Quote

Fence straddlers have no balls. In compensation, however, they enjoy a comfortable seat and can retreat swiftly, when danger threatens, to either side of the fence. There is something to be said for every position.

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
Side
Fence
Either
Retreat
Sides
Seats
Enjoy
Balls
Every
However
Swiftly
Something
Danger
Threatens
Comfortable
Compensation
Position
Seat

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The ideal kitchen-sink novel: Throw in everything but the kitchen sink. Then add the kitchen sink.
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Of course I litter the public highway. Every chance I get. After all, it's not the beer cans that are ugly it's the highway that is ugly.
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Congress is always willing to appropriate money for more and bigger paved roads, anywhere -- particularly if they form loops.
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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.
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The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.
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One thing more dangerous than getting between a grizzly sow and her cub is getting between a businessman and a dollar bill.
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Most of what we call the classics of world literature suggest artifacts in a wax museum. We have to hire and pay professors to get them read and talked about.
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Critics are like ticks on a dog or tits on a motor: ornamental but dysfunctional.
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You can't belay a man who's falling in love.
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I am delighted, one more time, by the daring of my species and the audacity of our flying machines. There is poetry and music in our technology, a beauty as touching as that of eagle, moss campion, raven or yonder limestone boulder shining under the Arctic sun.
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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.
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Grand opera is a form of musical entertainment for people who hate music.
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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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Pure science is a myth: Both mathematical theoreticians like Albert Einstein and practical crackpots like Henry Ford dealt with different aspects of the same world.
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Desire, said the Buddha, is the cause of suffering. But without desire, what delight?
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The one thing ... that is truly ugly is the climate of hate and intimidation, created by a noisy few, which makes the decent majority reluctant to air in public their views on anything controversial. ... Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all.
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It may be true that there are no atheists in foxholes. But you don't find many Christians there, either. Or, about as many of one as the other.
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In everything but brains and brawn, women are vastly superior to men. A different race.
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When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem.
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One word is worth a thousand pictures. If it's the right word.
Edward Abbey