Fire and Knowledge

[Huck’s voice] is not Mark Twain’s voice. It is the voice, we can only say, of a great genius named Huckleberry Finn, who inhabited a somewhat lesser genius named Mark Twain, who inhabited a frustrated businessman named Samuel Clemens.

–Wendell Berry, “Writer and Region” in What Are People For? (1990), p. 73.

The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

–Bertrand Russell

Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion–several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight.

–Mark Twain

The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn’t induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead. And if the second sentence doesn’t induce him to continue to the third sentence, it’s equally dead. Of such a progression of sentences, each tugging the reader forward until he is hooked, a writer constructs that fateful unit, the “lead.”

–William Zinsser, On Writing Well, p. 55.

Most stories about miraculous events are probably false: if it comes to that, most stories about natural events are false. Lies, exaggerations, misunderstandings and hearsay make up perhaps more than half of all that is said and written in the world.

–C. S. Lewis, Miracles (1947, revised in 1960), p. 159.

Most of the outstanding leaders I have worked with are neither tall nor especially handsome; they are often mediocre public speakers; they do not stand out in a crowd; and they do not mesmerize an attending audience with their brilliance or eloquence. Rather, what distinguishes them is a clarity and persuasiveness of their ideas, the depth of their commitment, and their openness to continually learning more. They do not “have the answer.” But they do instill confidence in those around them that, together, “we can learn whatever we need to learn in order to achieve the results we truly desire.”

The ability of such people to be natural leaders, as near as I can tell, is the by-product of a lifetime of effort—effort to develop conceptual and communication skills, to reflect personal values and to align personal behavior with values, to learn how to listen and to appreciate others and others’ ideas. In the absence of such effort, personal charisma is style without substance. It leaves those affected less able to think for themselves and less able to make wise choices. It can devastate an organization or a society.

–Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990), p. 359.

Were the walls of the meat industry to become transparent, literally or even figuratively, we would not long continue to raise, kill, and eat animals the way we do. Tail docking and sow crates and beak clipping would disappear overnight, and the days of slaughtering four hundred head of cattle an hour would promptly come to an end—for who could stand the sight? Yes, meat would get more expensive. We’d probably eat a lot less of it, too, but maybe when we did eat animals we’d eat them with the consciousness, ceremony, and respect they deserve.

–Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006), p. 333

Wendell Berry discuses (52:34) why he believes science will not give us a complete account of everything.