Edward Abbey citations

Page 3

“Whatever we cannot easily understand we call God; this saves much wear and tear on the brain tissues.”

“Why this cult of wilderness?… because we like the taste of freedom; because we like the smell of danger.”

“My own ambition, my deepest and truest ambition, is to find within myself someday, somehow, the ability to do likewise, to do NOTHING - and find it enough.”

“The missionaries go forth to Christianize the savages - as if the savages weren't dangerous enough already.”

“A house built on greed cannot long endure.”

“We know so very little about this strange planet we live on, this haunted world where all answers lead only to more mystery.”

“Love implies anger. The man who is angered by nothing cares about nothing.”

“The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.”

“As a confirmed melancholic, I can testify that the best and maybe only antidote for melancholia is action. However, like most melancholics, I suffer also from sloth.”

“I thought of the wilderness we had left behind us, open to sea and sky, joyous in its plenitude and simplicity, perfect yet vulnerable, unaware of what is coming, defended by nothing, guarded by no one.”

“Each thing in its way, when true to its own character, is equally beautiful.”

“A crude meal, no doubt, but the best of all sauces is hunger.”

“I am hopeful, though not full of hope, and the only reason I don't believe in happy endings is because I don't believe in endings.”

“Anyone not paranoid in this world must be crazy…. Speaking of paranoia, it's true that I do not know exactly who my enemies are. But that of course is exactly why I'm paranoid.”

“If industrial man continues to multiply his numbers and expand his operations he will succeed in his apparent intention, to seal himself off from the natural and isolate himself within a synthetic prison of his own making.”

“Saving the world is only a hobby. Most of the time I do nothing.”

“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.”

“The extreme clarity of the desert light is equaled by the extreme individuation of desert life forms. Love flowers best in openness and freedom.”

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

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

“If it's knowledge and wisdom you want, then seek out the company of those who do real work for an honest purpose.”

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

“We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope.”

“The rifle and handgun are 'equalizers' -- the weapons of a democracy. Tanks and bombers represent dictatorship.”

“Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless.”

“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.”

“Music clouds the intellect but clarifies the heart.”

“Capitalism: Nothing so mean could be right. Greed is the ugliest of the capital sins.”

“[Concerning river runners:] If we were going into war again I can't think of any I'd rather have on our side. I mean, all of these good men and women. And if they were on the other side I'd join the other side.”