Edward Abbey Quotes - Page 26

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• Nature, like Maimonides said, is mainly a good place to throw beer cans on Sunday afternoons.

  Edward Abbey

  Beer, Sunday, Afternoon

  "A Voice Crying in the Wilderness".

  4 Copy quote

• Roosters: The cry of the male chicken is the most barbaric yawp in all of nature.

  Edward Abbey

  Males, Roosters, Cry

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

  13 Copy quote

• The basic science is not physics or mathematics but biology -- the study of life. We must learn to think both logically and bio-logically.

  Edward Abbey

  Thinking, Study, Physics

  6 Copy quote

• Wealth should come like manna from heaven, unearned and uncalled for. Money should be like grace -- a gift. It is not worth sweating and scheming for.

  Edward Abbey

  Heaven, Grace, Wealth

  4 Copy quote

• I'm a humanist; I'd rather kill a man than a snake.

  Edward Abbey

  Men, Snakes, Humanist

  Edward Abbey (1968). “Desert Solitaire”, p.17, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• I'd sooner exchange ideas with the birds on earth than learn to carry on intergalactic communications with some obscure race of humanoids on a satellite planet from the world of Betelgeuse.

  Edward Abbey

  Communication, Race, Ideas

  Edward Abbey (1988). “Desert Solitaire”, p.7, University of Arizona Press

  4 Copy quote

• Put the park rangers to work. Lazy scheming loafers, they've wasted too many years selling tickets at toll booths and sitting behind desks filling out charts and tables

  Edward Abbey

  Years, Lazy, Sitting

  Edward Abbey (1988). “Desert Solitaire”, p.52, University of Arizona Press

  9 Copy quote

• The majority of American writers today have chosen passive non-resistance to things as they are, producing sloughs of poetry about their personal angst and anomie, cascades of short stories and rivers of novels obsessed with the nuances of domestic relationships - suburban hanky-panky - chic boutique shopping mall literary soap opera. When they do speak out on matters of controversy they attack not the evils of our time but fellow writers who may insist on complaining.

  Edward Abbey

  Speaks Out, Shopping, Rivers

  Edward Abbey (1988). “One Life at a Time, Please”, p.172, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• Suicide: Don't knock it if you ain't tried it.

  Edward Abbey

  Suicide, Ifs

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.24, RosettaBooks

  4 Copy quote

• A crowded society is a restrictive society; an overcrowded society becomes an authoritarian, repressive and murderous society.

  Edward Abbey

  Crowded

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

  4 Copy quote

• I now find the most marvelous things in the everyday, the ordinary, the common, the simple and tangible.

  Edward Abbey

  Simple, Everyday, Ordinary

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

  5 Copy quote

• A true libertarian supports free enterprise, opposes big business; supports local self-government, opposes the nation-state; supports the National Rifle Association, opposes the Pentagon.

  Edward Abbey

  Business, Government, Self

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

  7 Copy quote

• Phoenix, Arizona: an oasis of ugliness in the midst of a beautiful wasteland.

  Edward Abbey

  Beautiful, Oasis, Phoenix

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.51, RosettaBooks

  4 Copy quote

• My Aunt Ida at age eighty-three: 'Yeah,' she said, 'I'll be dead pretty soon. And frankly, I don't give a damn.'

  Edward Abbey

  Aunt, Giving, Age

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.27, RosettaBooks

  4 Copy quote

• The great question of life is not the question of death but the question of life. Fear of death shames us all.

  Edward Abbey

  Life Is, Shame, Fear Of Death

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.27, RosettaBooks

  4 Copy quote

• James Joyce buried himself in his great work. _Finnegan's Wake_ is his monument and his tombstone. A dead end.

  Edward Abbey

  Tombstone, Great Work, Dead Ends

  4 Copy quote

• Going to bed with Gertrude Stein, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Susan Sontag, or Margaret Thatcher: There are some things one prefers neither to do nor to have done.

  Edward Abbey

  Bed, Gertrude, Done

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

  4 Copy quote

• Those art lovers who pride themselves mostly on *taste* usually possess no other talent.

  Edward Abbey

  Art, Pride, Taste

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

  4 Copy quote

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

  Edward Abbey

  Towns, Trouble, Building

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.51, RosettaBooks

  4 Copy quote

• The result of this bestial lust is an indiscriminate and promiscuous splaying of all of my energies- wanting all, I accomplish nothing; desiring everything, I satisfy nothing and am satisfied by nothing.

  Edward Abbey

  Accomplish Nothing, Lust, Energy

  Edward Abbey, David Petersen (2003). “Confessions of a Barbarian: Selections from the Journals of Edward Abbey”, p.84, Big Earth Publishing

  4 Copy quote

• Among politicians and businessmen, *Pragmatism* is the current term for 'To hell with our children.'

  Edward Abbey

  Children, Future, Hell

  4 Copy quote

• The knowledge that refuge is available, when and if needed, makes the silent inferno of the desert more easily bearable. Mountains complement desert as desert complements city, as wilderness complements and completes civilization.

  Edward Abbey

  Nature, Civilization, Cities

  Edward Abbey (1968). “Desert Solitaire”, p.129, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• I understand and sympathize with the reasonable needs of a reasonable number of people on a finite continent. All life depends upon other life. But what is happening today, in North America, is not rational use but irrational massacre. Man the Pest, multiplied to the swarming stage, is attacking the remaining forests like a plague of locusts on a field of grain.

  Edward Abbey

  Men, Numbers, America

  "The Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West". Book by Edward Abbey ("The Crooked Wood", p. 208), 1977.

  6 Copy quote

• Appearance versus reality? Appearance is reality, God damn it!

  Edward Abbey

  Reality, Appearance, Damn

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.11, RosettaBooks

  4 Copy quote

• The canyon country does not always inspire love. To many it appears barren, hostile, repellent - a fearsome mostly waterless land of rock and heat, sand dunes and quicksand, cactus, thornbrush, scorpion, rattlesnake, and agaraphobic distances. To those who see our land in that manner, the best reply is, yes, you are right, it is a dangerous and terrible place. Enter at your own risk. Carry water. Avoid the noonday sun. Try to ignore the vultures. Pray frequently.

  Edward Abbey

  Country, Distance, Land

  129 Copy quote

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