Quote

The knowledge that refuge is available, when and if needed, makes the silent inferno of the desert more easily bearable. Mountains complement desert as desert complements city, as wilderness complements and completes 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
Mountain
Complement
Civilization
Refuge
City
Mountains
Needed
Wilderness
Cities
Desert
Complements
Knowledge
Easily
Completes
Makes
Available
Inferno
Nature
Silent
Bearable

More quotes by Edward Abbey

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I am happy to be a regional writer. My region is the American West, old Mexico, West Virginia, New York, Europe, Australia, the human heart, and the male groin.
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Simplicity is always a virtue.
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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.
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One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothing can beat teamwork.
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The idea of wilderness needs no defense. It only needs more defenders. Remaining silent about the destruction of nature is an endorsement of that destruction.
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Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.
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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.
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Mexico: where life is cheap, death is rich, and the buzzards are never unhappy.
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Fence straddlers have no balls. In compensation, however, they enjoy a comfortable seat and can retreat swiftly, when danger threatens, to either side of the fence. There is something to be said for every position.
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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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Salome had but seven veils the artist has a thousand.
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What is reason? Knowledge informed by sympathy, intelligence in the arms of love.
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When the biggest, richest, glassiest buildings in town are the banks, you know that town's in trouble.
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Music is a savage art, a measured madness.
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Ah yes, the head is full of books. The hard part is to force them down through the bloodstream and out through the fingers.
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Motherhood is an essential, difficult, and full-time job. Women who do not wish to be mothers should not have babies.
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What good is a Bill of Rights that does not include the right to play, to wander, to explore, the right to stillness and solitude, to discovery and physical freedom?
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If the world is irrational, we can never know it -- either it or its irrationality.
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Grand opera is a form of musical entertainment for people who hate music.
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To be everywhere at once is to be nowhere forever, if you ask me.
Edward Abbey