"There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California."
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Quote collection
Edward Abbey quotes (page 2 of 33)
653 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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?"
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"Strolling on, it seems to me that the strangeness and wonder of existence are emphasized here, in the desert, by the comparative sparsity of the flora and fauna: life not crowded upon life as in other places but scattered abroad in spareness and simplicity, with a generous gift of space for each herb and bush and tree, each stem of grass, so that the living organism stands out bold and brave and vivid against the lifeless sand and barren rock. The extreme clarity of the desert light is equaled by the extreme individuation of desert life-forms. Love flowers best in openness and freedom."
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"The only thing worse than a knee-jerk liberal is a knee-pad conservative."
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"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."
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"The ideal society can be described, quite simply, as that in which no man has the power of means to coerce others."
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"If the end does not justify the means - what can?"
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"Trout fishing. One must be a stickler for proper form. Use nothing but #4 blasting caps, or a hand grenade, if handy, or at a pool well-lined with stone, one blast from a .44 magnum will bring a few stunned brookies quietly to the surface."
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"Life is too short for grief. Or regret. Or bullshit."
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"How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your Tee Vee; kill your own beef; build your own cabin and piss off the front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it."
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"There are some good things to be said about walking. Not many, but some. Walking takes longer, for example, than any other known form of locomotion except crawling. Thus it stretches time and prolongs life. Life is already too short to waste on speed. I have a friend who's always in a hurry; he never gets anywhere. Walking makes the world much bigger and thus more interesting. You have time to observe the details. The utopian technologists foresee a future for us in which distance is annihilated... To be everywhere at once is to be nowhere forever, if you ask me."
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"In the dog-eat-dog economy, the Doberman is boss."
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"May your trails be dim, lonesome, stony, narrow, winding and only slightly uphill. May the wind bring rain for the slickrock potholes fourteen miles on the other side of yonder blue ridge. May God's dog serenade your campfire, may the rattlesnake and the screech owl amuse your reverie, may the Great Sun dazzle your eyes by day and the Great Bear watch over you by night."
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"To meet God or Medusa face to face, even if it means risking everything human in myself. I dream of a hard and brutal mysticism in which the naked self merges with the nonhuman world and yet somehow survives still intact individual, separate. Paradox and bedrock."
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"I’m tired of doing what I don’t want to do to live the way I don’t want to live."
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"A world without huge regions of total wilderness would be a cage; a world without lions and tigers and vultures and snakes and elk and bison would be - will be - a human zoo. A high-tech slum."
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"Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best."
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"Truth is always the enemy of power. And power the enemy of truth."
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"Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul."
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"Only the half-mad are wholly alive."
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