Quotable: Trust

From the novel Remembering by Wendell Berry:

"And it required trust. He sees it now. What he and Flora have made of the Hartford place has depended all on trust. They have not made it what it might be - how many lives will it require for that? - but they have made it far more than what it was when they came to it. In twelve years they have given it a use and a life; a beauty has come to it that is its answer to their love for it and their work; and it has given them a life that belonged to them even before they knew they wanted it. And all has depended on trust. How could he have forgotten?

His life has never rested on anything he has known beforehand - none of it. He chose it before he knew it, and again afterwards. And then he failed his trust and his choice, and now has chosen again, again on trust. He has made again the choice he has made before, as blindly as before. How could he have thought that it would be different? How could he have imagined that he might ever know enough to choose? As Flora has seemed to have known and never doubted, as he sees, one
cannot know enough to trust. To trust is simply to give oneself; the giving is for the future, for which there is no evidence. And once given, the self cannot be taken back, whatever the evidence."