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The true, unacknowledged purpose of capital punishment is to inspire fear and awe -- fear and awe of the State.

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
Punishment
Inspire
State
Purpose
Fear
True
Unacknowledged
States
Awe
Capital

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We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope.
Edward Abbey
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A giant thirst is a great joy when quenched in time.
Edward Abbey
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Opera: I like it, except for all those howling sopranos and caterwauling tenors. (Why can't tenors sing like men?)
Edward Abbey
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Our contemporary Tories prefer the term 'ordered liberty' to 'freedom'. The word 'freedom' scares them it has too much of a paleolithic ring to it.
Edward Abbey
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King Arthur and his armored goons of the Round Table functioned as the Politburo of a slave state: Camelot. Of all who have written on the Matter of Arthur, from Malory to White, only Mark Twain understood this. But Mark Twain was a great writer.
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An empty man is full of himself.
Edward Abbey
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One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothing can beat teamwork.
Edward Abbey
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A leader leads from in front, by the power of example. A ruler pushes from behind, by means of the club, the whip, the power of fear.
Edward Abbey
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This is the most beautiful place on Earth. There are many such places. Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary.
Edward Abbey
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Humankind will not be free until the last Kremlin commissar is strangled with the entrails of the last Pentagon chief of staff.
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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A rancher is a farmer who farms the public lands with a herd of four-legged lawn mowers.
Edward Abbey
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Each thing in its way, when true to its own character, is equally beautiful. (p 41)
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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It is not death or dying that is tragic, but rather to have existed without fully participating in life- that is the deepest personal tragedy.
Edward Abbey
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Abolition of a woman's right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.
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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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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Most of what we call the classics of world literature suggest artifacts in a wax museum. We have to hire and pay professors to get them read and talked about.
Edward Abbey
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Running the big rapids is like sex: half the fun lies in the anticipation. Two thirds of the thrill with the approach. The remainder is only ecstasy-or darkness.
Edward Abbey