"Christian theology: nothing so grotesque could possibly be true."
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Quote collection
Edward Abbey quotes (page 24 of 33)
653 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Industrial tourism is a threat to the national parks. But the chief victims of the system are the motorized tourists. They are being robbed and robbing themselves. So long as they are unwilling to crawl out of their cars they will not discover the treasures of the national parks and will never escape the stress and turmoil of the urban-suburban complexes which they had hoped, presumably, to leave behind for a while."
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"Spartacus, like Jesus, was also crucified by the Romans. And for equally good reasons."
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"The rifle and handgun are 'equalizers' -- the weapons of a democracy. Tanks and bombers represent dictatorship."
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"For this world that men have made, none of us is bad enough. For the world that made us, none is good enough."
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"Once upon a time, I dreamed of becoming a great man. Later, a good man. Now, finally, I find it difficult enough and honor enough to be -- a man."
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"I, too, believe in fidelity. But how can I be true to one woman without being false to all the others?"
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"Motherhood is an essential, difficult, and full-time job. Women who do not wish to be mothers should not have babies."
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"Girls: I never wanted them all. Just all the ones I wanted."
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"Poor Dimitri Shostakovich: In the Soviet Union, he was condemned as being too radical; in the West, for being too conservative. He could please no one but the musical public. He revenged himself on both by writing a short piece called 'March of the Soviet Police.'"
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"When the biggest, richest, glassiest buildings in town are the banks, you know that town's in trouble."
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"The artist in our time has two chief responsibilities: (1) art; and (2) sedition."
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"The New Age orgy: The flesh was willing but the spirit's weak."
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"We need wilderness because we are wild animals. Everyone needs a place where he can go to go crazy in peace. For the terror, freedom, and delirium. Because we need brutality and raw adventure, because men and women first learned to love in, under, and all around trees, because we need for every pair of feet and legs about ten leagues of naked nature, crags to leap from, mountains to measure by, deserts to finally die in when the heart fails."
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"Through logic and inference we can prove anything. Therefore, logic and inference, in contrast to ordinary daily living experience, are secondary instruments of knowledge. Probably tertiary."
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"I have written much about many good places. But the best places of all, I have never mentioned."
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"Belief in God? An afterlife? I believe in rock: this apodictic rock beneath my feet."
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"Cowboys make better lovers: Ask any cow."
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"The most common form of terrorism in the U.S.A. is that carried on by bulldozers and chainsaws. It is not enough to understand the natural world; the point is to defend and preserve it. Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul."
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"The world is full of burled and gnarly knobs on which you can hang a metaphysical system. If you must."
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