Beware the machinery of longevity. When a man's life is over the decent thing is for him to die. The forest does not withhold itself from death. What it gives up it takes back.

Some nights in the midst of this loneliness I swung among the scattered stars at the end of the thin thread of faith alone.

We have made it our overriding ambition to escape work, and as a consequence have debased work until it is only fit to escape from. We have debased the products of work and have been, in turn, debased by them. (pg. 43, "The Unsettling of America")

A good community insures itself by trust, by good faith and good will, by mutual help. A good community, in other words, is a good local economy.

We have become blind to the alternatives to violence.

The passive American consumer, sitting down to a meal of pre-prepared food, confronts inert, anonymous substances that have been processed, dyed, breaded, sauced, gravied, ground, pulped, strained, blended, prettified, and sanitized beyond resemblance to any part of any creature that ever lived. The products of nature and agriculture have been made, to all appearances, the products of industry. Both eater and eaten are thus in exile from biological reality.

We need better government, no doubt about it. But we also need better minds, better friendships, better marriages, better communities.