Gene Logsdon Quotes & Sayings

As a working definition of art, I lean toward Tolstoy's: "Art is a human activity having for it's purpose the transmission to other of the highest and best feelings to which mankind has risen." It seems to me that, regarding agrarian art, the farther it moves away from the natural world, especially when the main goal is money profits, the more difficult it becomes for it to reflect "the highest and best feelings" of humanity. The same is true of, of course, of agriculture itself. The farther it tries to remove itself from nature in search of money, the more it moves away from the highest and healthiest kinds of food. — Gene Logsdon

Sustainable farms are to today's headlong rush toward global destruction what the monasteries were to the Dark Ages: places to preserve human skills and crafts until some semblance of common sense and common purpose returns to the public mind. — Gene Logsdon

A log cabin symbolized the embrace between civilization and nature, humans literally wrapping the trees around them as they might draw on a coat and hat. — Gene Logsdon

Small is not beautiful unless small is skilled and dedicated. — Gene Logsdon

Why does no one speak of the cultural advantages of the country? For example, is a well groomed, ecologically kept, sustainably fertile farm any less cultural, any less artful, than paintings of fat angels on church ceilings? — Gene Logsdon

Curiously, only in sports do we agree to eschew technological advances, making rules, for example, to limit the power potential of baseball bats. We understand that technology will ruin our games, but we do not understand that it can also ruin cultures. — Gene Logsdon

When alchemists first learned how to distill spirits, they called it aqua vitae, the water of life, and far from considering it the work of the devil, they thought the discovery was divinely inspired. — Gene Logsdon

I don't know of a better argument in favor of farming with horses than trying to start an old tractor in the winter time. — Gene Logsdon