Edward Abbey Quotes

“A drink a day keeps the shrink away.”

“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”

“A venturesome minority will always be eager to set off on their own, and no obstacles should be placed in their path; let them take risks, for godsake, let them get lost, sunburnt, stranded, drowned, eaten by bears, buried alive under avalanches ? that is the right and privilege of any free American.”

“Abolition of a woman's right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.”

“Anarchism is democracy taken seriously.”

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

“Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.”

“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.”

“Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.”

“Freedom begins between the ears.”

“How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your Tee Vee; kill your own beef; build your own cabin and piss off the front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it.”

“I am not an atheist but an earthiest. Be true to the earth.”

“I am pleased enough with the surfaces – in fact they alone seem to me to be of much importance. Such things for example as the grasp of a child's hand in your own, the flavor of an apple, the embrace of a friend or lover, the silk of a girl's thigh, the sunlight on the rock and leaves, the feel of music, the bark of a tree, the abrasion of granite and sand, the plunge of clear water into a pool, the face of the wind – what else is there? What else do we need?”

“I stand for what I stand on.”

“If people persist in trespassing upon the grizzlies' territory, we must accept the fact that the grizzlies, from time to time, will harvest a few trespassers.”

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

“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.”

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

“Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.”

“Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.”

“The best thing about graduating from the university was that I finally had time to sit on a log and read a good book.”

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

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”

“The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.”

“The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only paradise we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need, if only we had the eyes to see.”

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

“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. Life is already too short to waste on speed.

I have a friend who's always in a hurry; he never gets anywhere. Walking makes the world much bigger and thus more interesting. You have time to observe the details. The utopian technologists foresee a future for us in which distance is annihilated. To be everywhere at once is to be nowhere forever, if you ask me.”

“There is beauty, heartbreaking beauty, everywhere.”

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

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