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A society that feels itself too poor to afford the preservation of wilderness is not worthy of the name civilization.

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
Poor
Society
Preservation
Nature
Wilderness
Feels
Afford
Worthy
Civilization
Name
Names

More quotes by Edward Abbey

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Why is it that the destruction of something created by humans is called vandalism, yet the destruction of something created by God is called development?
Edward Abbey
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The industrial way of life leads to the industrial way of death. From Shiloh to Dachau, from Antietam to Stalingrad, from Hiroshima to Vietnam and Afghanistan, the great specialty of industry and technology has been the mass production of human corpses.
Edward Abbey
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A good writer must have more than vin rosé in his veins, use more than Chablis for ink.
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The nuclear bomb took all the fun out of war.
Edward Abbey
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I despise my own nation most. Because I know it best. Because I still love it, suffering from Hope. For me, that's patrotism.
Edward Abbey
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We're all undesirable elements from somebody's point of view.
Edward Abbey
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The sneakiest form of literary subtlety, in a corrupt society, is to speak the plain truth. The critics will not understand you the public will not believe you your fellow writers will shake their heads. Laughter, praise, honors, money, and the love of beautiful girls will be your only reward.
Edward Abbey
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I’m tired of doing what I don’t want to do to live the way I don’t want to live.
Edward Abbey
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Simply because humankind have the power now to meddle or 'manage' or 'exercise stewardship' in every nook and cranny of the world does not mean that we have a right to do so. Even less, the obligation.
Edward Abbey
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How to Avoid Pleurisy: Never make love to a girl named Candy on the tailgate of a half-ton Ford pickup during a chill rain in April out on Grandview Point in San Juan County, Utah.
Edward Abbey
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Walking takes longer... than any other known form of locomotion except crawling. Thus it stretches time and prolongs life. Life is already too short to waste on speed.
Edward Abbey
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Paradise is the here and now, the actual, tangible, dogmatically real Earth on which we stand. Yes, God bless America, the Earth upon which we stand.
Edward Abbey
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Where all think alike there is little danger of innovation.
Edward Abbey
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The feminist notion that the whole of human history has been nothing but a vast intricate conspiracy by men to enslave their wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters presents us with an intellectual neurosis for which we do not yet have a name.
Edward Abbey
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If wilderness is outlawed, only outlaws can save wilderness.
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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I always write with my .357 magnum handy. Why? Well, you never know when God may try to interfere.
Edward Abbey
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Girls, like flowers, bloom but once. But once is enough.
Edward Abbey
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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.
Edward Abbey
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The ready availability of suicide, like sex and alcohol, is one of life's basic consolations.
Edward Abbey