Edward Abbey Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Edward Abbey

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

  981 Copy quote

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

  Edward Abbey

  Inspirational, Nature, Adventure

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

  362 Copy quote

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

  Edward Abbey

  Stupid, Men, Intelligent

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

  592 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edward Abbey

  Inspirational, Loyalty, Nature

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

  163 Copy quote

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

  Edward Abbey

  Nature, Insperational, Hiking

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

  81 Copy quote

• 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?

  Edward Abbey

  Rivers, Lakes, Sea

  70 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edward Abbey

  Hate, Thinking, Air

  93 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edward Abbey

  Funny, Political, Scum

  96 Copy quote

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

  Edward Abbey

  Inspirational, Nature, Cancer

  Quoted in Reader's Digest, Jan. 1970

  98 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edward Abbey

  Dream, Artist, Self

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

  65 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edward Abbey

  Beautiful, Dream, Wall

  29 Copy quote

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

  Edward Abbey

  Ideas, Environmental, Needs

  28 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edward Abbey

  Adventure, Men, Feet

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

  11 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edward Abbey

  Horse, Real, Warrior

  27 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edward Abbey

  Gun, Government, Outlaw

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

  16 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edward Abbey

  Government, Law, Liberty

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

  20 Copy quote

• It is not the writer's task to answer questions but to question answers. To be impertinent, insolent, and, if necessary, subversive.

  Edward Abbey

  Tasks, Answers, Subversive

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.36, RosettaBooks

  4 Copy quote

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

  Edward Abbey

  Rocks, Climbing, Hiking

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

  16 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edward Abbey

  Running, Sweet, Rivers

  73 Copy quote

• I come more and more to the conclusion that wilderness, in America or anywhere else, is the only thing left that is worth saving.

  Edward Abbey

  America, Saving, Wilderness

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.46, RosettaBooks

  9 Copy quote

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

  Edward Abbey

  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.

  15 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edward Abbey

  Kings, Years, Realization

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

  69 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edward Abbey

  Beautiful, Nature, Travel

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

  18 Copy quote

• The only thing worse than a knee-jerk liberal is a knee-pad conservative.

  Edward Abbey

  Pads, Knee Jerk Reactions, Knees

  "A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto): Notes from a Secret Journal". Book by Edward Abbey, 1989.

  61 Copy quote

• If people persist in trespassing upon the grizzlies' territory, we must accept the fact that the grizzlies, from time to time, will harvest a few trespassers.

  Edward Abbey

  People, Territory, Facts

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

  30 Copy quote

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