Top 500 Edward Abbey Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.”

— Edward Abbey

Featured in: Nature Quotes

2. “May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”

— Edward Abbey

Featured in: Enjoy Life Quotes, Aesthetic Quotes, Path Quotes, Nature Quotes, Adventure Quotes

3. “Life is unfair. And it’s not fair that life is unfair.”

— Edward Abbey

Featured in: Life is Hard Quotes, Depressing Quotes

4. “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”

— Edward Abbey

5. “A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”

— Edward Abbey

Featured in: Country Quotes

6. “Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.”

— Edward Abbey

Featured in: Corruption Quotes

7. “Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.”

— Edward Abbey

8. “When the situation is hopeless, there’s nothing to worry about.”

— Edward Abbey

9. “Anarchism is democracy taken seriously.”

— Edward Abbey

10. “The earth, like the sun, like the air, belongs to everyone and to no one.”

— Edward Abbey

11. “Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.”

— Edward Abbey

12. “Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.”

— Edward Abbey

13. “God bless America. Let’s try to save some of it.”

— Edward Abbey

14. “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.”

— Edward Abbey

15. “The basic science is not physics or mathematics but biology – the study of life. We must learn to think both logically and bio-logically.”

— Edward Abbey

16. “If America could be, once again, a nation of self-reliant farmers, craftsmen, hunters, ranchers, and artists, then the rich would have little power to dominate others. Neither to serve nor to rule: That was the American dream.”

— Edward Abbey

17. “A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles.”

— Edward Abbey

18. “Why is it that the destruction of something created by humans is called vandalism, yet the destruction of something created by God is called development?”

— Edward Abbey

19. “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people. Of course, people with guns kill more people. But that’s only natural. It’s hard. But it’s fair.”

— Edward Abbey

20. “A leader leads from in front, by the power of example. A ruler pushes from behind, by means of the club, the whip, the power of fear.”

— Edward Abbey

21. “The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.”

— Edward Abbey

22. “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

23. “Paradise for a happy man lies in his own good nature.”

— Edward Abbey

24. “The longest journey begins with a single step, not with a turn of the ignition key.”

— Edward Abbey

25. “Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.”

— Edward Abbey

26. “Our modern industrial economy takes a mountain covered with trees, lakes, running streams and transforms it into a mountain of junk, garbage, slime pits, and debris.”

— Edward Abbey

27. “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

28. “Balance, that’s the secret. Moderate extremism. The best of both worlds.”

— Edward Abbey

29. “One word is worth a thousand pictures. If it’s the right word.”

— Edward Abbey

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

— Edward Abbey

Featured in: Quotes About Greed

31. “The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting each other – instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.”

— Edward Abbey

32. “Nothing could be older than the daily news, nothing deader than yesterday’s newspaper.”

— Edward Abbey

33. “There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.”

— Edward Abbey

Featured in: Fun Quotes

34. “There is beauty, heartbreaking beauty, everywhere.”

— Edward Abbey

35. “Desire, said the Buddha, is the cause of suffering. But without desire, what delight?”

— Edward Abbey

36. “Heaven is home. Utopia is here. Nirvana is now.”

— Edward Abbey

37. “An empty man is full of himself.”

— Edward Abbey

38. “A crowded society is a restrictive society; an overcrowded society becomes an authoritarian, repressive and murderous society.”

— Edward Abbey

39. “Humans were free before the word freedom became necessary.”

— Edward Abbey

40. “We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to go there. We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope.”

— Edward Abbey

41. “You can’t study the darkness by flooding it with light.”

— Edward Abbey

42. “Where all think alike there is little danger of innovation.”

— Edward Abbey

Featured in: Thought Provoking Quotes

43. “The extreme clarity of the desert light is equaled by the extreme individuation of desert life forms. Love flowers best in openness and freedom.”

— Edward Abbey

44. “To die alone, on rock under sun at the brink of the unknown, like a wolf, like a great bird, seems to me very good fortune indeed.”

— Edward Abbey

45. “Death is every man’s final critic. To die well you must live bravely.”

— Edward Abbey

46. “Only the half-mad are wholly alive.”

— Edward Abbey

47. “I choose to listen to the river for a while, thinking river thoughts, before joining the night and the stars.”

— Edward Abbey

48. “Cold morning on Aztec Peak Fire Lookout. First, build fire in old stove. Second, start coffee. Then, heat up last night’s pork chops and spinach for breakfast. Why not? And why the hell not?”

— Edward Abbey

Featured in: Coffee Quotes

49. “Great art is never perfect; perfect art is never great.”

— Edward Abbey

50. “Beware of your wishes: They will probably come true.”

— Edward Abbey