Top 500 Edward Abbey Quotes (2024 Update)
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251. “I despise my own nation most. Because I know it best. Because I still love it, suffering from Hope. For me, that’s patrotism.”

— Edward Abbey

252. “An economic system which can only expand or expire must be false to all that is human.”

— Edward Abbey

253. “Standing there, gaping at this monstrous and inhumane spectacle of rock and cloud and sky and space, I feel a ridiculous greed and possessiveness come over me. I want to know it all, posess it all, embrace the entire scene intimately, deeply, totally...”

— Edward Abbey

254. “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.”

— Edward Abbey

255. “Beauty is only skin deep; ugliness goes all the way through.”

— Edward Abbey

256. “As war and government prove, insanity is the most contagious of diseases.”

— Edward Abbey

257. “What is the purpose of the giant sequoia tree? The purpose of the giant sequoia tree is to provide shade for the tiny titmouse.”

— Edward Abbey

258. “J. Edgar Hoover, J. Bracken Lee, J. Parnell Thomas, J. Paul Getty – you can always tell a shithead by that initial initial.”

— Edward Abbey

259. “A house built on greed cannot long endure.”

— Edward Abbey

260. “I would give ten years off the beginning of my life to see, only once, Tyrannosaurus rex come rearing up from the elms of Central Park, a Morgan police horse screaming in its jaws. We can never have enough of nature.”

— Edward Abbey

261. “When the situation is desperate, it is too late to be serious. Be playful.”

— Edward Abbey

262. “Spartacus, like Jesus, was also crucified by the Romans. And for equally good reasons.”

— Edward Abbey

263. “You can’t see anything from a car; you’ve got to get out of the goddamn contraption and walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees, over the sandstone and through the thornbrush and cactus. When traces of blood begin to mark your trail, you’ll see something, maybe.”

— Edward Abbey

264. “Life is already too short to waste on speed.”

— Edward Abbey

265. “Anarchy works. Italy has proved it for a thousand years.”

— Edward Abbey

266. “We are obliged, therefore, to spread the news, painful and bitter though it may be for some to hear, that all living things on earth are kindred.”

— Edward Abbey

267. “I am hopeful, though not full of hope, and the only reason I don’t believe in happy endings is because I don’t believe in endings.”

— Edward Abbey

268. “The nuclear bomb took all the fun out of war.”

— Edward Abbey

269. “I would not sacrifice a single living mesquite tree for any book ever written. One square mile of living desert is worth a hundred ‘great books’ – and one brave deed is worth a thousand.”

— Edward Abbey

270. “Narrow-minded provincialism: Sad to say but true – I am more interested in the mountain lions of Utah, the wild pigs of Arizona, than I am in the fate of all the Arabs of Araby, all the Wogs of Hindustan, all the Ethiopes of Abyssinia...”

— Edward Abbey

271. “In a nation of sheep, one brave man forms a majority.”

— Edward Abbey

272. “The New Age orgy: The flesh was willing but the spirit’s weak.”

— Edward Abbey

273. “It’s all still there in heart and soul. The walk, the hills, the sky, the solitary pain and pleasure-they will grow larger, sweeter, lovelier in the days and years to come.”

— Edward Abbey

274. “In all of nature, there is no sound more pleasing than that of a hungry animal at its feed. Unless you are the food.”

— Edward Abbey

275. “Don’t talk to me about other worlds, separate realities, lost continents or invisible realms – I know where I belong. Heaven is home. Utopia is here. Nirvana is now.”

— Edward Abbey

276. “What is truth? I don’t know and I’m sorry I brought it up.”

— Edward Abbey

277. “A mother’s sorrow is more true, honorable, and beautiful than the detachment of the sage.”

— Edward Abbey

278. “You can’t belay a man who’s falling in love.”

— Edward Abbey

279. “Mozart, striving for perfection, wrote the same symphony forty-one times. In his case, it worked. He wrote a perfect symphony.”

— Edward Abbey

280. “The only thing left worth saving is wilderness.”

— Edward Abbey

281. “I want to be able to look at and into a juniper tree, a piece of quartz, a vulture, a spider, and see it as it is in itself, devoid of all humanly ascribed qualities, anti-Kantian, even the categories of scientific description.”

— Edward Abbey

282. “The very poor are strictly materialistic. It takes money to be a mystic.”

— Edward Abbey

283. “To the question: Wilderness, who needs it? Doc would say: Because we like the taste of freedom, comrades. Because we like the smell of danger. But, thought Hayduke, what about the smell of fear, Dad?”

— Edward Abbey

284. “A crude meal, no doubt, but the best of all sauces is hunger.”

— Edward Abbey

285. “Some of my ancestors fought in the American Revolution. A few more wore red coats, a few wore blue coats, and the rest wore no coats at all. We never did figure out who won that war.”

— Edward Abbey

286. “Appearance versus reality? Appearance is reality, God damn it!”

— Edward Abbey

287. “The dog’s life is a good life, for a dog.”

— Edward Abbey

288. “Democracy – rule by the people – sounds like a fine thing; we should try it sometime in America.”

— Edward Abbey

289. “A journey into the wilderness is the freest, cheapest, most nonprivileged of pleasures. Anyone with two legs and the price of a pair of army surplus combat boots may enter.”

— Edward Abbey

290. “Walking is the only form of transportation in which a man proceeds erect – like a man – on his own legs, under his own power. There is immense satisfaction in that.”

— Edward Abbey

291. “Not all questions can be answered.”

— Edward Abbey

292. “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

293. “The only thing worse than a knee-jerk liberal is a knee- pad conservative...”

— Edward Abbey

294. “Some people write to please, to soothe, to console. Others to provoke, to challenge, to exasperate and infuriate. I’ve always found the second approach the more pleasing.”

— Edward Abbey

295. “The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.”

— Edward Abbey

296. “For women, the sexual act is a means to a higher end. For a man, it is an end in itself.”

— Edward Abbey

297. “The river, the canyon, the desert world was always changing, from moment to moment, from miracle to miracle, within the firm reality of mother earth. River, rock, sun, blood, hunger, wings, joy – this is the real, Smith would have said, if he’d wanted to. If he felt like it. All the rest is androgynous theosophy.”

— Edward Abbey

298. “When in doubt about drinking from an unknown spring look for life. If the water is scummed with algae, crawling with worms, grubs, larvae, spiders and liver flukes, be reassured, drink hearty, you’ll get nothing worse than dysentery. But if it appears innocent and pure, beware.”

— Edward Abbey

299. “Only a fool would leave the enjoyment of rainbows to the opticians. Or give the science of optics the last word on the matter.”

— Edward Abbey

300. “Longevity, like intelligence and good looks and health and strength of character, is largely a matter of genetic heritage. Choose your parents with care.”

— Edward Abbey