Quote

The purpose and function of government is not to preside over change but to prevent change. By political methods when unavoidable, by violence when convenient.

Edward Abbey

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Edward Abbey
Age: 62 †
Born: 1927
Born: January 29
Died: 1989
Died: March 14
Author
Environmentalist
Essayist
Novelist
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Writer
Edward Paul Abbey
Method
Function
Violence
Purpose
Preside
Political
Unavoidable
Change
Convenient
Government
Methods
Prevent

More quotes by Edward Abbey

Image
Salome had but seven veils the artist has a thousand.
Edward Abbey
Image
This world may be only illusion -- but it's the only illusion we've got.
Edward Abbey
Image
Tofu and futons. The adepts of Orientalism seem to spend most of their lives reclining. They can't quite summon the energy to crawl up onto a chair. Even their Yogic exercises are carried out in a prone or sitting position.
Edward Abbey
Image
The sneakiest form of literary subtlety, in a corrupt society, is to speak the plain truth. The critics will not understand you the public will not believe you your fellow writers will shake their heads. Laughter, praise, honors, money, and the love of beautiful girls will be your only reward.
Edward Abbey
Image
We live in a time of twin credulities: the hunger for the miraculous combined with a servile awe of science. The mating of the two gives us superstition plus scientism -- a Mongoloid metaphysic.
Edward Abbey
Image
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
Image
You can't study the darkness by flooding it with light.
Edward Abbey
Image
I would prefer to write about everything what else is there? But one must be selective.
Edward Abbey
Image
The night I filled an inside straight: Even a blind hog's gonna root up an acorn once in a while.
Edward Abbey
Image
Has joy any survival value in the operations of evolution? I suspect that it does I suspect that the morose and fearful are doomed to quick extinction. Where there is no joy there can be no courage and without courage all other virtues are useless.
Edward Abbey
Image
Wilderness begins in the human mind.
Edward Abbey
Image
Baseball serves as a good model for democracy in action: Every player is equally important and each has a chance to be a hero.
Edward Abbey
Image
My notion of a great novel is something like a five-hundred-page shaggy-dog story, with only the punch line omitted.
Edward Abbey
Image
Simply because humankind have the power now to meddle or 'manage' or 'exercise stewardship' in every nook and cranny of the world does not mean that we have a right to do so. Even less, the obligation.
Edward Abbey
Image
What is reason? Knowledge informed by sympathy, intelligence in the arms of love.
Edward Abbey
Image
Mexico: where life is cheap, death is rich, and the buzzards are never unhappy.
Edward Abbey
Image
The knowledge that refuge is available, when and if needed, makes the silent inferno of the desert more easily bearable. Mountains complement desert as desert complements city, as wilderness complements and completes civilization.
Edward Abbey
Image
I'd sooner exchange ideas with the birds on earth than learn to carry on intergalactic communications with some obscure race of humanoids on a satellite planet from the world of Betelgeuse.
Edward Abbey
Image
My sole literary ambition is to write one good novel, then retire to my hut in the desert, assume the lotus position, compose my mind and senses, and sink into meditation, contemplating my novel.
Edward Abbey
Image
Anarchism? You bet your sweet betsy. The only cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy. Much more.
Edward Abbey