Quote

Any hack can safely rail away at foreign powers beyond the sea but a good writer is a critic of the society he lives in.

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
Society
Safely
Lives
Critic
Away
Powers
Good
Foreign
Critics
Sea
Hack
Beyond
Hacks
Writer
Rail

More quotes by Edward Abbey

Image
The only thing worse than a knee-jerk liberal is a knee-pad conservative.
Edward Abbey
Image
Government should be weak, amateurish and ridiculous. At present, it fulfills only a third of the role.
Edward Abbey
Image
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
Image
The death penalty would be even more effective, as a deterrent, if we executed a few innocent people more often.
Edward Abbey
Image
Hierarchical institutions are like giant bulldozers -- obedient to the whim of any fool who takes the controls.
Edward Abbey
Image
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.
Edward Abbey
Image
The Proustian aquarium: grotesque and gorgeous fish drifting with languid fins through a subaqueous medium of pale violet polluted ink.
Edward Abbey
Image
Come with me, the river said, close your eyes and quiet your limbs and float with me into the wonder and mystery of the canyons, see the unknown and the little known, look upon the stone gods face to face, see Medusa, drink my waters, hear my song, feel my power, come along and drift with me toward the distant, ultimate and legendary sea.
Edward Abbey
Image
Life: another day, another dolor.
Edward Abbey
Image
The best thing about graduating from the university was that I finally had time to sit on a log and read a good book.
Edward Abbey
Image
In the American Southwest, I began a lifelong love affair with a pile of rock.
Edward Abbey
Image
What is reason? Knowledge informed by sympathy, intelligence in the arms of love.
Edward Abbey
Image
The gurus come from the sickliest nation on earth to tell us how to live. And we pay them for it.
Edward Abbey
Image
Why the critics, like a flock of ducks, always move in perfect unison: Their authority with the public depends upon an appearance of unanimous agreement. One dissenting voice would shatter the whole fragile structure.
Edward Abbey
Image
Motherhood is an essential, difficult, and full-time job. Women who do not wish to be mothers should not have babies.
Edward Abbey
Image
It is not death or dying that is tragic, but rather to have existed without fully participating in life- that is the deepest personal tragedy.
Edward Abbey
Image
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
Image
All governments need enemies. How else to justify their existence?
Edward Abbey
Image
The tragic sense of life: our heroic acceptance of the suffering of others.
Edward Abbey
Image
A journey into the wilderness is the freest, cheapest, most nonprivileged of pleasures. Anyone with two legs and the price of a pair of army surplus combat boots may enter.
Edward Abbey