Wendell Berry Quotes

A book might be written on the injustice of the just.

Once you open up the Pandora's box of race and gender... you're never done.

The reason for the slow progress of the world seems to lie in a single fact. Every man is born under the yoke, and grows up beneath the oppressions of his age.

There's some way in which we would prefer not to see very clearly the immense gifts and intelligence of some of the people who live in our most abject conditions. Maybe there are some things at work in deciding who gets to be society's winners and who gets to be society's losers that don't have to do with merit.

Education in this country is about how to maintain the status quo and to perpetuate racism.

In the end, glorification of splendid underdogs is nothing other than glorification of the splendid system that makes them so.

If you've ever felt oppressed on any level, there's something from 'The Wire' that you can take and identify with.

... this is a grievance society and that if you want to get into its leading edge you pretty well have to be a victim.

This is a hard job to do …. We represent the underdog, and that makes the top dogs angry.

The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own time.

I represent both the underdog and the overdog in our society.

This idea of, oh, poor little black person, oh, poor little poor person, oh, poor little woman, oh, poor little indigenous person - everybody's a poor little something! I don't try and please everybody.

I'm a long-term optimist, and I don't think the problems with our society are from being overly optimistic.

I just think the most difficult thing to displace is privilege.

Nobody really believes in equality anyway.

Privilege is the greatest enemy of right.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

Class, race, sexuality, gender and all other categories by which we categorize and dismiss each other need to be excavated from the inside.

I don't think we live in a particularly equal society.

Multiculturalism isn't about culture, it's about power.

I think in part the reason is that seeing an economy that is, in many ways, quite different from the one grows up in, helps crystallize issues: in one's own environment, one takes too much for granted, without asking why things are the way they are.

Injustice can never be stood for.

I'm far from immune to the American, perhaps historically male, prejudice toward practical and physical competence; I hope I've also considered that prejudice enough to have some distance from it.

If someone believes they are limited by their gender, race or background, they will become more limited.

Most men today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody's slavery.