Edward Abbey Quotes (47 Quotes)

Grown men do not need leaders.

Money confers the power to command the labor of others. Love of money is love of power. And love of power is the root of evil.

Abbey lives Sierra Club Books recently reissued The Best of Edward Abbey, ... The Monkey Wrench Gang.

A journey into the wilderness is the freest, cheapest, most nonprivileged of pleasures. Anyone with two legs and the price of a pair of army surplus combat boots may enter.

Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.

Concrete is heavy iron is hard--but the grass will prevail.

For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. Bricks to all greenhouses! Black thumb and cutworm to the potted plant!

That which today calls itself science gives us more and more information, and indigestible glut of information, and less and less understanding.

When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem.

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

A drink a day keeps the shrink away.

The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting each other - instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.

Baseball is a slow, sluggish game, with frequent and trivial interruptions, offering the spectator many opportunities to reflect at leisure upon the situation on the field This is what a fan loves most about the game.

There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.

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

Our 'neoconservatives' are neither new nor conservative, but old as Bablyon and evil as Hell.

When the biggest, richest, glassiest buildings in town are the banks, you know that town's in trouble.

What is the purpose of the giant sequoia tree? The purpose of the giant sequoia tree is to provide shade for the tiny titmouse.

My sole literary ambition is to write one good novel, then retire to my hut in the desert, assume the lotus position, compose my mind and senses, and sink into meditation, contemplating my novel.

In the modern techno-industrial culture, it is possible to proceed from infancy into senility without ever knowing manhood

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.

Love implies anger. The man who is angered by nothing cares about nothing.

Say what you like about my bloody murderous government,' I says, 'but don't insult me poor bleedin' country.

The missionaries go forth to Christianize the savages - as if the savages weren't dangerous enough already.

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

It seems clear at last that our love for the natural worldNatureis the only means by which we can requite Gods obvious love for it.

Civilization is a youth with a molotov cocktail in his hand. Culture is the Soviet tank or L.A. cop that guns him down.

There have been some, even in the Park Service, who advocate spraying Delicate Arch with a fixative of some sort - Elmer's glue perhaps or Lady Clairol Spray Net.

Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination.

You can't study the darkness by flooding it with light.

If the end does not justify the means - what can?

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

One final paragraph of advice Do not burn yourself out. Be as I am-a reluctant enthusiast... a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it is still there. So get out there and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to your body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those deskbound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this you will outlive the bastards.

One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.

Our culture runs on coffee and gasoline, the first often tasting like the second.

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.

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.

For there is a cloud on my horizon. A small dark cloud no bigger than my hand. Its name is Progress.

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

Only a fool is astonished by the foolishness of mankind.

When the philosopher's argument becomes tedious, complicated, and opaque, it is usually a sign that he is attempting to prove as true to the intellect what is plainly false to common sense.

High technology has done us one great service It has retaught us the delight of performing simple and primordial tasks - chopping wood, building a fire, drawing water from a spring

Taxation: how the sheep are shorn.

God still sits on the throne, the devil is a liar. You may be goingthrough a tough time right now but God is getting ready to bless youin a way that only He can. Keep the faith. My instructions were topick four people that I wanted God to bless, and I picked you. Pleasepass this to at least four people you care about

Climbing K2 or floating the Grand Canyon in an inner tube; there are some things one would rather have done than do.

We are kindred all of us, ... killer and victim, predator and prey, me and the sly coyote, the soaring buzzard, the elegant gopher snake, the trembling cottontail, the foul worms that feed on our entrails, all of them, all of us.

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.