Quote

I was once invited to take part in a heroic, possibly fatal enterprise, but I declined, mainly on account of sloth.

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
Possibly
Declined
Accounts
Sloth
Part
Fatal
Take
Mainly
Invited
Heroic
Account
Enterprise

More quotes by Edward Abbey

Image
Alaska's chief attractions are: (a) its small and insignificant human population, thanks to the miserable climate and (b) its large and magnificent wildlife population, thanks to (a). Both of these attractions are being rapidly diminished, however, by (c) the Law of Growth and Space-Age Sleaze.
Edward Abbey
Image
Beware of your wishes: They will probably come true.
Edward Abbey
Image
Truth is always the enemy of power. And power the enemy of truth.
Edward Abbey
Image
How to Avoid Pleurisy: Never make love to a girl named Candy on the tailgate of a half-ton Ford pickup during a chill rain in April out on Grandview Point in San Juan County, Utah.
Edward Abbey
Image
Great art is never perfect perfect art is never great.
Edward Abbey
Image
One of the pleasant things about small town life is that everyone, whether rich or poor, liked or disliked, has some kind of a role and place in the community. I never felt that living in a city - as I once did for a couple of years.
Edward Abbey
Image
Why this cult of wilderness?... because we like the taste of freedom because we like the smell of danger.
Edward Abbey
Image
If a man’s imagination were not so weak, so easily tired, if his capacity for wonder not so limited, he would abandon forever such fantasies of the supernal. He would learn to perceive in water, leaves and silence more than sufficient of the absolute and marvelous, more than enough to console him for the loss of the ancient dream.
Edward Abbey
Image
The death penalty would be even more effective, as a deterrent, if we executed a few innocent people more often.
Edward Abbey
Image
A society that feels itself too poor to afford the preservation of wilderness is not worthy of the name civilization.
Edward Abbey
Image
Government: If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.
Edward Abbey
Image
Married couples who quarrel bitterly every day may really need each other as deeply as those who appear to be desperately in love.
Edward Abbey
Image
It's all still there in heart and soul. The walk, the hills, the sky, the solitary pain and pleasure-they will grow larger, sweeter, lovelier in the days and years to come.
Edward Abbey
Image
Appearance versus reality? Appearance is reality, God damn it!
Edward Abbey
Image
Longevity, like intelligence and good looks and health and strength of character, is largely a matter of genetic heritage. Choose your parents with care.
Edward Abbey
Image
A rancher is a farmer who farms the public lands with a herd of four-legged lawn mowers.
Edward Abbey
Image
Capitalism: Nothing so mean could be right. Greed is the ugliest of the capital sins.
Edward Abbey
Image
Some people write to please, to soothe, to console. Others to provoke, to challenge, to exasperate and infuriate. I've always found the second approach the more pleasing.
Edward Abbey
Image
In this glare of brilliant emptiness, in this arid intensity of pure heat, in the heart of a weird solitude, great silence and grand desolution, all things recede to distrances out of reach, relecting light but impossible to touch, annihilating all thought and all that men have made to a spasm of whirling dust far out on the golden desert.
Edward Abbey
Image
The author: an imaginary person who writes real books.
Edward Abbey