The only true and effective "operator's manual for spaceship earth" is not a book that any human will ever write; it is hundreds of thousands of local cultures.

An agrarian mind begins with the love of fields and ramifies in good farming, good cooking & good eating

There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.

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.

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.

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

If we are to have a culture as resilient and competent in the face of necessity as it needs to be, then it must somehow involve within itself a ceremonious generosity toward the wilderness of natural force and instinct. The farm must yield a place to the forest, not as a wood lot, or even as a necessary agricultural principle but as a sacred grove - a place where the Creation is let alone, to serve as instruction, example, refuge; a place for people to go, free of work and presumption, to let themselves alone. (pg. 125, The Body and the Earth)