Edward Abbey (1927 – 1989)
American writer noted for his advocacy of environmental issues and criticism of public land policies.
My loyalties will not be bound by national borders, or confined in time by one nation's history, or limited in the spiritual dimension by one language and culture. I pledge my allegiance to the damned human race, and my everlasting love to the green hills of Earth, and my intimations of glory to the singing stars, to the very end of space and time.
Has joy any survival value in the operations of evolution? I suspect that it does; I suspect that the morose and fearful are doomed to quick extinction. Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless.
Of course I litter the public highway. Every chance I get. After all, it's not the beer cans that are ugly; it's the highway that is ugly.
Heaven is home. Utopia is here. Nirvana is now.
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.
Hierarchical institutions are like giant bulldozers — obedient to the whim of any fool who takes the controls.
An empty man is full of himself.
The idea of wilderness needs no defense. It only needs more defenders.
If wilderness is outlawed, only outlaws can save wilderness.
All living things on earth are kindred.
Counterpart to the knee-jerk liberal is the new knee-pad conservative, always groveling before the rich and powerful.
May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.
Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.
The more corrupt a society, the more numerous its laws.
Each thing in its way, when true to its own character, is equally beautiful.
The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.