Mitchell Biggs

“There are several ways to perform almost any act - an efficient, workable, artistic way and a careless, indifferent, sloppy way. Care and artistry are worth the trouble. They can be a satisfaction to the practitioner and a joy to all beholders.”
― Helen Nearing, The Good Life: Helen and Scott Nearing's Sixty Years of Self-Sufficient Living

“Farming is a poor way to make a living, at least around here, because you have to go into factory farming to make it pay. It is the best hobby there is—only 'hobby' is too little a word. The best way of life. Not just because you learn forty different trades, and not just because you follow the seasons, but because you get to spend your whole life producing a single work of art. That is, the farm itself.”
― Noel Perrin, Third Person Rural: Further Essays of a Sometime Farmer

“Estraven stood there in harness beside me looking at that magnificent and unspeakable desolation. 'I'm glad I have lived to see this,' he said.

I have felt as he did. It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

“Walking in an ancient forest or snorkeling in a coral reef, I have felt an aliveness, a sense of many interlocking pieces clicking together into a living and dynamic whole. These are places that naturally exude abundance. Sadly, this feeling was lacking in any human-made landscape I had experienced. Natural landscapes seem so rich; they seethe with activity; they hum with life in comparison to our own. Why is it that nature can splash riotous abundance across forest or prairie with careless grace, while we humans struggle to grow a few flowers? Why do our gardens offer so little to the rest of life? Our yards seem so one-dimensional, just simple places that offer a few vegetables or flowers, if that much. Yet nature can do a thousand things at once: feed insects and birds, snakes and deer, and offer them shelter; harvest, store, and purify water; renew and enrich the soil; clean the air and scent it with perfume; and on and on.”
― Toby Hemenway, Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture