--- title: "1 Ill health Quotes By Wendell Berry" description: "1 Ill health quotes by Wendell Berry. Plus more from Wendell Berry and more Ill health sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ec2/wendell-berry-236_character_we-are-dealing-then-with-an-absurdity-th_3060927.jpg" --- > [“We are dealing, then, with an absurdity that is not a quirk or an accident, but is fundamental to our character as people. The split between what we think and what we do is profound. It is not just possible,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wendell-berry/we-are-dealing-then-with-an-absurdity-that-is-not-a-quirk-or-an/) [Wendell Berry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wendell-berry/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ec2/wendell-berry-236_character_we-are-dealing-then-with-an-absurdity-th_3060927.jpg) ## More by Wendell Berry > [During the last 17 years... I have been working at the restoration of a once exhausted hillside. Its scars are now healed over, though…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wendell-berry/during-the-last-17-years-i-have-been-working-at-the-restoration-of-a/) [Wendell Berry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wendell-berry/) > [Like the water of a deep stream, love is always too much. We did not make it. Though we drink till we burst, we…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wendell-berry/like-the-water-of-a-deep-stream-love-is-always-too-much-we-did-not/) [Wendell Berry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wendell-berry/) > [To husband is to use with care, to keep, to save, to make last, to conserve. Old usage tells us that there is a…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wendell-berry/to-husband-is-to-use-with-care-to-keep-to-save-to-make-last-to/) [Wendell Berry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wendell-berry/) > [“The two families, sundered in the ruin of a friendship, were united again first in new friendship and then in mariage. My grandfather made…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wendell-berry/the-two-families-sundered-in-the-ruin-of-a-friendship-were-united/) [Wendell Berry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wendell-berry/) > [The living can't quit living because the world has turned terrible and people they love and need are killed. They can't because they don't.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wendell-berry/the-living-can-t-quit-living-because-the-world-has-turned-terrible/) [Wendell Berry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wendell-berry/) > [“I knew a man who, in the age of chain-saws, went right on cutting his wood with a handsaw and an axe. He was…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wendell-berry/i-knew-a-man-who-in-the-age-of-chain-saws-went-right-on-cutting-his/) [Wendell Berry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wendell-berry/) > [“The concept of country, homeland, dwelling place becomes simplified as "the environment" -- that is, what surrounds us, we have already made a profound…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wendell-berry/the-concept-of-country-homeland-dwelling-place-becomes-simplified-as/) [Wendell Berry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wendell-berry/) > [A community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared, and that the people who share the place define…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wendell-berry/a-community-is-the-mental-and-spiritual-condition-of-knowing-that-the/) [Wendell Berry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wendell-berry/) > [“That we can prescribe the terms of our own success, that we can live outside or in ignorance of the Great Economy are the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wendell-berry/that-we-can-prescribe-the-terms-of-our-own-success-that-we-can-live/) [Wendell Berry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wendell-berry/) > [“The mind that comes to rest is tended In ways that it cannot intend: Is borne, preserved, and comprehended By what it cannot comprehend.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wendell-berry/the-mind-that-comes-to-rest-is-tended-in-ways-that-it-cannot-intend/) [Wendell Berry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wendell-berry/) > [The mercy of the world is time. Time does not stop for love, but it does not stop for death and grief, either.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wendell-berry/the-mercy-of-the-world-is-time-time-does-not-stop-for-love-but-it/) [Wendell Berry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wendell-berry/) > [The soil is the great connector of our lives, the source and destination of all.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wendell-berry/the-soil-is-the-great-connector-of-our-lives-the-source-and/) [Wendell Berry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wendell-berry/) > [I dislike the thought that some animal has been made miserable to feed me. If I am going to eat meat, I want it…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wendell-berry/i-dislike-the-thought-that-some-animal-has-been-made-miserable-to/) [Wendell Berry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wendell-berry/) > [Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wendell-berry/laughter-is-immeasurable-be-joyful/) [Wendell Berry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wendell-berry/) > [These are people who are capable of devotion, public devotion, to justice. They meant what they said and every day that passes, they mean…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wendell-berry/these-are-people-who-are-capable-of-devotion-public-devotion-to/) [Wendell Berry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wendell-berry/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/ill-health/wendell-berry/#itemlist", "name": "1 Ill health Quotes By Wendell Berry", "numberOfItems": 1, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“We are dealing, then, with an absurdity that is not a quirk or an accident, but is fundamental to our character as people. The split between what we think and what we do is profound. It is not just possible, it is altogether to be expected, that our society would produce conservationists who invest in strip-mining companies, just as it must inevitably produce asthmatic executives whose industries pollute the air and vice-presidents of pesticide corporations whose children are dying of cancer. And these people will tell you that this is the way the \"real world\" works. The will pride themselves on their sacrifices for \"our standard of living.\" They will call themselves \"practical men\" and \"hardheaded realists.\" And they will have their justifications in abundance from intellectuals, college professors, clergymen, politicians. The viciousness of a mentality that can look complacently upon disease as \"part of the cost\" would be obvious to any child. But this is the \"realism\" of millions of modern adults. There is no use pretending that the contradiction between what we think or say and what we do is a limited phenomenon. There is no group of the extra-intelligent or extra-concerned or extra-virtuous that is exempt. I cannot think of any American whom I know or have heard of, who is not contributing in some way to destruction. The reason is simple: to live undestructively in an economy that is overwhelmingly destructive would require of any one of us, or of any small group of us, a great deal more work than we have yet been able to do. How could we divorce ourselves completely and yet responsibly from the technologies and powers that are destroying our planet? The answer is not yet thinkable, and it will not be thinkable for some time -- even though there are now groups and families and persons everywhere in the country who have begun the labor of thinking it. And so we are by no means divided, or readily divisible, into environmental saints and sinners. But there are legitimate distinctions that need to be made. These are distinctions of degree and of consciousness. Some people are less destructive than others, and some are more conscious of their destructiveness than others. For some, their involvement in pollution, soil depletion, strip-mining, deforestation, industrial and commercial waste is simply a \"practical\" compromise, a necessary \"reality,\" the price of modern comfort and convenience. For others, this list of involvements is an agenda for thought and work that will produce remedies. People who thus set their lives against destruction have necessarily confronted in themselves the absurdity that they have recognized in their society. They have first observed the tendency of modern organizations to perform in opposition to their stated purposes. They have seen governments that exploit and oppress the people they are sworn to serve and protect, medical procedures that produce ill health, schools that preserve ignorance, methods of transportation that, as Ivan Illich says, have 'created more distances than they... bridge.' And they have seen that these public absurdities are, and can be, no more than the aggregate result of private absurdities; the corruption of community has its source in the corruption of character. This realization has become the typical moral crisis of our time. Once our personal connection to what is wrong becomes clear, then we have to choose: we can go on as before, recognizing our dishonesty and living with it the best we can, or we can begin the effort to change the way we think and live.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Wendell Berry" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wendell-berry/we-are-dealing-then-with-an-absurdity-that-is-not-a-quirk-or-an/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ec2/wendell-berry-236_character_we-are-dealing-then-with-an-absurdity-th_3060927.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ec2/wendell-berry-236_character_we-are-dealing-then-with-an-absurdity-th_3060927.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ec2/wendell-berry-236_character_we-are-dealing-then-with-an-absurdity-th_3060927.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“We are dealing, then, with an absurdity that is not a quirk or an accident, but is fundamental to our…” — Wendell Berry", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } } ] }, { "@type": "CollectionPage", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/ill-health/wendell-berry/#webpage", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/ill-health/wendell-berry/", "name": "Ill health Quotes by Wendell Berry", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/ill-health/wendell-berry/#itemlist" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ec2/wendell-berry-236_character_we-are-dealing-then-with-an-absurdity-th_3060927.jpg" }, "description": "1 Ill health quotes by Wendell Berry. Plus more from Wendell Berry and more Ill health sayings from other authors.", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/ill-health/wendell-berry/#breadcrumb" } }, { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/ill-health/wendell-berry/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://sms4smile.com/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Quotes", "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Topics", "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/categories/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Ill Health", "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/ill-health/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 5, "name": "Wendell Berry", "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/ill-health/wendell-berry/" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website", "name": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/", "publisher": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } }, { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization", "name": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/themes/sq/assets/icons/icon-512.png", "width": 512, "height": 512 } } ] } ```