Quote

I'd sooner exchange ideas with the birds on earth than learn to carry on intergalactic communications with some obscure race of humanoids on a satellite planet from the world of Betelgeuse.

Edward Abbey

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Edward Abbey
Age: 62 †
Born: 1927
Born: January 29
Died: 1989
Died: March 14
Author
Environmentalist
Essayist
Novelist
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Writer
Edward Paul Abbey
Earth
Birds
Ideas
Carry
Intergalactic
World
Planet
Satellite
Communication
Satellites
Bird
Communications
Planets
Exchange
Race
Obscure
Learn
Sooner

More quotes by Edward Abbey

Image
Each thing in its way, when true to its own character, is equally beautiful. (p 41)
Edward Abbey
Image
A true libertarian supports free enterprise, opposes big business supports local self-government, opposes the nation-state supports the National Rifle Association, opposes the Pentagon.
Edward Abbey
Image
The earth is real. Only a fool, milking his cow, denies the cow's reality.
Edward Abbey
Image
Hierarchical institutions are like giant bulldozers -- obedient to the whim of any fool who takes the controls.
Edward Abbey
Image
One day in Dipstick, Nebraska, or Landfill, Oklahoma, is worth more to me than an eternity in Dante's plastic Paradiso, or Yeats's gold-plated Byzantium.
Edward Abbey
Image
Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience.
Edward Abbey
Image
Pure science is a myth: Both mathematical theoreticians like Albert Einstein and practical crackpots like Henry Ford dealt with different aspects of the same world.
Edward Abbey
Image
What is reason? Knowledge informed by sympathy, intelligence in the arms of love.
Edward Abbey
Image
If, as some say, evil lies in the hearts and not the institutions of men, then there's hardly a distinction worth making between, say, Hitler's Germany and Rebecca's Sunnybrook Farm.
Edward Abbey
Image
Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.
Edward Abbey
Image
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
Image
Of all bores, the worst is the sparkling bore.
Edward Abbey
Image
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.
Edward Abbey
Image
Nothing could be more reckless than to base one's moral philosophy on the latest pronouncements of science.
Edward Abbey
Image
Trout fishing. One must be a stickler for proper form. Use nothing but #4 blasting caps, or a hand grenade, if handy, or at a pool well-lined with stone, one blast from a .44 magnum will bring a few stunned brookies quietly to the surface.
Edward Abbey
Image
Music endures and ages far better than books. Books, made of words, are unavoidably attached to ideas, events, conflict, and history, but music has the power to transcend time. At least for a time. Palestrina sounds as fresh today as he did in 1555, but Dante, only three centuries older, already smells of the archaic, the medieval, the catacombs.
Edward Abbey
Image
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
Image
Good writing can be defined as having something to say and saying it well. When one has nothing to say, one should remain silent. Silence is always beautiful at such times.
Edward Abbey
Image
It is not an easy thing to inflate a dog.
Edward Abbey
Image
In social affairs, I'm an optimist. I really do believe that our military- industrial civilization will soon collapse.
Edward Abbey