Edward Abbey Quotes

1927–1989 United States

Edward Paul Abbey (29 January 1927 – 14 March 1989) was an American writer noted for his advocacy of environmental issues and criticism of public land policies.

United States
Anarchists
Environmentalists
Essayists
Novelists

Also known as: Abbey, Edward

Random Edward Abbey quote

93 quotes

Our culture runs on coffee and gasoline, the first often tasting like the second.

Down the River (1982)

I come more and more to the conclusion that wilderness, in America or anywhere else, is the only thing left that is worth saving.

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

'A pessimist is simply an optimist in full possession of the facts.'

Hayduke Lives (1990)

'There is no situation so bad that the cops can't make it worse.'

Hayduke Lives (1990)

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.

Abbey's Road in In Defense of the Redneck (1979)

The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

High technology has done us one great service: It has retaught us the delight of performing simple and primordial tasks—chopping wood, building a fire, drawing water from a spring.

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

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

Love can defeat that nameless terror. Loving one another, we take the sting from death. Loving our mysterious blue planet, we resolve riddles and dissolve all enigmas in contingent bliss.

Down the River (1982)

This is the most beautiful place on earth.
There are many such places. Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary.

Desert Solitaire (1968)

Counterpart to the knee-jerk liberal is the new knee-pad conservative, always groveling before the rich and powerful.

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

One wishes to go on. On this great river one could glide forever — and here we discover the definition of bliss, salvation, Heaven, all the old Mediterranean dreams: a journey from wonder to wonder, drifting through eternity into ever-deeper, always changing grandeur, through beauty continually surpassing itself: the ultimate Homeric voyage.

The Journey Home (1977)

What's more American than violence?" Hayduke wanted to know. "Violence, it's as American as pizza pie.

The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975)

What's the difference between a whore and a congressman? A congressman makes more money.

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

The "Terror" of the French Revolution lasted for ten years. The terror that preceded and led to it lasted for a thousand years.

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

The only thing worse than a knee-jerk liberal is a knee-pad conservative.

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

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

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

Knowing now what we have learned, unless the need were urgent, I could no more sink the blade of an ax into the tissues of a living tree than I could drive it into the flesh of a fellow human.

The Journey Home (1977)

No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets.

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

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 home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need — if only we had the eyes to see.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Edward Abbey (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.