Edward Abbey Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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

  650 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

  368 Copy quote

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

  Edward Abbey

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

  989 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

  96 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

  87 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

  167 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

  75 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

  102 Copy quote

• America My Country: last nation on earth to abolish human slavery; first of all nations to drop the nuclear bomb on our fellow human beings.

  Edward Abbey

  Country, America, Slavery

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.56, RosettaBooks

  5 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

  105 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

  68 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

  31 Copy quote

• A leader leads from in front, by the power of example. A ruler pushes from behind, by means of the club, the whip, the power of fear.

  Edward Abbey

  Mean, Leader, Example

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

  29 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

  75 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edward Abbey

  Pro Life, Abortion, Want

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

  34 Copy quote

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

  Edward Abbey

  Ideas, Environmental, Needs

  28 Copy quote

• I choose to listen to the river for a while, thinking river thoughts, before joining the night and the stars.

  Edward Abbey

  Stars, Memorable, Night

  Edward Abbey (1988). “Desert Solitaire”, p.140, University of Arizona Press

  30 Copy quote

• Truth is always the enemy of power. And power the enemy of truth.

  Edward Abbey

  Enemy, Truth Is

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

  33 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

• I have been called a curmudgeon, which my obsolescent dictionary defines as a "surly, illmannered, badtempered fellow." ... Nowadays, curmudgeon is likely to refer to anyone who hates hypocrisy, cant, sham, dogmatic ideologies, the pretenses and evasions of euphemism, and has the nerve to point out unpleasant facts and takes the trouble to impale these sins on the skewer of humor and roast them over the fires of empiric fact, common sense, and native intelligence. In this nation of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, it then becomes an honor to be labeled curmudgeon.

  Edward Abbey

  Hate, Fire, Sheep

  "A Voice Crying in the Wilderness".

  73 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

  70 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

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

  Edward Abbey

  Education, Light, Illumination

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.49, RosettaBooks

  24 Copy quote

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

  Edward Abbey

  Men, Machines, Levers

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

  10 Copy quote

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

  Edward Abbey

  Peace, Real, War

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

  18 Copy quote

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