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I love America because it is a confused, chaotic mess - and I hope we can keep it this way for at least another thousand years. The permissive society is the free society.

Edward Abbey

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Edward Abbey
Age: 62 †
Born: 1927
Born: January 29
Died: 1989
Died: March 14
Author
Environmentalist
Essayist
Novelist
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Writer
Edward Paul Abbey
Another
Confused
America
Mess
Years
Thousand
Way
Least
Love
Society
Free
Hope
Permissive
Keep
Chaotic

More quotes by Edward Abbey

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The artist's job? To be a miracle worker: make the blind see, the dull feel, the dead to live.
Edward Abbey
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Charity should be spontaneous. Calculated altruism is an affront.
Edward Abbey
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Why administrators are respected and schoolteachers are not: An administrator is paid a lot for doing very little, while a teacher is paid very little for doing a lot.
Edward Abbey
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You can't study the darkness by flooding it with light.
Edward Abbey
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Jane Austen: Getting into her books is like getting in bed with a cadaver. Something vital is lacking namely, life.
Edward Abbey
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The only thing worse than a knee-jerk liberal is a knee-pad conservative.
Edward Abbey
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Tofu and futons. The adepts of Orientalism seem to spend most of their lives reclining. They can't quite summon the energy to crawl up onto a chair. Even their Yogic exercises are carried out in a prone or sitting position.
Edward Abbey
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Where all think alike there is little danger of innovation.
Edward Abbey
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If America could be, once again, a nation of self-reliant farmers, craftsmen, hunters, ranchers, and artists, then the rich would have little power to dominate others. Neither to serve nor to rule: That was the American dream.
Edward Abbey
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I am my brother's keeper, says the chickenshit liberal. Perhaps he does not realize that he now has more than 2 1/2 billion brothers.
Edward Abbey
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The industrial corporation is the natural enemy of nature.
Edward Abbey
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Government should be weak, amateurish and ridiculous. At present, it fulfills only a third of the role.
Edward Abbey
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All governments require enemy governments.
Edward Abbey
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Only the half-mad are wholly alive.
Edward Abbey
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Once upon a time, I dreamed of becoming a great man. Later, a good man. Now, finally, I find it difficult enough and honor enough to be -- a man.
Edward Abbey
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A man's duty? To be ready -- with rifle or rood -- to defend his home when the showdown comes.
Edward Abbey
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Who needs astrology? The wise man gets by on fortune cookies.
Edward Abbey
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Trout fishing. One must be a stickler for proper form. Use nothing but #4 blasting caps, or a hand grenade, if handy, or at a pool well-lined with stone, one blast from a .44 magnum will bring a few stunned brookies quietly to the surface.
Edward Abbey
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Little boys love machines girls adore horses grown-up men and women like to walk.
Edward Abbey
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Whenever I see a photograph of some sportsman grinning over his kill, I am always impressed by the striking moral and esthetic superiority of the dead animal to the live one.
Edward Abbey