Matthew Livermore

“All of nature, therefore, is good, since the Creator of all nature is supremely good. But nature is not supremely and immutably good as is the Creator of it. Thus the good in created things can be diminished and augmented. For good to be diminished is evil; still, however much it is diminished, something must remain of its original nature as long as it exists at all. For no matter what kind or however insignificant a thing may be, the good which is its 'nature' cannot be destroyed without the thing itself being destroyed. There is good reason, therefore, to praise an uncorrupted thing, and if it were indeed an incorruptible thing which could not be destroyed, it would doubtless be all the more worthy of praise. When, however, a thing is corrupted, its corruption is an evil because it is, by just so much, a privation of the good. Where there is no privation of the good, there is no evil. Where there is evil, there is a corresponding diminution of the good. As long, then, as a thing is being corrupted, there is good in it of which it is being deprived; and in this process, if something of its being remains that cannot be further corrupted, this will then be an incorruptible entity [natura incorruptibilis], and to this great good it will have come through the process of corruption. But even if the corruption is not arrested, it still does not cease having some good of which it cannot be further deprived. If, however, the corruption comes to be total and entire, there is no good left either, because it is no longer an entity at all. Wherefore corruption cannot consume the good without also consuming the thing itself. Every actual entity [natura] is therefore good; a greater good if it cannot be corrupted, a lesser good if it can be. Yet only the foolish and unknowing can deny that it is still good even when corrupted. Whenever a thing is consumed by corruption, not even the corruption remains, for it is nothing in itself, having no subsistent being in which to exist.”
― Augustine of Hippo

“The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“...nor do I want to suggest that the Amish are perfect people or that their way of life is perfect. What I want to recommend are some Amish principles:
1) They have preserved their families and communities.
2) They have maintained the practices of neighbourhood.
3) They have maintained the domestic arts of kitchen and garden, household and homestead.
4) They have limited their use of technology so as not to displace or alienate available human labour or available free source of power (the sun, wind, water, and so on).
5) They have their farms to a scale that is compatible both with the practice of neighborhood and with the optimum use of low-power technology.
6) By the practices and limits already mentioned, they have limited their costs.
7) They have educated their children to live at home and serve their communities.
8) They esteem farming as both a practical art and a spiritual discipline.

These principles define a world to be lived by human beings, not a world to be exploited by managers, stockholders, and experts.”
― Wendell Berry, Bringing it to the Table: On Farming and Food

“Another way to take all of this in is to consider the problem of the one and the many. Some ancient philosophers argued that all being is one. Opposing this, others taught that reality is an irreducible multitude, that being is necessarily many. Aristotle gave a solution so elegant it shines with truth: transcendent Being is One, and it is through participation in the One that being is enjoyed by the many, each in their multifarious ways.”
― James Mawdsley, Adam's Deep Sleep: The Passion of Jesus Christ Prefigured in the Old Testament