Michael > Michael's Quotes

“No more cars in national parks. Let the people walk. Or ride horses, bicycles, mules, wild pigs--anything--but keep the automobiles and the motorcycles and all their motorized relatives out. We have agreed not to drive our automobiles into cathedrals, concert halls, art museums, legislative assemblies, private bedrooms and the other sanctums of our culture; we should treat our national parks with the same deference, for they, too, are holy places. An increasingly pagan and hedonistic people (thank God!), we are learning finally that the forests and mountains and desert canyons are holier than our churches. Therefore let us behave accordingly.”
― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

“Grown men do not need leaders.”
― Edward Abbey

“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”
― Edward Abbey

“Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.”
― Edward Abbey

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
― Edward Abbey

“Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.”
― Edward Abbey

“Freedom begins between the ears.”
― Edward Abbey

“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

“I am not an atheist but an earthiest. Be true to the earth.”
― Edward Abbey

“If my decomposing carcass helps nourish the roots of a juniper tree or the wings of a vulture—that is immortality enough for me. And as much as anyone deserves.”
― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

“The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.”
― Edward Abbey

“Be loyal to what you love, be true to the earth, fight your enemies with passion and laughter.”
― Edward Abbey, Confessions of a Barbarian: Selections from the Journals of Edward Abbey

“I stand for what I stand on.”
― Edward Abbey

“When the situation is hopeless, there's nothing to worry about.”
― Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang

“There is beauty, heartbreaking beauty, everywhere.”
― Edward Abbey

“Ah yes, the head is full of books. The hard part is to force them down through the bloodstream and out through the fingers.”
― Edward Abbey, Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast