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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
Purpose
Fear
True
Unacknowledged
States
Awe
Capital
Punishment
Inspire
State

More quotes by Edward Abbey

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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.
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Each thing in its way, when true to its own character, is equally beautiful. (p 41)
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One single act of defiance against power, against the State that seems omnipotent but is not, transforms and transfigures the human personality. At least for a time. For a while. Perhaps that is enough.
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What our economists call a depressed area almost always turns out to be a cleaner, freer, more livable place than most.
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If the world is irrational, we can never know it -- either it or its irrationality.
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What is reason? Knowledge informed by sympathy, intelligence in the arms of love.
Edward Abbey
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I despise my own nation most. Because I know it best. Because I still love it, suffering from Hope. For me, that's patrotism.
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The rebel is doomed to a violent death. The rest of us can look forward to sedated expiration in a coma inside an oxygen tent, with tubes inserted in every bodily orifice.
Edward Abbey
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All revolutions have failed? Perhaps. But rebellion for good cause is self- justifying -- a good in itself. Rebellion transforms slaves into human beings, if only for an hour.
Edward Abbey
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This world may be only illusion -- but it's the only illusion we've got.
Edward Abbey
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Death is every man's final critic. To die well you must live bravely.
Edward Abbey
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Appearance versus reality? Appearance is reality, God damn it!
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Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.
Edward Abbey
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I always wanted to be a cowboy. But alas! I was burdened early with certain inescapable obligations to world literature.
Edward Abbey
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There comes a time in the life of us all when we must lay aside our books or put down our tools and leave our place of work and walk forth on the road to meet the enemy face-to-face. Once and for all and at last
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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The response to my books from my East Coast friends has been wildly various, running the gamut from 'bad' to 'very bad.' (Is there another gamut?)
Edward Abbey
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You can't study the darkness by flooding it with light.
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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I must confess that I know nothing whatsoever about true underlying reality, never having met any.
Edward Abbey