Quote

Men come and go, cities rise and fall, whole civilizations appear and disappear-the earth remains, slightly modified. The earth remains, and the heartbreaking beauty where there are no hearts to break....I sometimes choose to think, no doubt perversely, that man is a dream, thought an illusion, and only rock is real. Rock and sun.

Edward Abbey

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Edward Abbey
Age: 62 †
Born: 1927
Born: January 29
Died: 1989
Died: March 14
Author
Environmentalist
Essayist
Novelist
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Writer
Edward Paul Abbey
Sometimes
Break
Rock
Civilizations
Real
Beauty
Sun
Heartbreaking
Heart
Fall
Remains
Slightly
Men
Dream
Rocks
Appear
Think
Thought
Civilization
Disappear
Thinking
Earth
Choose
Rise
Come
Cities
Illusion
Perversely
Whole
Doubt
Hearts
Modified

More quotes by Edward Abbey

Image
How to Avoid Pleurisy: Never make love to a girl named Candy on the tailgate of a half-ton Ford pickup during a chill rain in April out on Grandview Point in San Juan County, Utah.
Edward Abbey
Image
The function of football, soccer, basketball and other passion-sports in modern industrial society is the transference of boredom, frustration, anger and rage into socially acceptable forms of combat. A temporary substitute for war for nationalism identification with something bigger than the self.
Edward Abbey
Image
All dams are ugly, but the Glen Canyon Dam is sinful ugly.
Edward Abbey
Image
As war and government prove, insanity is the most contagious of diseases.
Edward Abbey
Image
Reply to Plato: I seen horses I seen cows I haint never yet seen horsiness nor that there bovinity neither.
Edward Abbey
Image
Instant communication is not communication at all but merely a frantic, trivial, nerve-wracking bombardment of cliches, threats, fads, fashions, gibberish and advertising.
Edward Abbey
Image
Grand opera is a form of musical entertainment for people who hate music.
Edward Abbey
Image
There are two kinds of people I cannot abide: bigots and any well-organized ethnic group.
Edward Abbey
Image
Why is it that the destruction of something created by humans is called vandalism, yet the destruction of something created by God is called development?
Edward Abbey
Image
Home is where, when you have to go there, you probably shouldn't.
Edward Abbey
Image
The feminist notion that the whole of human history has been nothing but a vast intricate conspiracy by men to enslave their wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters presents us with an intellectual neurosis for which we do not yet have a name.
Edward Abbey
Image
When a writer has done the best that he can do, he should then withdraw from the book-writing business and take up an honest trade like shoe repair, cattle stealing, or screwworm management.
Edward Abbey
Image
New Yorkers like to boast that if you can survive in New York, you can survive anywhere. But if you can survive anywhere, why live in New York?
Edward Abbey
Image
The great question of life is not the question of death but the question of life. Fear of death shames us all.
Edward Abbey
Image
Generally speaking, it's a matter of only mild intellectual interest to me whether the earth goes around the sun or the sun goes around the earth. In fact, I don't care a rat's ass either way.
Edward Abbey
Image
Cold morning on Aztec Peak Fire Lookout. First, build fire in old stove. Second, start coffee. Then, heat up last night's pork chops and spinach for breakfast. Why not? And why the hell not?
Edward Abbey
Image
England has never enjoyed a genuine social revolution. Maybe that's what's wrong with that dear, tepid, vapid, insipid, stuffy, little country.
Edward Abbey
Image
J. Edgar Hoover, J. Bracken Lee, J. Parnell Thomas, J. Paul Getty -- you can always tell a shithead by that initial initial.
Edward Abbey
Image
We're all undesirable elements from somebody's point of view.
Edward Abbey
Image
In America, as elsewhere, the general irritability level keeps rising.
Edward Abbey