"When a man must be afraid to drink freely from his country's river and streams that country is no longer fit to live in."
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Quote collection
Edward Abbey quotes (page 9 of 33)
653 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"There's nothing so obscene and depressing as an American Christmas."
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"Simply because humankind have the power now to meddle or 'manage' or 'exercise stewardship' in every nook and cranny of the world does not mean that we have a right to do so. Even less, the obligation."
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"Men come and go, cities rise and fall, whole civilizations appear and disappear-the earth remains, slightly modified. The earth remains, and the heartbreaking beauty where there are no hearts to break....I sometimes choose to think, no doubt perversely, that man is a dream, thought an illusion, and only rock is real. Rock and sun."
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"No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets."
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"Jane Austen: Getting into her books is like getting in bed with a cadaver. Something vital is lacking; namely, life."
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"I would never betray a friend to serve a cause. Never reject a friend to help an institution. Great nations may fall in ruin before I would sell a friend to save them."
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"A critic is to an author as a fungus to an oak."
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"Within minutes my 115-mile walk through the desert hills becomes a thing apart, a disjunct reality on the far side of a bottomless abyss, immediately beyond physical recollection.But it's all still there in my heart and soul. The walk, the hills, the sky, the solitary pain and pleasure-they will grow larger, sweeter, lovelier in the days to come, like a treasure found and then, voluntarily, surrendered. Returned to the mountains with my blessing. It leaves a golden glowing on the mind."
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"A city man is a home anywhere, for all big cities are much alike. But a country man has a place where he belongs, where he always returns, and where, when the time comes, he is willing to die."
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"Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience."
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"Recorded history is largely an account of the crimes and disasters committed by banal little men at the levers of imperial machines."
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"All governments need enemies. How else to justify their existence?"
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"As war and government prove, insanity is the most contagious of diseases."
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"The missionaries go forth to Christianize the savages - as if the savages weren't dangerous enough already."
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"I know my own nation best. That's why I despise it the most. And know and love my own people, too, the swine. I'm a patriot. A dangerous man."
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"I suppose each of us has his own fantasy of how he wants to die. I would like to go out in a blaze of glory, myself, or maybe simply disappear someday, far out in the heart of the wilderness I love, all by myself, alone with the Universe and whatever God may happen to be looking on. Disappear - and never return. That's my fantasy."
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"I come more and more to the conclusion that wilderness, in America or anywhere else, is the only thing left that is worth saving."
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"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."
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"What good is a Bill of Rights that does not include the right to play, to wander, to explore, the right to stillness and solitude, to discovery and physical freedom?"
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