Rural Wisdom Quotes

I had heard my father say that he never knew a piece of land run away or break.

Whatever position we may rise to, be it of MP, CM or PM, nothing can teach us the way villages can.

There is an old saying: if a man comes home with sand in his cuffs and cockleburs in his pants, don't ask him what he shot.

Every farm woodland, in addition to yielding lumber, fuel and posts, should provide its owner a liberal education. This crop of wisdom never fails, but it is not always harvested.

Not only do I recommend Wendell Berry to anyone who will talk to me for more than seven seconds, but I buy his books in quantity and send them to people. I bought a few dozen of his newest, "Our Only World."

I grew up on a farm and my grandfather quit school when he was 12, but when it came to common sense and animals, he was the smartest person I've ever met, before or since. He taught me that to touch an animal is an earned privilege. It's not a right.

They say somebody's 'street smart.' I feel like, if I got intelligence, it's just a country smart.

That man, the king of vacations... the king of vacations in his ranch said nothing but, you have to flee, and didn't say how... that cowboy, the cowboy mentality.

Never answer a question from a farmer.

My philosophy is simple: It's a down-home, common, horse-sense approach to things.

The wisest man I ever knew in my whole life could not read or write. At four o'clock in the morning, when the promise of a new day still lingered over French lands, he got up from his pallet and left for the fields, taking to pasture the half-dozen pigs whose fertility nourished him and his wife.

What people don't understand about Sarah Palin is that she is a rancher's wife. From Alberta down to Texas I've known women like that: good common sense, bright and vilified by city people.

Country people give me more than writers, and country places than towns.

There's an intelligent redneck in all of us somewhere.

Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.

I may not be a polished politician, but as a lifelong farmer, I know that most problems can be solved with a little common sense.

My mother always told me the best way to learn to deal with a man was to learn to ride a mule. She said they have about equal brains most of the time. Sometimes the mule is smarter.

A farmer's got to be born, same as a fool. You can't make a corn pone out of flour dough by the twistin' of it.

From purest wells of English undefiled None deeper drank than he, the New World's Child, Who in the language of their farm field spoke The wit and wisdom of New England folk.