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Top 450 Wendell Berry Quotes (2026 Update)
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Wendell Berry Quote: “Any religion has to have a practice. When you let it go so far from practice that it just becomes a matter of talk something bad happens.”

351. “Any religion has to have a practice. When you let it go so far from practice that it just becomes a matter of talk something bad happens.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “I began to know my story then. Like everybody’s, it was going to be the story of living in the absence of the dead.”

352. “I began to know my story then. Like everybody’s, it was going to be the story of living in the absence of the dead.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “We weren’t allowing our hopes to become expectations. Expectations are tempting, pleasant, maybe necessary. They are scary too, once you have had some experience. They are not necessarily and not always a bucket of smoke, but they can be and are even likely to be.”

353. “We weren’t allowing our hopes to become expectations. Expectations are tempting, pleasant, maybe necessary. They are scary too, once you have had some experience. They are not necessarily and not always a bucket of smoke, but they can be and are even likely to be.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “We don’t need much imagination to imagine that to be free of hatred, of enmity, of the endless and hopeless effort to oppose violence with violence, would be to have life more abundantly. To be free of indifference would be to have life more abundantly. To be free of the insane rationalizations for our desire to kill one another-that surely would be to have life more abundantly.”

354. “We don’t need much imagination to imagine that to be free of hatred, of enmity, of the endless and hopeless effort to oppose violence with violence, would be to have life more abundantly. To be free of indifference would be to have life more abundantly. To be free of the insane rationalizations for our desire to kill one another-that surely would be to have life more abundantly.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “The most available example of how poetry works for a poet is yourself, and yet you’ll probably be the last one to know exactly how you’re serving the art and how the art is serving you.”

355. “The most available example of how poetry works for a poet is yourself, and yet you’ll probably be the last one to know exactly how you’re serving the art and how the art is serving you.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “People who own the world outright for profit will have to be stopped by influence, by power, by us.”

356. “People who own the world outright for profit will have to be stopped by influence, by power, by us.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “The big idea of education, from first to last, is the idea of a better place. Not a better place where you are, because you want it to be better and have been to school and learned to make it better, but a better place somewhere else. In order to move up, you have got to move on.”

357. “The big idea of education, from first to last, is the idea of a better place. Not a better place where you are, because you want it to be better and have been to school and learned to make it better, but a better place somewhere else. In order to move up, you have got to move on.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “A man ought to study the wilderness of a place before applying to it the ways he learned in another place.”

358. “A man ought to study the wilderness of a place before applying to it the ways he learned in another place.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “I dislike the thought that some animal has been made miserable to feed me. If I am going to eat meat, I want it to be from an animal that has lived a pleasant, uncrowded life outdoors, on bountiful pasture, with good water nearby and trees for shade.”

359. “I dislike the thought that some animal has been made miserable to feed me. If I am going to eat meat, I want it to be from an animal that has lived a pleasant, uncrowded life outdoors, on bountiful pasture, with good water nearby and trees for shade.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “It is well established among us that you may hold up your head in polite society with a public lie in your mouth or other people’s money in your pocket or innocent blood on your hands, but not with dishwater on your hands or mud on your shoes.”

360. “It is well established among us that you may hold up your head in polite society with a public lie in your mouth or other people’s money in your pocket or innocent blood on your hands, but not with dishwater on your hands or mud on your shoes.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “It is wrong to condemn people for doing a thing and then offer no alternative but failure. A person could get mad about that.”

361. “It is wrong to condemn people for doing a thing and then offer no alternative but failure. A person could get mad about that.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “What could be more superstitious than the idea that money brings forth food?”

362. “What could be more superstitious than the idea that money brings forth food?”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “The preserver of abundance is excellence.”

363. “The preserver of abundance is excellence.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “The corporate approach to agriculture or manufacturing or medicine or war increasingly undertakes to help at the risk of harm, sometimes of great harm. And once the risk of harm is appraised as “acceptable,” the result often is absurdity: We destroy a village in order to save it; we destroy freedom in order to save it; we destroy the world in order to live in it.”

364. “The corporate approach to agriculture or manufacturing or medicine or war increasingly undertakes to help at the risk of harm, sometimes of great harm. And once the risk of harm is appraised as “acceptable,” the result often is absurdity: We destroy a village in order to save it; we destroy freedom in order to save it; we destroy the world in order to live in it.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “This is the justice that we are learning from the ecologists: you cannot damage what you are dependent upon without damaging yourself.”

365. “This is the justice that we are learning from the ecologists: you cannot damage what you are dependent upon without damaging yourself.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “Charity even for one person does not make sense except in terms of an effort to love all Creation in response to the Creator’s love for it.”

366. “Charity even for one person does not make sense except in terms of an effort to love all Creation in response to the Creator’s love for it.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “There appears to be a law that when creatures have reached the level of consciousness, as men have, they must become conscious of the creation; they must learn how they fit into it and what its needs are and what it requires of them, or else pay a terrible penalty: the spirit of the creation will go out of them, and they will become destructive; the very earth will depart from them and go where they cannot follow.”

367. “There appears to be a law that when creatures have reached the level of consciousness, as men have, they must become conscious of the creation; they must learn how they fit into it and what its needs are and what it requires of them, or else pay a terrible penalty: the spirit of the creation will go out of them, and they will become destructive; the very earth will depart from them and go where they cannot follow.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “In solitude, we lose our loneliness.”

368. “In solitude, we lose our loneliness.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “For any sin, we all suffer. That is why our suffering is endless.”

369. “For any sin, we all suffer. That is why our suffering is endless.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “He imagines a necessary joy in things that must fly to eat.”

370. “He imagines a necessary joy in things that must fly to eat.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “The world, which God looked at and found entirely good, we find none too good to pollute entirely and destroy piecemeal.”

371. “The world, which God looked at and found entirely good, we find none too good to pollute entirely and destroy piecemeal.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “We have forgotten that Vietnam, and Iraq resent being invaded and know the ground better than we do.”

372. “We have forgotten that Vietnam, and Iraq resent being invaded and know the ground better than we do.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “Let tomorrow come tomorrow. Not by your will is the house carried through the night. Order is only the possibility of rest.”

373. “Let tomorrow come tomorrow. Not by your will is the house carried through the night. Order is only the possibility of rest.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “However, if we conceive of a culture as one body, which it is, we see that all of its disciplines are everybody’s business, and that the proper university product is therefore not the whittled-down, isolated mentality of expertise, but a mind competent in all its concerns.”

374. “However, if we conceive of a culture as one body, which it is, we see that all of its disciplines are everybody’s business, and that the proper university product is therefore not the whittled-down, isolated mentality of expertise, but a mind competent in all its concerns.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “Happiness had a way of coming to you and making you sad. You would think, ‘There seems to have been a time when I deserved such a happiness and needed it, like a day’s pay, and now I have no use for it at all.’ How can you be happy, how can you live, when all the things that make you happy grieve you nearly to death?”

375. “Happiness had a way of coming to you and making you sad. You would think, ‘There seems to have been a time when I deserved such a happiness and needed it, like a day’s pay, and now I have no use for it at all.’ How can you be happy, how can you live, when all the things that make you happy grieve you nearly to death?”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “We have become blind to the alternatives to violence.”

376. “We have become blind to the alternatives to violence.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “My label is just “good farming”, which isn’t something you can put on a t-shirt.”

377. “My label is just “good farming”, which isn’t something you can put on a t-shirt.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “Grandmam came back from that distance in time that separates grandmothers from their grandchildren and made herself a mother to me.”

378. “Grandmam came back from that distance in time that separates grandmothers from their grandchildren and made herself a mother to me.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “When there are enough people on the land to use it but not enough to husband it, then the wildness of the soil that we call fertility begins to diminish, and the soil itself begins to flee from us in water and wind.”

379. “When there are enough people on the land to use it but not enough to husband it, then the wildness of the soil that we call fertility begins to diminish, and the soil itself begins to flee from us in water and wind.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “The gait most congenial to agrarian thought and sensibility is walking. It is the gait best suited to paying attention, most conservative of land and equipment, and most permissive of stopping to look or think. Machines, companies, and politicians “run”. Farmers studying their fields travel at a walk.”

380. “The gait most congenial to agrarian thought and sensibility is walking. It is the gait best suited to paying attention, most conservative of land and equipment, and most permissive of stopping to look or think. Machines, companies, and politicians “run”. Farmers studying their fields travel at a walk.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “What would be the point of being personally whole in a dismembered society, or personally healthy in a land scalped, eroded and poisoned, or personally free in a world entirely controlled by the government or enlightened by television?”

381. “What would be the point of being personally whole in a dismembered society, or personally healthy in a land scalped, eroded and poisoned, or personally free in a world entirely controlled by the government or enlightened by television?”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “Some days, sitting here on my porch over the river, my memory seems to enclose me entirely; I wander back in my reckoning among all of my own that have lived and died until I no longer remember where I am. And then I lift my head and look about me at the river and the valley, the great, unearned beauty of this place, and I feel the memoryless joy of a man just risen from the grave.”

382. “Some days, sitting here on my porch over the river, my memory seems to enclose me entirely; I wander back in my reckoning among all of my own that have lived and died until I no longer remember where I am. And then I lift my head and look about me at the river and the valley, the great, unearned beauty of this place, and I feel the memoryless joy of a man just risen from the grave.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “For agrarians, the correct response is to stand confidently on our fundamental premise, which is both democratic and ecological: the land is a gift of immeasurable value. If it is a gift, then it is a gift to all the living in all time. To withhold it from some is finally to destroy it for all. For a few powerful people to own or control it all, or decide its fate, is wrong.”

383. “For agrarians, the correct response is to stand confidently on our fundamental premise, which is both democratic and ecological: the land is a gift of immeasurable value. If it is a gift, then it is a gift to all the living in all time. To withhold it from some is finally to destroy it for all. For a few powerful people to own or control it all, or decide its fate, is wrong.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “The form of a poem is invisible. A poem is not an “object.” This is hard to accept in a mechanical age.”

384. “The form of a poem is invisible. A poem is not an “object.” This is hard to accept in a mechanical age.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “The chance you had is the life you’ve got. You can make complaints about what people, including you, make of their lives after they have got them, and about what people make of other people’s lives, even about your children being gone, but you mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this: “Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks.” I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.”

385. “The chance you had is the life you’ve got. You can make complaints about what people, including you, make of their lives after they have got them, and about what people make of other people’s lives, even about your children being gone, but you mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this: “Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks.” I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “And yet in Port William, as everywhere else, it was already the second decade of the twentieth century. And in some of the people of the town and the community surrounding it, one of the characteristic diseases of the twentieth century was making its way: the suspicion that they would be greatly improved if they were someplace else.”

386. “And yet in Port William, as everywhere else, it was already the second decade of the twentieth century. And in some of the people of the town and the community surrounding it, one of the characteristic diseases of the twentieth century was making its way: the suspicion that they would be greatly improved if they were someplace else.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “Let me say and not mourn: the world lives in the death of speech and sings there.”

387. “Let me say and not mourn: the world lives in the death of speech and sings there.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “But he learned what he had to, and he changed, and so he made himself exceptional.”

388. “But he learned what he had to, and he changed, and so he made himself exceptional.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “After you have said “thy will be done,” what more can be said?”

389. “After you have said “thy will be done,” what more can be said?”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “For the true measure of agriculture is not the sophistication of its equipment the size of its income or even the statistics of its productivity but the good health of the land.”

390. “For the true measure of agriculture is not the sophistication of its equipment the size of its income or even the statistics of its productivity but the good health of the land.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating.”

391. “Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “The hill is like an old woman, all her human obligations met, who sits at work day after day, in a kind of rapt leisure, at an intricate embroidery. She has time for all things. Because she does not expect ever to be finished, she is endlessly patient with details. She perfects flower and leaf, feather and song, adorning the briefest life in great beauty as though it were meant to last forever.”

392. “The hill is like an old woman, all her human obligations met, who sits at work day after day, in a kind of rapt leisure, at an intricate embroidery. She has time for all things. Because she does not expect ever to be finished, she is endlessly patient with details. She perfects flower and leaf, feather and song, adorning the briefest life in great beauty as though it were meant to last forever.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “I see all that we have ruined in order to have, all that was owned for a lifetime to be destroyed forever. Where are the sleeps that escape such dreams?”

393. “I see all that we have ruined in order to have, all that was owned for a lifetime to be destroyed forever. Where are the sleeps that escape such dreams?”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “His home is the emblem of his status, but it is not the center of his interest or of his consciousness. The history of our time has been to a considerable extent the movement of the center of consciousness away from home.”

394. “His home is the emblem of his status, but it is not the center of his interest or of his consciousness. The history of our time has been to a considerable extent the movement of the center of consciousness away from home.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “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.”

395. “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

Wendell Berry Quote: “For want of a Pilate of their own, some Christians would accept a Constantine or whomever might be the current incarnation of Caesar.”

396. “For want of a Pilate of their own, some Christians would accept a Constantine or whomever might be the current incarnation of Caesar.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “If the white man has inflicted the wound of racism upon black men, the cost has been that he would receive the mirror image of that wound into himself. As the master, or as a member of the dominant race, he has felt little compulsion to acknowledge or speak of it; the more painful it has grown the more deeply he has hidden it within himself. But the wound is there, and is a profound disorder, as great a damage in his mind as it is in his society.”

397. “If the white man has inflicted the wound of racism upon black men, the cost has been that he would receive the mirror image of that wound into himself. As the master, or as a member of the dominant race, he has felt little compulsion to acknowledge or speak of it; the more painful it has grown the more deeply he has hidden it within himself. But the wound is there, and is a profound disorder, as great a damage in his mind as it is in his society.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “Oversimplified moral certainties – always requiring hostility, always potentially violent – isolate us from mercy, pity, peace, and love and leave us lonely and dangerous.”

398. “Oversimplified moral certainties – always requiring hostility, always potentially violent – isolate us from mercy, pity, peace, and love and leave us lonely and dangerous.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “As I have read the Gospels over the years, the belief has grown in me that Christ did not come to found an organized religion but came instead to found an unorganized one. He seems to have come to carry religion out of the temples into the fields and sheep pastures, onto the roadsides and the banks of the rivers, into the houses of sinners and publicans, into the town and the wilderness, toward the membership of all that is here. Well, you can read and see what you think.”

399. “As I have read the Gospels over the years, the belief has grown in me that Christ did not come to found an organized religion but came instead to found an unorganized one. He seems to have come to carry religion out of the temples into the fields and sheep pastures, onto the roadsides and the banks of the rivers, into the houses of sinners and publicans, into the town and the wilderness, toward the membership of all that is here. Well, you can read and see what you think.”

— Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry Quote: “That one is sometimes able, among the disturbances of the present world, to wander into some good and beautiful whereabouts of the woods, grow quiet, and come to rest is a gift, a wonder, and a kind of grace.”

400. “That one is sometimes able, among the disturbances of the present world, to wander into some good and beautiful whereabouts of the woods, grow quiet, and come to rest is a gift, a wonder, and a kind of grace.”

— Wendell Berry

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