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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
Name
Names
Poor
Society
Preservation
Nature
Wilderness
Feels
Afford
Worthy
Civilization

More quotes by Edward Abbey

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For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. Bricks to all greenhouses! Black thumb and cutworm to the potted plant!
Edward Abbey
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A cowboy is a farm boy in leather britches and a comical hat.
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A drink a day keeps the shrink away.
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In the afternoon I watch the clouds drift past the bald peak of Mount Tukuhnikivats. (Someone has to do it.)
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Apuleius married a rich widow, then wrote _The Golden Ass_.
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Tofu and futons. The adepts of Orientalism seem to spend most of their lives reclining. They can't quite summon the energy to crawl up onto a chair. Even their Yogic exercises are carried out in a prone or sitting position.
Edward Abbey
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If the world is irrational, we can never know it -- either it or its irrationality.
Edward Abbey
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Love flowers best in openness and freedom.
Edward Abbey
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Poor Dimitri Shostakovich: In the Soviet Union, he was condemned as being too radical in the West, for being too conservative. He could please no one but the musical public. He revenged himself on both by writing a short piece called 'March of the Soviet Police.'
Edward Abbey
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Most new books drop immediately into the oblivion they so richly deserve.
Edward Abbey
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A leader leads from in front, by the power of example. A ruler pushes from behind, by means of the club, the whip, the power of fear.
Edward Abbey
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All dams are ugly, but the Glen Canyon Dam is sinful ugly.
Edward Abbey
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Music clouds the intellect but clarifies the heart.
Edward Abbey
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This is the most beautiful place on Earth. There are many such places. Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary.
Edward Abbey
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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.
Edward Abbey
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The function of football, soccer, basketball and other passion-sports in modern industrial society is the transference of boredom, frustration, anger and rage into socially acceptable forms of combat. A temporary substitute for war for nationalism identification with something bigger than the self.
Edward Abbey
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I once sat on the rim of a mesa above the Rio Grande for three days and nights, trying to have a vision. I got hungry and saw God in the form of a beef pie.
Edward Abbey
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It is not enough to understand the natural world the point is to defend and preserve it.
Edward Abbey
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Reincarnation? There is such a thing. What could be more Mozartian than the Nutcracker Suite?
Edward Abbey
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Poetry -- even bad poetry -- may be our final hope.
Edward Abbey