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Edward Abbey Quotes - Page 3

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

Representative government has broken down. Our politicians represent not the people who vote for them but the commercial interests who finance their election campaigns. We have the best politicians that money can buy.

Representative government has broken down. Our politicians represent not the people who vote for them but the commercial interests who finance their election campaigns. We have the best politicians that money can buy.

Government, People, Broken

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

Recorded history is largely an account of the crimes and disasters committed by banal little men at the levers of imperial machines.

Men, Machines, Levers

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.19, RosettaBooks

Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.

Truth, Delusion, Comfortable

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.13, RosettaBooks

The most common form of terrorism in the U.S.A. is that carried on by bulldozers and chain saws.

Saws, Common, Terrorism

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.53, RosettaBooks

How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your Tee Vee; kill your own beef; build your own cabin and piss off the front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it.

Beer, Beef, Cabins

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.21, RosettaBooks

Life is too short for grief. Or regret. Or bullshit.

Life, Regret, Grief

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

Abolition of a woman's right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.

Pro Life, Abortion, Want

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.44, RosettaBooks

Why do I live in the desert? Because the desert is the *locus Dei*.

Desert

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.10, RosettaBooks

Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.

Power, Anarchy, Worst

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.21, RosettaBooks

I am not an atheist but an earthiest. Be true to the earth.

Atheist, Earth, Being True

Edward Abbey (1968). “Desert Solitaire”, p.184, Simon and Schuster

A drink a day keeps the shrink away.

Drinking, Beer, Drunk

Edward Abbey, R. Crumb (1985). “The Monkey Wrench Gang”, p.127, Dream Garden Press

The earth, like the sun, like the air, belongs to everyone - and to no one.

Nature, Air, Earth

"The Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West". Book by Edward Abbey ("Come On In", p. 88), 1977.

All governments need enemies. How else to justify their existence?

Government, Enemy, Needs

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

Under the desert sun, in the dogmatic clarity, the fables of theology and the myths of classical philosophy dissolve like mist. The air is clean, the rock cuts cruelly into flesh; shatter the rock and the odor of flint rises to your nostrils, bitter and sharp. Whirlwinds dance across the salt flats, a pillar of dust by day; the thornbush breaks into flame at night. What does it mean? It means nothing. It is as it is and has no need for meaning. The desert lies beneath and soars beyond any possible human qualification. Therefore, sublime.

Philosophy, Lying, Mean

We can have wilderness without freedom; we can have wilderness without human life at all, but we cannot have freedom without wilderness, we cannot have freedom without leagues of open space beyond the cities, where boys and girls, men and women, can live at least part of their lives under no control but their own desires and abilities, free from any and all direct administration by their fellow men.

Girl, Boys, Men

Liberty cannot be guaranteed by law. Nor by any thing else except the resolution of free citizens to defend their liberties.

Law, Liberty, Citizens

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

How strange and wonderful is our home, our earth, with its swirling vaporous atmosphere, its flowing and frozen liquids, its trembling plants, its creeping, crawling, climbing creatures, the croaking things with wings that hang on rocks and soar through the fog, the furry grass, the scaly seas.

Home, Rocks, Fog

Edward Abbey (1954). “Slumgullion stew: an Edward Abbey reader”, E P Dutton

May your trails be dim, lonesome, stony, narrow, winding and only slightly uphill. May the wind bring rain for the slickrock potholes fourteen miles on the other side of yonder blue ridge. May God's dog serenade your campfire, may the rattlesnake and the screech owl amuse your reverie, may the Great Sun dazzle your eyes by day and the Great Bear watch over you by night.

Dog, Rain, Eye

"Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside". Book by Edward Abbey ("Preface" (dated October 1983), pp. 16-17), 1984.

Football is a game for trained apes. That, in fact, is what most of the players are -- retarded gorillas wearing helmets and uniforms. The only thing more debased is the surrounding mob of drunken monkeys howling the gorillas on.

Football, Player, Games

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.38, RosettaBooks

Strolling on, it seems to me that the strangeness and wonder of existence are emphasized here, in the desert, by the comparative sparsity of the flora and fauna: life not crowded upon life as in other places but scattered abroad in spareness and simplicity, with a generous gift of space for each herb and bush and tree, each stem of grass, so that the living organism stands out bold and brave and vivid against the lifeless sand and barren rock. The extreme clarity of the desert light is equaled by the extreme individuation of desert life-forms. Love flowers best in openness and freedom.

Flower, Space, Light

Edward Abbey (1988). “Desert Solitaire”, p.26, University of Arizona Press

Why this cult of wilderness?... because we like the taste of freedom; because we like the smell of danger.

Smell, Taste, Wilderness

Edward Abbey (1984). “Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside”, p.59, Macmillan

Life is too tragic for sadness: Let us rejoice.

Sadness, Life Is, Tragic

Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.26, RosettaBooks

Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience.

Philosophy, Buddhism, Common Sense

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

Be loyal to what you love, be true to the earth, fight your enemies with passion and laughter.

Love, Marriage, Laughter

Edward Abbey, David Petersen (2003). “Confessions of a Barbarian: Selections from the Journals of Edward Abbey”, p.381, Big Earth Publishing

Walking takes longer... than any other known form of locomotion except crawling. Thus it stretches time and prolongs life. Life is already too short to waste on speed.

Life, Native American, Hiking

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