Berry, Wendell -- The Unforeseen Wilderness: An Essay on Kentucky’s Red River Gorge, ch. 2 “The One-Inch Journey” (1971)

Dave — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 15:44:34 +0000

But there is another form that life can take. We can learn about it from exceptional people of our own culture, and from other cultures less destructive than ours. I am speaking of the life of a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children; who has undertaken to cherish it and do it no damage, not because he is duty-bound, but because he loves the world and loves his children; whose work serves the earth he lives on and from and with, and is therefore pleasurable and meaningful and unending; whose rewards are not deferred until “retirement,” but arrive daily and seasonally out of the details of the life of his place; whose goal is the continuance of the life of the world, which for a while animates and contains him, and which he knows he can never encompass with his understanding or desire.

Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
The Unforeseen Wilderness: An Essay on Kentucky’s Red River Gorge, ch. 2 “The One-Inch Journey” (1971)
(Source)

In the quotation above is embedded "the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children," which appears to be the modern origin of a wide array of quotations to that effect.

The chapter was reprinted as "The One-Inch Journey" in Audubon magazine (1971-05).

The basic phrase and variants first achieved popularity in the early 1970s, showing up in a variety of forms (and often attributed to J. J. Audubon himself). Among those variants:

We have not inherited the land from our fathers, we have borrowed it from our children.
We have not inherited the earth from our fathers and are hence entitled to use it according to our wishes. We have rather borrowed it from our children ...
The world is not given by his fathers but borrowed from his children.
We don’t inherit the earth from our fathers, we borrow it from our children.
We have not inherited the earth from our fathers, we are borrowing it from our children.
We have not inherited the earth from our parents, we have borrowed it from our children.
We have not inherited the land from our parents, we are borrowing it from our children.
We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
We did not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrowed it from our descendants.
We did not inherit our future from our ancestors, we have borrowed it from our children..

Those variants, and more discussion about the origins of this quotation, can be found at: Quote Origin: We Do Not Inherit the Earth from Our Ancestors; We Borrow It from Our Children – Quote Investigator®.

Note that in the 1991 edition, the passage in question is omitted in the re-edit:

But there is another form that life can take. We can learn about it from exceptional people of our own culture, and from other cultures less destructive than ours. I am speaking of the lives of people who have undertaken to cherish the world and do it no damage, not because they are duty-bound, but because they love the world and love their children; whose work serves the earth they live on and from and with, and is therefore pleasurable and meaningful and unending; whose rewards are not deferred until “retirement,” but arrive daily and seasonally out of the details of the life of their place; whose goal is the continuance of the life of the world, which for a while animates and contains them, and which they know they can never encompass with their understanding or desire.

WIST Quotations

Berry, Wendell -- The Unforeseen Wilderness: An Essay on Kentucky’s Red River Gorge, ch. 2 “The One-Inch Journey” (1971)