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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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Edward Abbey
Age: 62 †
Born: 1927
Born: January 29
Died: 1989
Died: March 14
Author
Environmentalist
Essayist
Novelist
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Writer
Edward Paul Abbey
Behinds
Ruler
Behind
Whips
Example
Rulers
Leader
Club
Fear
Clubs
Means
Leads
Power
Fronts
Pushes
Mean
Front
Whip

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Mexico: where life is cheap, death is rich, and the buzzards are never unhappy.
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Appearance versus reality? Appearance is reality, God damn it!
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We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope.
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The most striking thing about the rich is the gracious democracy of their manners -- and the crude vulgarity of their way of life.
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Those who fear death most are those who enjoy life least.
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When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem.
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The earth, like the sun, like the air, belongs to everyone - and to no one.
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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.
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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.
Edward Abbey
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Be a half-assed crusader, a part-time fanatic. Don't worry to much about the fate of the world. Saving the world is only a hobby. Get out there and enjoy the world, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, husbands wives climb mountains, run rivers, get drunk, do whatever you want to do while you can, before it's too late.
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In the afternoon I watch the clouds drift past the bald peak of Mount Tukuhnikivats. (Someone has to do it.)
Edward Abbey
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By the age of eighteen, a human has acquired enough joy and heartache to provide the food of reflection for a century.
Edward Abbey
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Why administrators are respected and schoolteachers are not: An administrator is paid a lot for doing very little, while a teacher is paid very little for doing a lot.
Edward Abbey
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The idea of wilderness needs no defense. It only needs more defenders. Remaining silent about the destruction of nature is an endorsement of that destruction.
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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The best people, like the best wines, come from the hills.
Edward Abbey
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Music endures and ages far better than books. Books, made of words, are unavoidably attached to ideas, events, conflict, and history, but music has the power to transcend time. At least for a time. Palestrina sounds as fresh today as he did in 1555, but Dante, only three centuries older, already smells of the archaic, the medieval, the catacombs.
Edward Abbey
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Desire, said the Buddha, is the cause of suffering. But without desire, what delight?
Edward Abbey
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It's a fool's life, a rogue's life, and a good life if you keep laughing all the way to the grave.
Edward Abbey
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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