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As war and government prove, insanity is the most contagious of diseases.

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
Insanity
Disease
Prove
Liberty
War
Government
Contagious
Diseases

More quotes by Edward Abbey

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It is not the writer's task to answer questions but to question answers. To be impertinent, insolent, and, if necessary, subversive.
Edward Abbey
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A good writer must have more than vin rosé in his veins, use more than Chablis for ink.
Edward Abbey
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Why the critics, like a flock of ducks, always move in perfect unison: Their authority with the public depends upon an appearance of unanimous agreement. One dissenting voice would shatter the whole fragile structure.
Edward Abbey
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Why do I write? I write to entertain my friends and to exasperate our enemies. To unfold the folded lie, to record to truth of our time, and, of course, to promote esthetic bliss.
Edward Abbey
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I am delighted, one more time, by the daring of my species and the audacity of our flying machines. There is poetry and music in our technology, a beauty as touching as that of eagle, moss campion, raven or yonder limestone boulder shining under the Arctic sun.
Edward Abbey
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Chastity is more a state of mind than of anatomy.
Edward Abbey
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Nothing can excel a few days in jail for giving a young man or woman a quick education in the basis of industrial society.
Edward Abbey
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The author: an imaginary person who writes real books.
Edward Abbey
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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
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The death penalty would be even more effective, as a deterrent, if we executed a few innocent people more often.
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
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How did Haydn and Mozart produce such vast quantities of formally perfect art? They worked from a perfect formula. In music, Beethoven was the Great Emancipator.
Edward Abbey
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Wealth should come like manna from heaven, unearned and uncalled for. Money should be like grace -- a gift. It is not worth sweating and scheming for.
Edward Abbey
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Nearly all of Latin America, from Chile to Mexico, is one long rack of torture. Financed, equipped, and refined by the U.S. government.
Edward Abbey
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A rancher is a farmer who farms the public lands with a herd of four-legged lawn mowers.
Edward Abbey
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Put the park rangers to work. Lazy scheming loafers, they've wasted too many years selling tickets at toll booths and sitting behind desks filling out charts and tables
Edward Abbey
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There's nothing so obscene and depressing as an American Christmas.
Edward Abbey
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If the world is irrational, we can never know it -- either it or its irrationality.
Edward Abbey
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I took the other road, all right, but only because it was the easy road for me, the way I wanted to go. If I've encountered some unnecessary resistance that's because most of the traffic is going the other way.
Edward Abbey
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Why this cult of wilderness?... because we like the taste of freedom because we like the smell of danger.
Edward Abbey