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
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
Whenever I see a photograph of some sportsman grinning over his kill, I am always impressed by the striking moral and esthetic superiority of the dead animal to the live one. - Edward Abbey
What we need now are heroes and heroines, about a million of them, one brave deed is worth a thousand books. Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul. - Edward Abbey
As a confirmed melancholic, I can testify that the best and maybe only antidote for melancholia is action. However, like most melancholics, I suffer also from sloth. - Edward Abbey
Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul. - Edward Abbey
Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best. - Edward Abbey
Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion. - Edward Abbey
No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets. - Edward Abbey
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. - Edward Abbey
The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyong reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only paradise we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need, if only we had the eyes to see. - Edward Abbey
Anarchism is democracy taken seriously. - Edward Abbey
Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top. - Edward Abbey
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
Hierarchical institutions are like giant bulldozers-- obedient to the whim of any fool who takes the controls. - Edward Abbey
As to the charge that I am a cranky old man, I plead guilty. - Edward Abbey
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork. - Edward Abbey
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. - Edward Abbey
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
The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny. - Edward Abbey
Our 'neoconservatives' are neither new nor conservative, but old as Babylon and evil as Hell. - Edward Abbey