Standing by Words: The essays of Wendell Berry

This is one of my favorite books, I'll share a few excerpts: The elaborations of elegance are at least as fascinating, and more various, more democratic, more healthy, more practical—though less glamorous—than elaborations of power. (p.51) The “informed decision,” I suggest, is as fantastical a creature as the “disinterested third party” and the “objective observer.” (p.66) One’s work may be defined in part by one’s visions, but it is defined in part too by problems, which the work leads to and reveals. (p.70) The impulse to sing is natural, but language and the forms of song are not. (p.94) It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work and that when we no longer know which way to go we have begun our real journey. (p.97) Reason is good only insofar as it serves good and is subordinate to it. (p. 138) Nothing is meaningful or valuable alone; to assign meaning and value to anything alone is, I believe, what used to be understood as “idolatry.” (p.181)