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Edward Abbey Quotes

All Quotes Adventure Age Anarchy Appearance Army Art Atheism Atheist Beer Belief Business Challenges Character Children Coffee Common Sense Communication Country Critics Culture Democracy Desire Doubt Duty Dying Earth Evil Fate Fear Football Freedom Fun Funny Giving Grace Greed Growth Guru Hate Heart Heaven Hell Home Honor Human Nature Ideology Inspirational Jesus Journey Joy Laughter Liberty Life Love Lying Madness Metaphysics Military Nature Pain Passion Peace Philosophy Police Positive Pride Purpose Rain Reading Reality Regret Revolution Revolver Risk Running School Seven Silence Simplicity Sin Solitude Soul Sports Study Stupidity Suffering Survival Taxes Technology Terrorism Theology Tragedy Travel Virtue Waiting Wall Water Wilderness Wit Writing

The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.

The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.

Inspirational, Funny, Life

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.

Inspirational, Nature, Adventure

Edward Abbey (1988). “Desert Solitaire”, p.12, University of Arizona Press

The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyong reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only paradise we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need, if only we had the eyes to see.

Inspirational, Loyalty, Nature

Edward Abbey (1988). “Desert Solitaire”, p.147, University of Arizona Press

To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious. But the stupid have an answer for every question.

Stupid, Men, Intelligent

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.28, RosettaBooks

Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.

Nature, Insperational, Hiking

Edward Abbey (1968). “Desert Solitaire”, p.169, Simon and Schuster

Why is it that the destruction of something created by humans is called vandalism, yet the destruction of something created by God is called development?

Rivers, Lakes, Sea

The one thing ... that is truly ugly is the climate of hate and intimidation, created by a noisy few, which makes the decent majority reluctant to air in public their views on anything controversial. ... Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all.

Hate, Thinking, Air

Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.

Funny, Political, Scum

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.

Inspirational, Nature, Cancer

Quoted in Reader's Digest, Jan. 1970

The feminist notion that the whole of human history has been nothing but a vast intricate conspiracy by men to enslave their wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters presents us with an intellectual neurosis for which we do not yet have a name.

Daughter, Mother, Men

May your rivers flow without end... down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs... where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you-beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.

Beautiful, Dream, Wall

If America could be, once again, a nation of self-reliant farmers, craftsmen, hunters, ranchers, and artists, then the rich would have little power to dominate others. Neither to serve nor to rule: That was the American dream.

Dream, Artist, Self

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.22, RosettaBooks

A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles.

Adventure, Men, Feet

Edward Abbey (1988). “Desert Solitaire”, p.51, University of Arizona Press

The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.

Ideas, Environmental, Needs

This is the most beautiful place on Earth. There are many such places. Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary.

Beautiful, Nature, Travel

Edward Abbey (1988). “Desert Solitaire”, p.1, University of Arizona Press

The real work of men was hunting meat. The invention of agriculture was a giant step in the wrong direction, leading to serfdom, cities, and empire. From a race of hunters, artists, warriors, and tamers of horses, we degraded ourselves to what we are now: clerks, functionaries, laborers, entertainers, processors of information.

Horse, Real, Warrior

Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic....So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space.

Running, Sweet, Rivers

Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.

Kings, Years, Realization

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.18, RosettaBooks

Government: If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

Government, Law, Liberty

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.20, RosettaBooks

When guns are outlawed, only the Government will have guns. The Government - and a few outlaws. If that happens, you can count me among the outlaws.

Gun, Government, Outlaw

Edward Abbey (2006). “Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast”

There is no force more potent in the modern world than stupidity fueled by greed.

Stupidity, Greed, World

"A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto): Notes from a Secret Journal". Book by Edward Abbey (Chapter 11 "Money Et Cetera", p. 100), 1989.

In the American Southwest, I began a lifelong love affair with a pile of rock.

Rocks, Climbing, Hiking

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.47, RosettaBooks

The longest journey begins with a single step, not with a turn of the ignition key.

Journey, Keys, Hiking

I’m tired of doing what I don’t want to do to live the way I don’t want to live.

Tired, Want, Way

An empty man is full of himself.

Men, Empty

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.28, RosettaBooks

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