A change of heart or of values without a practice is only another pointless luxury of a passively consumptive way of life.

There are lots of bad things that can happen to a food economy that's both extensive and centralized. There's no substitute for petroleum. To have a growth economy based on a declining fuel supply is bound to be stressful.

This new war, like the previous one, would be a test of the power of machines against people and places; whatever its causes and justifications, it would make the world worse. This was true of that new war, and it has been true of every new war since... I knew too that this new war was not even new but was only the old one come again. And what caused it? It was caused, I thought, by people failing to love one another, failing to love their enemies.

Under the pavement the dirt is dreaming of grass.

It is the man who can think of no alternative to his enslavement who is truly a slave.

An economy genuinely local and neighborly offers to localities a measure of security that they cannot derive from a national or a global economy controlled by people who, by principle, have no local commitment.

Eating is an agricultural act. Eating ends the annual drama of the food economy that begins with planting and birth. Most eaters, however, are no longer aware that this is true. They think of food as an agricultural product, perhaps, but they do not think of themselves as participants in agriculture. They think of themselves as 'consumers.'