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To the question: Wilderness, who needs it? Doc would say: Because we like the taste of freedom, comrades. Because we like the smell of danger. But, thought Hayduke, what about the smell of fear, Dad?

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
Fear
Comrade
Thought
Wilderness
Needs
Smell
Would
Dad
Like
Danger
Taste
Question
Freedom
Comrades

More quotes by Edward Abbey

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Nearly all of Latin America, from Chile to Mexico, is one long rack of torture. Financed, equipped, and refined by the U.S. government.
Edward Abbey
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Running the big rapids is like sex: half the fun lies in the anticipation. Two thirds of the thrill with the approach. The remainder is only ecstasy-or darkness.
Edward Abbey
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Belief? What do I believe in? I believe in sun. In rock. In the dogma of the sun and the doctrine of the rock. I believe in blood, fire, woman, rivers, eagles, storm, drums, flutes, banjos, and broom-tailed horses.
Edward Abbey
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The hawk's cry is as sharp as its beak.
Edward Abbey
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Every important change in our society, for the good, at least, has taken place because of popular pressure-pressure from below, from the great mass of people.
Edward Abbey
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Congress is always willing to appropriate money for more and bigger paved roads, anywhere -- particularly if they form loops.
Edward Abbey
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The purpose of love, sex, and marriage is the production and raising of children. But look about you: Most people have no business having children. They are unqualified, either genetically or culturally or both, to reproduce such sorry specimens as themselves. Of all our privileges, the license to breed is the one most grossly abused.
Edward Abbey
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The artist in our time has two chief responsibilities: (1) art and (2) sedition.
Edward Abbey
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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.
Edward Abbey
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It is an author's most solemn obligation to honor truth. If the free and independent writer does not speak truth to power, who will?
Edward Abbey
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One must be reasonable in one's demands on life. For myself, all that I ask is: (1) accurate information (2) coherent knowledge (3) deep understanding (4) infinite loving wisdom (5) no more kidney stones, please.
Edward Abbey
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The artist's job? To be a miracle worker: make the blind see, the dull feel, the dead to live.
Edward Abbey
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Of all bores, the worst is the sparkling bore.
Edward Abbey
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Appearance versus reality? Appearance is reality, God damn it!
Edward Abbey
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The sense of justice springs from self-respect both are coeval with our birth. Children are born with an innate sense of justice it usually takes twelve years of public schooling and four more years of college to beat it out of them.
Edward Abbey
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Each thing in its way, when true to its own character, is equally beautiful. (p 41)
Edward Abbey
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I wait. Now the night flows back, the mighty stillness embraces and includes me I can see the stars again and the world of starlight. I am twenty miles or more from the nearest fellow human, but instead of loneliness I feel loveliness. Loveliness and a quiet exultation.
Edward Abbey
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The ready availability of suicide, like sex and alcohol, is one of life's basic consolations.
Edward Abbey
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Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.
Edward Abbey
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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.
Edward Abbey