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Charity should be spontaneous. Calculated altruism is an affront.

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
Charity
Affront
Calculated
Altruism
Spontaneous

More quotes by Edward Abbey

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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!
Edward Abbey
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We judge individual man and women as we do nations and races -- by the character of their achievement and by their achievement of character.
Edward Abbey
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Men have never loved one another much, for reasons we can readily understand: Man is not a lovable animal.
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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In America, as elsewhere, the general irritability level keeps rising.
Edward Abbey
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Girls: I never wanted them all. Just all the ones I wanted.
Edward Abbey
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A society that feels itself too poor to afford the preservation of wilderness is not worthy of the name civilization.
Edward Abbey
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Music clouds the intellect but clarifies the heart.
Edward Abbey
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A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles.
Edward Abbey
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All forms of government are pernicious, including good government.
Edward Abbey
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I intend to be good for the rest of my natural life -- if I live that long.
Edward Abbey
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Lightning streaks like gunfire through the clouds, volleys of thunder shake the air.
Edward Abbey
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Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.
Edward Abbey
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High technology has done us one great service: It has retaught us the delight of performing simple and primordial tasks - chopping wood, building a fire, drawing water from a spring
Edward Abbey
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Beware of your wishes: They will probably come true.
Edward Abbey
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To be alive is to take risks to be always safe and secure is death.
Edward Abbey
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A good philosopher is one who does not take ideas seriously.
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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In the end, for all our differences and conflicts, most women and men share the same food, work, shelter, bed, life, joy, anguish, and fate. We need each other.
Edward Abbey
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The highest treason, the meanest treason, is to deny the holiness of this little blue planet on which we journey through the cold void of space.
Edward Abbey