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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

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One single act of defiance against power, against the State that seems omnipotent but is not, transforms and transfigures the human personality. At least for a time. For a while. Perhaps that is enough.
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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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Those who fear death most are those who enjoy life least.
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Alaska's chief attractions are: (a) its small and insignificant human population, thanks to the miserable climate and (b) its large and magnificent wildlife population, thanks to (a). Both of these attractions are being rapidly diminished, however, by (c) the Law of Growth and Space-Age Sleaze.
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Everyone should learn a manual trade: It's never too late to become an honest person.
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When the philosopher's argument becomes tedious, complicated, and opaque, it is usually a sign that he is attempting to prove as true to the intellect what is plainly false to common sense.
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If you feel that you must suffer, then plan your suffering carefully -- as you choose your dreams, as you conceive your ancestors.
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The response to my books from my East Coast friends has been wildly various, running the gamut from 'bad' to 'very bad.' (Is there another gamut?)
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It's all still there in heart and soul. The walk, the hills, the sky, the solitary pain and pleasure-they will grow larger, sweeter, lovelier in the days and years to come.
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I intend to be good for the rest of my natural life -- if I live that long.
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Men love their ideas more than their lives. And the more preposterous the idea, the more eager they are to die for it. And to kill for it.
Edward Abbey
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When the situation is desperate, it is too late to be serious. Be playful.
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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?
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My notion of a great novel is something like a five-hundred-page shaggy-dog story, with only the punch line omitted.
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From the point of view of a tapeworm, man was created by God to serve the appetite of the tapeworm.
Edward Abbey
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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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A world without huge regions of total wilderness would be a cage a world without lions and tigers and vultures and snakes and elk and bison would be - will be - a human zoo. A high-tech slum.
Edward Abbey
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Of all bores, the worst is the sparkling bore.
Edward Abbey
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I am not an atheist but an earthiest. Be true to the earth.
Edward Abbey
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Mexico: where life is cheap, death is rich, and the buzzards are never unhappy.
Edward Abbey