Edward Abbey

Edward Abbey

"We are preoccupied with time. If we could learn to love space as deeply as we are now obsessed with time, we might discover a new meaning in the phrase 'to live like men."
49 Quotes
"We are preoccupied with time. If we could learn to love space as deeply as we are now obsessed with time, we might discover a new meaning in the phrase 'to live like men."
Edward Abbey
"If a man's imagination were not so weak, so easily tired, if his capacity for wonder not so limited, he would abandon forever such fantasies of the supernal. He would learn to perceive in water, leaves and silence more than sufficient of the absolute and marvelous, more than enough to console him for the loss of the ancient dreams."
Edward Abbey
"All we have, it seems to me, is the beauty of art and nature and life, and the love which that beauty inspires."
Edward Abbey The Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West
"You can't study the darkness by flooding it with light."
Edward Abbey The Best of Edward Abbey
"My loyalties will not be bound by national borders, or confined in time by one nation's history, or limited in the spiritual dimension by one language and culture. I pledge my allegiance to the damned human race, and my everlasting love to the green hills of Earth, and my intimations of glory to the singing stars, to the very end of space and time."
Edward Abbey Confessions of a Barbarian: Selections from the Journals of Edward Abbey
"Water, water, water... There is no shortage of water in the desert but exactly the right amount , a perfect ratio of water to rock, water to sand, insuring that wide free open, generous spacing among plants and animals, homes and towns and cities, which makes the arid West so different from any other part of the nation. There is no lack of water here unless you try to establish a city where no city should be."
Edward Abbey Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness
"The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond 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."
Edward Abbey
"A man could be a lover and defender of the wilderness without ever in his lifetime leaving the boundaries of asphalt, powerlines, and right-angled surfaces. We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to set foot in it. We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope; without it the life of the cities would drive all men into crime or drugs or psychoanalysis."
Edward Abbey Desert Solitaire
"Where all think alike there is little danger of innovation."
Edward Abbey Desert Solitaire
"Hard times are a-coming, and people without useful, practical skills are going to suffer. Or suffer most."
Edward Abbey Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast
"And if the computer gives you any back talk, pour some well-sugared office coffee into its evil little silicon brain."
Edward Abbey Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast
"To the Technocrats: Have mercy on us. Relax a bit, take time out for simple pleasures. For example, the luxuries of electricity, indoor plumbing, central heating, instant electronic communication and such, have taught me to relearn and enjoy the basic human satisfactions of dipping water from a cold clear mountain stream; of building a wood fire in a cast-iron stove; of using long winter nights for making music, making things, making love; of writing long letters, in longhand with a fountain pen, to the few people on this earth I truly care about."
Edward Abbey Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast
"Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others."
Edward Abbey
"“A man could be a lover and defender of the wilderness without ever in his lifetime leaving the boundaries of asphalt, powerlines, and right-angled surfaces. We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to set foot in it. We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope; without it the life of the cities would drive all men into crime or drugs or psychoanalysis.”"
Edward Abbey Desert Solitaire
"One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork."
Edward Abbey
"Love implies anger. The man who is angered by nothing cares about nothing."
Edward Abbey
"When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem."
Edward Abbey
"There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California."
Edward Abbey
"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!"
Edward Abbey
"Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit."
Edward Abbey
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