Quotes from Ben Robertson

The past that Southerners are forever talking about is not a dead past--it is a chapter from the legend that our kinfolks have told us, it is a living past, living for a reason. The past is a part of the present, it is a comfort, a guide, a lesson.

It is a great comfort to a rambling people to know that somewhere there is a permanent home--perhaps it is the most final of the comforts they ever really know.

It was not the goal that really concerned us, the journey was the thing. Who ever reaches any goal? From what journey can we return? We know of the poverty about us, of the work and worry, but we know of a degree of freedom, of a stunted beauty. We have warm open days and sunshine in Carolina. Much is denied us. But we have, we have. And an attitude is more powerful than any circumstance.

We have been told to ask about everything: Will it leave us free?

My kinfolks thought more about character than about culture. They said culture could be acquired but character had to be formed. Character had to be hammered into shape like hot iron on an anvil. It had to be molded in the most exact and unrelenting form.

It is defeat that lives on and takes the years to smother.

The South we belong to is a good country, a valiant country; it always has valor, and it has had industry and thrift. Our house is painted, our grass is green. For those of us who bend our backs and put our shoulders to to the wheel, the South is still Canaan land; it is milk and honey.

Time and again they have told us we are obligated, we have our duty, we must be willing to fight against whatever it is that threatens. We have been told to ask about everything: Will it leave us free?

Like most Southerners, I visit battlefields. Southerners will visit almost any battlefield anywhere, but we are especially fond of the Civil War scenes because we know who fought where and how they did their fighting.

We also planted trees - it became a hobby, for we had discovered what a satisfaction it can be to watch a tree grow and develop. Sometimes a tree will turn out better than any of a man's children, and a tree will endure - its life will outlast our life.

My parents did not care whether I saw an opera or understood a statue; all that could be considered in time, in the future, for operas and statues belonged to urban culture, and my kinfolks said any person with any kind of background could acquire a city civilization, but that few city people could ever learn the culture of a rural country.