Wise Words On The Good Life

As one of the leading twentieth-century practitioners of self-sufficient living, Helen Nearing found illumination and solace in the sayings of predecessors who had sought their own versions of "the good life." By grouping the wisdom of the ages into categories that are quirky yet eminently sensible, she brings to life the contemporary relevance of some of the most profound chroniclers of our rural heritage.

Life poses challenges and struggles for everyone, and suffering is unavoidable. But by looking to the Bibles Wisdom Books for answers, you can cope with lifes everyday problems and march down a path that leads to victory. The Old Testament books of the Bible usually classified as the Wisdom Books are Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs. These books are important because they focus on issues and obstacles that have challenged humanity for thousands of years. Studying the Wisdom Books, youll discover ways to answer the call to live a good life, the mystery of divine justice, timeless truths, moral insights, and strategies to turn troubles into triumphs. To find true wisdom, however, you must also help others. Its also important to recognize that God is the infinite source of all true wisdom. To find the good life, you must first turn to Him. Maintain a positive attitude and begin a journey that provides practical ways to help yourself, your neighbors, and all of humanity with the knowledge contained in Wisdom for the Good Life.

A lively biography of the famous homesteader and author Helen Knothe Nearing

A collection of 560 quotations on the good life, ranging from Virgil on farming, to Thoreau on poverty, to Jefferson on life, is drawn from Nearing's lifetime of research in old bookshops and rare book libraries

Helen and Scott Nearing, authors of Living the Good Life and many other bestselling books, lived together for 53 years until Scott's death at age 100. Loving and Leaving the Good Life is Helen's testimonial to their life together and to what they stood for: self-sufficiency, generosity, social justice, and peace. In 1932, after deciding it would be better to be poor in the country than in the city, Helen and Scott moved from New York Ciy to Vermont. Here they created their legendary homestead which they described in Living the Good Life: How to Live Simply and Sanely in a Troubled World, a book that has sold 250,000 copies and inspired thousands of young people to move back to the land. The Nearings moved to Maine in 1953, where they continued their hard physical work as homesteaders and their intense intellectual work promoting social justice. Thirty years later, as Scott approached his 100th birthday, he decided it was time to prepare for his death. He stopped eating, and six weeks later Helen held him and said goodbye. Loving and Leaving the Good Life is a vivid self-portrait of an independent, committed and gifted woman. It is also an eloquent statement of what it means to grow old and to face death quietly, peacefully, and in control. At 88, Helen seems content to be nearing the end of her good life. As she puts it, "To have partaken of and to have given love is the greatest of life's rewards. There seems never an end to the loving that goes on forever and ever. Loving and leaving are part of living." Helen's death in 1995 at the age of 92 marks the end of an era. Yet as Helen writes in her remarkable memoir, "When one door closes, another opens." As we search for a new understanding of the relationships between death and life, this book provides profound insights into the question of how we age and die.

Much contemporary political philosophy has been a debate between utilitarianism on the one hand and Kantian, or rights-based ethic has recently faced a growing challenge from a different direction, from a view that argues for a deeper understanding of citizenship and community than the liberal ethic allows. The writings collected in this volume present leading statements of rights-based liberalism and of the communitarian, or civic republican alternatives to that position. The principle of selection has been to shift the focus from the familiar debate between utilitarians and Kantian liberals in order to consider a more powerful challenge ot the rights-based ethic, a challenge indebted, broadly speaking, to Aristotle, Hegel, and the civic republican tradition. Contributors include Isaiah Berlin, John Rawls, Alasdair MacIntyre.