So, friends, every day do something that won't compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it. Denounce the government and embrace the flag. Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands. Give your approval to all you cannot understand. Praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Berry urges daily acts of love, humility, and dissent, even when they seem irrational or contradictory.
- In plain terms
- Live each day with love, generosity, and willingness to challenge norms.
- What can you take from it?
- Embrace paradoxical actions to foster compassion and critical thinking.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What small actions can embody this paradoxical love?
- How do we balance dissent with constructive engagement?
Another view
The advice can be vague and hard to operationalize.
More from Wendell Berry
The poem is important, but not more than the people whose survival it serves...
Permalink to quote #59 Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.
Permalink to quote #61 Do not think me gentle because I speak in praise of gentleness, or elegant because I honor the grace that keeps this world. I am a man crude as any, gross of s…
Permalink to quote #58
Related quotes
...all earlier pluralist societies destroyed themselves because no one took care of the common good. They abounded in communities but could not sustain communi…
Peter F. DruckerPeter F. Drucker quote #4 Neither of us cares a straw for popularity. A proof of this is for example, that, because of aversion to any personality cult, I have never permitted the numer…
Karl MarxKarl Marx quote #17 Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. 'Patriotism' is its cult. It should hardly be necessary to say, that by 'patriotism' I mea…
Erich FrommErich Fromm quote #22