American author (1927-1989)
I try to think of a favorite among my arid-country flowers. But I love them all. How could we be true to one without being false to all the others?
EDWARD ABBEY
Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside
The earth will survive our most ingenious folly.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Shadows from the Big Woods", The Journey Home
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.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Walking", The Journey Home
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
Where life is there is death, reasons the vulture, and where there's death there's hope.
EDWARD ABBEY
One Life at a Time, Please
I love your letters. How far is that from saying I love you? Well--about a mile. Two miles.
EDWARD ABBEY
The Serpents of Paradise
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
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
God is a sound people make when they're too tired to think anymore.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
Let us hope our weapons are never needed -- but do not forget what the common people of this nation knew when they demanded the Bill of Rights: An armed citizenry is the first defense, the best defense, and the final defense against tyranny.
EDWARD ABBEY
Abbey's Road
When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
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
Violence, it's as American as pizza pie.
EDWARD ABBEY
The Monkey Wrench Gang
No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
Each thing in its way, when true to its own character, is equally beautiful.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Cliffrose and Bayonets", Desert Solitaire
Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am -- a reluctant enthusiast ... a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure.
EDWARD ABBEY
attributed, Saving Nature's Legacy
The city itself swung slowly toward us silent as a dream. No sign of life but puffs of steam from skyscraper chimneys, the motion of the traffic. The mighty towers stood like tombstones in a graveyard, leaning against the sky and waiting for -- for what? Someday we'll know.
EDWARD ABBEY
"Manhattan Twilight, Hoboken Night", The Journey Home
Capitalism: Nothing so mean could be right. Greed is the ugliest of the capital sins.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
Man the Pest, multiplied to the swarming stage, is attacking the remaining forests like a plague of locusts on a field of grain.
EDWARD ABBEY
"The Crooked Wood", The Journey Home
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