Edward Abbey


Edward Abbey (1927-1989) was a writer best known for Desert Solitaire and The Monkey Wrench Gang. The latter work is commonly cited as an inspiration for the environmental group Earth First! Despite the environmental themes present in much of his best known work, his writing encompasses much more. Whenever I go into one of the few remaining independent bookstores, one of the first things I usually do is check to if they have any of his works on the shelf. If they do, I know I'm in the right place.


Among politicians and businessmen, pragmatism is the current term for "To hell with our children".

Anton Bruckner wrote the same symphony nine times (ten, actually), trying to get it just right. He failed.

Freedom begins between the ears.

Grand opera is a form of musical entertainment for people who hate music.

Grown men do not need leaders.

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.

If the end does not justify the means, what can?

In metaphysics, the notion that earth and all that's on it is a mental construct is the product of people who spend their lives inside rooms. It is an indoor philosophy.

Most academic economists know little of economy. In fact, they know little of anything.

Reason has seldom failed us because it has seldom been tried.

Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.

The basic question is this: Why should anything exist? Nothing would be tidier.

The best thing about graduating from the university was that I finally had time to sit on a log and read a good book.

The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.

The indoor life is the next best thing to premature burial.

The more corrupt a society, the more numerous its laws.

There is no force more potent in the modern world than stupidity fueled by greed.

The "Terror" of the French Revolution lasted for ten years. The terror that preceded and led to it lasted for a thousand years.

Those who dream of the joys of living in a space colony should live in a space colony.

To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious. But the stupid have an answer to every question.