#inability

Many people in the world today are not starving because there is an inherent inability to produce food, they are starving because they are caught in the middle of political fights and blockades that have been used as weapons. ↗

— Ralph Merkle

#been #caught #fights #food #inability

Why does no one speak of the cultural advantages of the country? For example, is a well groomed, ecologically kept, sustainably fertile farm any less cultural, any less artful, than paintings of fat angels on church ceilings? ↗

— Gene Logsdon

#country-life #culture #farming #sustainability #art

Can we actually suppose that we are wasting, polluting, and making ugly this beautiful land for the sake of patriotism and the love of God? Perhaps some of us would like to think so, but in fact this destruction is taking place because we have allowed ourselves to believe, and to live, a mated pair of economic lies: that nothing has a value that is not assigned to it by the market; and that the economic life of our communities can safely be handed over to the great corporations. (from 'Compromise, Hell!' published in the November/December 2004 issue of ORION magazine) ↗

— Wendell Berry

#economics #lies #sustainability #beauty

That was the awakening, really; it dawned on me that this wasn't really very fair on anyone. On her. On me. On Sienna. But I wasn't willing to change anything, either. I was fiercely protective of my friendship with Sienna. I had fought for it, against my true feelings, for years. I had battled so hard to suppress my feelings, and succeeded. I could never let her go. ↗

— Jessica Thompson

#long-term-friendship #change

To reverse the effects of civilization would destroy the dreams of a lot of people. There's no way around it. We can talk all we want about sustainability, but there's a sense in which it doesn't matter that these people's dreams are based on, embedded in, intertwined with, and formed by an inherently destructive economic and social system. Their dreams are still their dreams. What right do I -- or does anyone else -- have to destroy them. At the same time, what right do they have to destroy the world? ↗

— Derrick Jensen

#ecology #economics #environment #sustainability #dreams

Learn to do common things uncommonly well; we must always keep in mind that anything that helps full the dinner pail is valuable. ↗

— George Washington Carver

#sustainability #work #food

Sustainability is a new idea to many people, and many find it hard to understand. But all over the world there are people who have entered into the exercise of imagining and bringing into being a sustainable world. They see it as a world to move toward not reluctantly, but joyfully, not with a sense of sacrifice, but a sense of adventure. A sustainable world could be very much better than the one we live in today. ↗

— Donella H. Meadows

#growth #sustainability #imagination

An inability to handle language is not the same thing as stupidity. ↗

— David Hare

#inability #language #same #stupidity #thing

Tears are the symbol of the inability of the soul to restrain its emotion and retain its self command. ↗

— Henri Frederic Amiel

#emotion #inability #restrain #retain #self

All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone. ↗

— Jean de la Bruyere

#comes #inability #our #unhappiness