Tag: Edward Abbey

“Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure.”

Robert LeFevre

“In the eyes of empire builders men are not men but instruments.”

Napoléon Bonaparte

“It is self-evident that no number of men, by conspiring, and calling themselves a government, can acquire any rights whatever over other men, or other men’s property, which they had not before, as individuals.”

Lysander Spooner

“Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.”

Edward Abbey

“Our institutions are too big; they represent not the best but the worst characteristics of human beings. Power corrupts; attracts the worst and corrupts the best. Refuse to participate in evil; insist on taking part in what is healthy, generous, and responsible. Stand up, speak out, and when necessary fight back. Get down off the fence and lend a hand, grab a-hold, be a citizen, not a subject.”

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

“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”

Edward Abbey

“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”

Edward Abbey

“Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.”

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

“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am – a reluctant enthusiast….a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”

Edward Abbey

Hat tip flash

“Recorded history is largely an account of the crimes and disasters committed by banal little men at the levers of imperial machines.”

Edward Abbey