Edward Abbey
Edward Abbey
Edward Paul Abbeywas an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views. His best-known works include the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by radical environmental groups, and the non-fiction work Desert Solitaire...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth29 January 1927
CountryUnited States of America
thinking study physics
The basic science is not physics or mathematics but biology -- the study of life. We must learn to think both logically and bio-logically.
thinking vanity world
The absurd vanity of metaphysicians who like to imagine that they create the world by thinking about it.
thinking thinking-alike
Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all.
positive tired thinking
God is a sound people make when they're too tired to think anymore.
thinking thought-provoking innovation
Where all think alike there is little danger of innovation.
thinking stupidity kind
Proverbs save us the trouble of thinking. What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.
hate thinking air
The one thing ... that is truly ugly is the climate of hate and intimidation, created by a noisy few, which makes the decent majority reluctant to air in public their views on anything controversial. ... Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all.
believe kissing embrace
I believe in nothing that I cannot touch, kiss, embrace.... The rest is only hearsay.
believe listening lasts
The best argument for Christianity is the Gregorian chant. Listening to that music, one can believe anything -- while the music lasts.
distance kids work-out
Simplicity is always a virtue. One kid on a riverbank working out a Stephen Foster tune on his new harmonica heard from the correct esthetic distance projects more magic and power than the entire Vienna Philharmonic and Chorus laboring (once again) through the Mozart Requiem or Bach's B Minor Mass.
book ideas smell
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.
writing police musical
Poor Dimitri Shostakovich: In the Soviet Union, he was condemned as being too radical; in the West, for being too conservative. He could please no one but the musical public. He revenged himself on both by writing a short piece called 'March of the Soviet Police.'
trying
Women: We cannot love them all. But we must try.
believe fidelity being-true
I, too, believe in fidelity. But how can I be true to one woman without being false to all the others?