent.

  Wendell Berry

  Thinking, Self, Availability

  Wendell Berry (2006). “The Way of Ignorance: And Other Essays”, p.146, Counterpoint Press

• But in its de facto alliance with Caesar, Christianity connives directly in the murder of Creation. For in these days, Caesar is no longer a mere destroyer of armies, cities, and nations. He is a contradicter of the fundamental miracle of life.

  Wendell Berry

  Army, Cities, Miracle

  Wendell Berry (2003). “The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry”, p.319, Counterpoint

• If we do not serve what coheres and endures, we serve what disintegrates and destroys.

  Wendell Berry

  Environmental, Sustainability, Endure

  Wendell Berry (2010). “What Matters?: Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth”, p.136, Counterpoint Press

• But we can do nothing for the human future that we will not do for the human present. For the amelioration of the future condition of our kind we must look, not to the wealth or the genius of the coming generations, but to the quality of the disciplines and attitudes that we are preparing now for their use.

  Wendell Berry

  Attitude, Discipline, Quality

  Wendell Berry (2012). “A Continuous Harmony: Essays Cultural and Agricultural”, p.127, Counterpoint Press

• The wrecking ball is characteristic of our way with materials. We 'cannot afford' to log a forest selectively, to mine without destroying topography, or to farm without catastrophic soil erosion. A production-oriented economy can indeed live in this way, but only so long as production lasts.

  Wendell Berry

  Erosion, Long, Environmental

• The good of the whole of Creation, the world and all its creatures together, is never a consideration because it is never thought of; our culture now simply lacks the means for thinking of it.

  Wendell Berry

  Mean, Thinking, Together

  Wendell Berry (2015). “The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture”, p.26, Counterpoint

• We will instead have to measure our economy by the health of the ecosystems and human communities where we do our work.

  Wendell Berry

  Ecosystems, Community, Environmental

  Wendell Berry (2001). “Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition”, Counterpoint Press

• The people who benefit from this state of affairs have been at pains to convince us that the agricultural practices and policies that have almost annihilated the farming population have greatly benefited the population of food consumers. But more and more consumers are now becoming aware that our supposed abundance of cheap and healthful food is to a considerable extent illusory.

  Wendell Berry

  Pain, Practice, Convince Us

• No individual life is an end in itself. One can live fully only by participating fully in the succession of the generations, in death as well as in life. Some would say (and I am one of them) that we can live fully only by making ourselves answerable to the claims of eternity as to those of time.

  Wendell Berry

  Environmental, Generations, Life Is

  Wendell Berry (2001). “Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition”, Counterpoint Press

• Because by definition they lack any sense of mutuality or wholeness, our specializations subsist on conflict with one another. The rule is never to cooperate, but rather to follow one's own interest as far as possible. Checks and balances are all applied externally, by opposition, never by self-restraint. Labor, management, the military, the government, etc., never forbear until their excesses arouse enough opposition to force them to do so.

  Wendell Berry

  Military, Government, Self

• It is therefore absurd to approach the subject of health piecemeal with a departmentalized band of specialists. A medical doctor uninterested in nutrition, in agriculture, in the wholesomeness of mind and spirit is as absurd as a farmer who is uninterested in health. Our fragmentation of this subject cannot be our cure, because it is our disease. The body cannot be whole alone. Persons cannot be whole alone. It is wrong to think that bodily health is compatible with spiritual confusion or cultural disorder, or with polluted air and water or impoverished soil.

  Wendell Berry

  Spiritual, Thinking, Air

  Wendell Berry (2003). “The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry”, p.99, Counterpoint

• Humans, like all other creatures, must make a difference; otherwise, they cannot live. But unlike other creatures, humans must make a choice as to the kind and scale of difference they make. If they choose to make too small a difference, they diminish their humanity. If they choose to make too great a difference, they diminish nature, and narrow their subsequent choices; ultimately, they diminish or destroy themselves. Nature, then, is not only our source but also our limit and measure.

  Wendell Berry

  Differences, Choices, Humanity

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