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.

— Edward Abbey

Wisdom

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

— Edward Abbey

Wisdom

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.

— Edward Abbey

Wisdom

One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.

— Edward Abbey

Success

Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.

— Edward Abbey

Life

You can't study the darkness by flooding it with light.

— Edward Abbey

Wisdom

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

— Edward Abbey

Love

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

— Edward Abbey

Wisdom

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

— Edward Abbey

Education

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!

— Edward Abbey

Wisdom

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

— Edward Abbey

Wisdom

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

— Edward Abbey

Wisdom

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

— Edward Abbey

Wisdom

Civilization is a youth with a molotov cocktail in his hand. Culture is the Soviet tank or L.A. cop that guns him down.

— Edward Abbey

Wisdom

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

— Edward Abbey

Wisdom

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

— Edward Abbey

Wisdom

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

— Edward Abbey

Wisdom

When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem.

— Edward Abbey

Friendship

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

— Edward Abbey

Wisdom

What is the purpose of the giant sequoia tree? The purpose of the giant sequoia tree is to provide shade for the tiny titmouse.

— Edward Abbey

Wisdom

Grown men do not need leaders.

— Edward Abbey

Wisdom

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.

— Edward Abbey

Wisdom

Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination.

— Edward Abbey

Wisdom

That which today calls itself science gives us more and more information, and indigestible glut of information, and less and less understanding.

— Edward Abbey

Education