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
Civilization
Refuge
City
Mountains
Needed
Wilderness
Cities
Desert
Complements
Knowledge
Easily
Completes
Makes
Available
Inferno
Nature
Silent
Bearable
Mountain
Complement

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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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Every man has two vocations: his own and philosophy.
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There comes a time in the life of us all when we must lay aside our books or put down our tools and leave our place of work and walk forth on the road to meet the enemy face-to-face. Once and for all and at last
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I would like to evoke the sense of wonder and magic in the reader but without invoking the mystical, the supernatural or the transcendent.
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The best American writers have come from the hinterlands -- Mark Twain, Theodore Dreiser, Jack London, Hemingway, Faulkner, Wolfe, Steinbeck. Most of them never even went to college.
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Capitalism: Nothing so mean could be right. Greed is the ugliest of the capital sins.
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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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All forms of government are pernicious, including good government.
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I always write with my .357 magnum handy. Why? Well, you never know when God may try to interfere.
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Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.
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Charity should be spontaneous. Calculated altruism is an affront.
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All living things on earth are kindred.
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What draws us into the desert is the search for something intimate in the remote.
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When the situation is desperate, it is too late to be serious. Be playful.
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Why the critics, like a flock of ducks, always move in perfect unison: Their authority with the public depends upon an appearance of unanimous agreement. One dissenting voice would shatter the whole fragile structure.
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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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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.
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Nothing can excel a few days in jail for giving a young man or woman a quick education in the basis of industrial society.
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Everyone should learn a manual trade: It's never too late to become an honest person.
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Is there a God? Who knows? Is there an angry unicorn on the dark side of the moon?
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