Quotes by Edward Abbey

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”

“The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting each other - instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.”

“Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.”

“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit”

“The missionaries go forth to Christianize the savages - as if the savages werent dangerous enough already”

“Society is like a stew. If you dont stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.”

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

“A drink a day keeps the shrink away”

“There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.”

“One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there aint nothin can beat teamwork.”

“Our neoconservatives are neither new nor conservative, but old as Babylon and evil as Hell”

“Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.”

“If the end does not justify the means - what can?”

“Climbing K2 or floating the Grand Canyon in an inner tube. There are some things one would rather have done than do.”

“As one went to Europe to see the living past, so one must visit Southern California to observe the future.”

“Whatever starts in California unfortunately has an inclination to spread.”

“One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourself 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. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it is still there. So get out there and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to your body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those deskbound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards.”

“When the philosophers argument becomes tedious, complicated, and opaque, it is usually a sign that he is attempting to prove as true to the intellect what is plainly false to common sense”

“For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. Bricks to all greenhouses! Black thumb and cutworm to the potted plant!”

“Taxation: how the sheep are shorn”