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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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Edward Abbey
Age: 62 †
Born: 1927
Born: January 29
Died: 1989
Died: March 14
Author
Environmentalist
Essayist
Novelist
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Writer
Edward Paul Abbey
Food
Age
Heartache
Human
Eighteen
Humans
Acquired
Enough
Provide
Reflection
Joy
Century

More quotes by Edward Abbey

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Civilization is a youth with a molotov cocktail in his hand. Culture is the Soviet tank or L.A. cop that guns him down.
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A good philosopher is one who does not take ideas seriously.
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Jack Kerouac, like a sick refrigerator, worked too hard at keeping cool and died on his mama's lap from alcohol and infantilism.
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The ideal society can be described, quite simply, as that in which no man has the power of means to coerce others.
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In the dog-eat-dog economy, the Doberman is boss.
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A cowboy is a farm boy in leather britches and a comical hat.
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If we had the power of ten Shakespeares or a dozen Mozarts, we could not produce anything half so marvelous as one ordinary human child.
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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.
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The author: an imaginary person who writes real books.
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Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all.
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Death is every man's final critic. To die well you must live bravely.
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For women, the sexual act is a means to a higher end. For a man, it is an end in itself.
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A man's duty? To be ready -- with rifle or rood -- to defend his home when the showdown comes.
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When guns are outlawed, only the Government will have guns. The Government - and a few outlaws. If that happens, you can count me among the outlaws.
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How did Haydn and Mozart produce such vast quantities of formally perfect art? They worked from a perfect formula. In music, Beethoven was the Great Emancipator.
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No man is wise enough to be another man's master. Each man's as good as the next -- if not a damn sight better.
Edward Abbey
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In metaphysics, the notion that earth and all that's on it is a mental construct is the product of people who spend their lives inside rooms. It is an indoor philosophy.
Edward Abbey
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The result of this bestial lust is an indiscriminate and promiscuous splaying of all of my energies- wanting all, I accomplish nothing desiring everything, I satisfy nothing and am satisfied by nothing.
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It is not enough to understand the natural world the point is to defend and preserve it.
Edward Abbey
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The ideal kitchen-sink novel: Throw in everything but the kitchen sink. Then add the kitchen sink.
Edward Abbey