Edward Abbey Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Taxation: how the sheep are shorn.

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

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

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

A drink a day keeps the shrink away.

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

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

Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination.

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

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

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!

Grown men do not need leaders.

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

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

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

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

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