Edward Abbey Quotes About Wilderness

Quotes about: Wilderness

• 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

  Inspirational, Nature, Adventure

  Edward Abbey (1988). “Desert Solitaire”, p.12, University of Arizona Press

• Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.

  Edward Abbey

  Nature, Insperational, Hiking

  Edward Abbey (1968). “Desert Solitaire”, p.169, Simon and Schuster

• 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

  Inspirational, Loyalty, Nature

  Edward Abbey (1988). “Desert Solitaire”, p.147, University of Arizona Press

• We can have wilderness without freedom; we can have wilderness without human life at all, but we cannot have freedom without wilderness, we cannot have freedom without leagues of open space beyond the cities, where boys and girls, men and women, can live at least part of their lives under no control but their own desires and abilities, free from any and all direct administration by their fellow men.

  Edward Abbey

  Girl, Boys, Men

• The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.

  Edward Abbey

  Ideas, Environmental, Needs

• Wilderness. The word itself is music.

  Edward Abbey

  Wilderness

  Edward Abbey (1988). “Desert Solitaire”, p.146, University of Arizona Press

• Somewhere in the depths of solitude, beyond wilderness and freedom, lay the trap of madness.

  Edward Abbey

  Solitude, Depth, Madness

  "The Monkey Wrench Gang". Book by Edward Abbey, August 1, 1975.

• Wilderness and motors are incompatible and the former can best be experienced, understood and enjoyed when the machines are left behind where they belong -- on the superhighways and in the parking lots, on the reservoirs and in the marinas.

  Edward Abbey

  Machines, Wilderness, Left Behind

  Edward Abbey (1968). “Desert Solitaire”, p.48, Simon and Schuster

• it will be objected that a constantly increasing population makes resistance and conservation a hopeless battle. this is true. unless a way is found to stabilize the nation's population, the parks can not be saved. or anything else worth a damn. wilderness preservation, like a hundred other good causes, will be forgotten under the overwhelming pressure of a struggle for mere survival and sanity in a completely urbanized, completely industrialized, ever more crowded environment. for my own part i would rather take my chances in a thermonuclear war than live in such a world.

  Edward Abbey

  War, Struggle, Survival

  Edward Abbey (1968). “Desert Solitaire”, p.52, Simon and Schuster

• I suppose each of us has his own fantasy of how he wants to die. I would like to go out in a blaze of glory, myself, or maybe simply disappear someday, far out in the heart of the wilderness I love, all by myself, alone with the Universe and whatever God may happen to be looking on. Disappear - and never return. That's my fantasy.

  Edward Abbey

  Heart, May, Want

  Edward Abbey (2006). “Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast”

• A man could be a lover and defender of the wilderness without ever in his lifetime leaving the boundaries of asphalt, powerlines, and right-angled surfaces. We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to set foot in it. We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope; without it the life of the cities would drive all men into crime or drugs or psychoanalysis.

  Edward Abbey

  Men, Cities, Feet

  Edward Abbey (1968). “Desert Solitaire”, p.129, Simon and Schuster

• Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.

  Edward Abbey

  Adventure, Cutting, Civilization

  Edward Abbey (1968). “Desert Solitaire”, p.169, Simon and Schuster

• The idea of wilderness needs no defense. It only needs more defenders.
  Remaining silent about the destruction of nature is an endorsement of that destruction.

  Edward Abbey

  Ideas, Needs, Defense

• Why this cult of wilderness?... because we like the taste of freedom; because we like the smell of danger.

  Edward Abbey

  Smell, Taste, Wilderness

  Edward Abbey (1984). “Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside”, p.59, Macmillan

• We need wilderness because we are wild animals. Everyone needs a place where he can go to go crazy in peace. For the terror, freedom, and delirium. Because we need brutality and raw adventure, because men and women first learned to love in, under, and all around trees, because we need for every pair of feet and legs about ten leagues of naked nature, crags to leap from, mountains to measure by, deserts to finally die in when the heart fails.

  Edward Abbey

  Crazy, Heart, Adventure

• A world without huge regions of total wilderness would be a cage; a world without lions and tigers and vultures and snakes and elk and bison would be - will be - a human zoo. A high-tech slum.

  Edward Abbey

  Zoos, Snakes, Earth Day

  Edward Abbey (2006). “Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast”

• 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

  Dad, Fear, Smell

  edward abbey (1976). “the monkey wrench gang”

• A society that feels itself too poor to afford the preservation of wilderness is not worthy of the name civilization.

  Edward Abbey

  Nature, Civilization, Names

• 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

  Nature, Civilization, Cities

  Edward Abbey (1968). “Desert Solitaire”, p.129, Simon and Schuster

• I thought of the wilderness we had left behind us, open to sea and sky, joyous in its plenitude and simplicity, perfect yet vulnerable, unaware of what is coming, defended by nothing, guarded by no one.

  Edward Abbey

  Sea, Sky, Perfect

  Edward Abbey (1984). “Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside”, p.147, Macmillan

• Wilderness begins in the human mind.

  Edward Abbey

  Mind, Wilderness, Humans

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.46, RosettaBooks

• The only thing left worth saving is wilderness.

  Edward Abbey

  Saving, Wilderness, Left

• I come more and more to the conclusion that wilderness, in America or anywhere else, is the only thing left that is worth saving.

  Edward Abbey

  America, Saving, Wilderness

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.46, RosettaBooks

• We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope.

  Edward Abbey

  Travel, Needs, Wilderness

  Edward Abbey (1968). “Desert Solitaire”, p.129, Simon and Schuster

• 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

  Army, Journey, Two

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