We have neglected the truth that a good farmer is a craftsman of the highest order, a kind of artist.

The more artificial a human environment becomes, the more the word ‘natural’ becomes a term of value.

But love, sooner or later, forces us out of time...of all that we feel and do, all the virtues and all the sins, love alone crowds us at last over the edge of the world. For love is always more than a little strange here...It is in the world, but is not altogether of it. It is of eternity. It takes us there when it most holds us here.

The primary motive for good care and good use of the land-community is always going to be affection, which is too often lacking.

We're living, it seems, in the culmination of a long warfare - warfare against human beings, other creatures and the Earth itself.

The world is whole beyond human knowing.

I lack the peace of simple things. I am never wholly in place. I find no peace or grace. We sell the world to buy fire, our way lighted by burning men.