Quote

When the philosopher's argument becomes tedious, complicated, and opaque, it is usually a sign that he is attempting to prove as true to the intellect what is plainly false to common sense.

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
Usually
Philosopher
Becomes
Sign
Common
False
Fear
Intellect
Opaque
Sense
Complicated
Plainly
True
Argument
Tedious
Atheism
Attempting
Prove
Rage

More quotes by Edward Abbey

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The more fantastic an ideology or theology, the more fanatic its adherents.
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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I would not sacrifice a single living mesquite tree for any book ever written. One square mile of living desert is worth a hundred 'great books' - and one brave deed is worth a thousand.
Edward Abbey
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A cowboy is a farm boy in leather britches and a comical hat.
Edward Abbey
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My notion of a great novel is something like a five-hundred-page shaggy-dog story, with only the punch line omitted.
Edward Abbey
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The ever-rising cost of living: Someday soon, the corporate technicians will be locking meters on our noses and charging us a royalty on the air we breathe.
Edward Abbey
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Might does not make right but it sure makes what is.
Edward Abbey
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If a man’s imagination were not so weak, so easily tired, if his capacity for wonder not so limited, he would abandon forever such fantasies of the supernal. He would learn to perceive in water, leaves and silence more than sufficient of the absolute and marvelous, more than enough to console him for the loss of the ancient dream.
Edward Abbey
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I've never yet read a review of one of my own books that I couldn't have written much better myself.
Edward Abbey
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Wilderness begins in the human mind.
Edward Abbey
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Where all think alike there is little danger of innovation.
Edward Abbey
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I would prefer to write about everything what else is there? But one must be selective.
Edward Abbey
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Love implies anger. The man who is angered by nothing cares about nothing.
Edward Abbey
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It may be true that my desk here is really 'nothing but' a transient eddy of electrons in the flux of universal process. Nevertheless, I find that it continues to support my feet, my revolver, and my cigars all day long. What happens when my back is turned I don't know. Or much care. That's no concern of mine.
Edward Abbey
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Belief? What do I believe in? I believe in sun. In rock. In the dogma of the sun and the doctrine of the rock. I believe in blood, fire, woman, rivers, eagles, storm, drums, flutes, banjos, and broom-tailed horses.
Edward Abbey
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Our “neoconservatives” are neither new nor conservative, but old as Babylon and evil as Hell.
Edward Abbey
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Simplicity is always a virtue.
Edward Abbey
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The ideal society can be described, quite simply, as that in which no man has the power of means to coerce others.
Edward Abbey
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All governments require enemy governments.
Edward Abbey
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We are preoccupied with time. If we could learn to love space as deeply as we are now obsessed with time, we might discover a new meaning in the phrase to live like men.
Edward Abbey