EDWARD ABBEY QUOTES II

American author (1927-1989)

The tragedy of modern war is not so much that the young men die but that they die fighting each other--instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.

EDWARD ABBEY

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

Tags: war, death


In the land of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, one brave and honest man is bound to create a scandal.

EDWARD ABBEY

Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

Tags: scandal


When the situation is hopeless, there's nothing to worry about.

EDWARD ABBEY

The Monkey Wrench Gang


There is poetry and music in our technology, a beauty as touching as that of eagle, moss campion, raven or yonder limestone boulder shining under the Arctic sun.

EDWARD ABBEY

"Gather at the River", Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside

Tags: technology


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

EDWARD ABBEY

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)

Tags: money


The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.

EDWARD ABBEY

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

Tags: wit, tyranny


Society is like a stew. If you don't keep it stirred up, you get a lot of scum on top.

EDWARD ABBEY

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

Tags: society


Nobody seems more obsessed by diet than our anti-materialist, otherworldly, New Age, spiritual types. But if the material world is merely an illusion, an honest guru should be as content with Budweiser and bratwurst as with raw carrot juice, tofu, and seaweed slime.

EDWARD ABBEY

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

Tags: diet, food


Anarchism is democracy taken seriously.

EDWARD ABBEY

One Life at a Time, Please

Tags: anarchy, democracy


We're all undesirable elements from somebody's point of view.

EDWARD ABBEY

Abbey's Road


One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothing can beat teamwork.

EDWARD ABBEY

The Monkey Wrench Gang

Tags: stupidity, teamwork


The most attractive feature of Alaska, I say, is its small, insignificant human population.

EDWARD ABBEY

Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside


A great thirst is a great joy when quenched in time.

EDWARD ABBEY

"Water", Desert Solitaire


The desert rat carries one distinction like a halo: he has learned to love the kind of country that most people find unlovable.

EDWARD ABBEY

Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside

Tags: desert


Violence, it's as American as pizza pie.

EDWARD ABBEY

The Monkey Wrench Gang

Tags: violence


Guns don't kill people; people kill people. Of course, people with guns kill more people. But that's only natural. It's hard. But it's fair.

EDWARD ABBEY

Abbey's Road

Tags: guns


What our economists call a depressed area almost always turns out to be a cleaner, freer, more livable place than most.

EDWARD ABBEY

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)


To die alone, on rock under sun at the brink of the unknown, like a wolf, like a great bird, seems to me very good fortune indeed.

EDWARD ABBEY

"The Dead Man at Grandview Point", Desert Solitaire

Tags: death


Money attracts because it gives us the means to command the labor and service and finally the lives of others--human or otherwise.

EDWARD ABBEY

The Serpents of Paradise

Tags: money


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

"Fire Lookout: Numa Ridge", The Journey Home

Tags: beauty