WIST Quotations

Abbey, Edward -- “Arizona: How Big is Enough?”One Life at a Time, Please (1988)

Dave — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 18:13:12 +0000

The religion of endless growth — like any religion based on blind faith rather than reason — is a kind of mania, a form of lunacy, indeed a disease. And the one disease to which the growth mania bears an exact analogical resemblance is cancer. Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. Cancer has no purpose but growth; but it does have another result — the death of the host.

Edward Abbey (1927-1989) American anarchist, writer, environmentalist
“Arizona: How Big is Enough?”One Life at a Time, Please (1988)
(Source)

Abbey, Edward -- “TV Show: Out There On the Rocks,” One Life at a Time, Please (1988)

Dave — Wed, 22 Apr 2020 15:44:16 +0000

There are some places so beautiful they can make a grown man break down and weep.

Edward Abbey (1927-1989) American anarchist, writer, environmentalist
“TV Show: Out There On the Rocks,” One Life at a Time, Please (1988)
(Source)

Abbey, Edward -- A Voice Crying in the Wilderness, ch. 4, “Life and Death and All That” (1989)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

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 (1927-1989) American anarchist, writer, environmentalist
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness, ch. 4, “Life and Death and All That” (1989)
(Source)

Abbey, Edward -- A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (1989)

Dave — Fri, 23 Oct 2020 18:52:35 +0000

One thing more dangerous than getting between a grizzly sow and her cub is getting between a businessman and a dollar bill.

Edward Abbey (1927-1989) American anarchist, writer, environmentalist
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (1989)

Abbey, Edward -- A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (1991)

Dave — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 10:40:15 +0000

Most of us lead lives of chaotic improvisation from day to day, bawling for peace while plunging grimly into fresh disorders.

Edward Abbey (1927-1989) American anarchist, writer, environmentalist
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (1991)
(Source)

Abbey, Edward -- A Voice Crying in the Wilderness, ch. 3 “Government and Politics” (1989)

Dave — Fri, 17 Jan 2020 22:57:48 +0000

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 (1927-1989) American anarchist, writer, environmentalist
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness, ch. 3 “Government and Politics” (1989)
(Source)

Abbey, Edward -- A Voice Crying in the Wilderness, ch. 4, “Life and Death and All That” (1989)

Dave — Mon, 31 Jul 2017 19:28:13 +0000

Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.

Edward Abbey (1927-1989) American anarchist, writer, environmentalist
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness, ch. 4, “Life and Death and All That” (1989)
(Source)

Sometimes incorrectly quoted as "Belief without action is the ruin of the soul."

Abbey, Edward -- Confessions of a Barbarian: Selections from the Journals of Edward Abbey, 1951-1989, 19 Oct 1978 (1994)

Dave — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 10:14:12 +0000

Courage — without which all other virtues are useless.

Edward Abbey (1927-1989) American anarchist, writer, environmentalist
Confessions of a Barbarian: Selections from the Journals of Edward Abbey, 1951-1989, 19 Oct 1978 (1994)
(Source)

Often paraphrased "Without courage, all other virtues are useless." See Lewis.