Quote

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

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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
Would
Silence
Leaves
Fantasies
Men
Imagination
Easily
Marvelous
Wonder
Fantasy
Abandon
Forever
Ancient
Limited
Water
Tired
Perceive
Learn
Weak
Sufficient
Dream
Capacity
Absolutes
Supernal
Enough
Loss
Absolute
Console

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What did Jesus say to the headwaiter at the Last Supper? 'Separate checks, please.'
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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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Our “neoconservatives” are neither new nor conservative, but old as Babylon and evil as Hell.
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Through logic and inference we can prove anything. Therefore, logic and inference, in contrast to ordinary daily living experience, are secondary instruments of knowledge. Probably tertiary.
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In social institutions, the whole is always less than the sum of its parts. There will never be a state as good as its people, or a church worthy of its congregation, or a university equal to its faculty and students.
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We're all undesirable elements from somebody's point of view.
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The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting each other - instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.
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The hawk's cry is as sharp as its beak.
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A society that feels itself too poor to afford the preservation of wilderness is not worthy of the name civilization.
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It is not the writer's task to answer questions but to question answers. To be impertinent, insolent, and, if necessary, subversive.
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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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Indolence and melancholy: Each generates the other. If one can speak of such feeble passions as generating anything.
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What our economists call a depressed area almost always turns out to be a cleaner, freer, more livable place than most.
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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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Good writing can be defined as having something to say and saying it well. When one has nothing to say, one should remain silent. Silence is always beautiful at such times.
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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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I would prefer to write about everything what else is there? But one must be selective.
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When I write paradise I mean not only apple trees and golden women but also scorpions and tarantulas and flies, rattlesnakes and Gila monsters, sandstorms, volcanoes and earthquakes, bacteria and bear, cactus, yucca, bladderweed, ocotillo and mesquite, flash floods and quicksand, and yes - disease and death and the rotting of flesh.
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God bless America. Let's try to save some of it.
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