Civilization is a youth with a molotov cocktail in his hand. Culture is the Soviet tank or L.A. cop that guns him… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
There has never yet been a human society worthy of the name of civilization. Civilization remains a remote ideal. — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
In social affairs, I'm an optimist. I really do believe that our military- industrial civilization will soon collapse. — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
A society that feels itself too poor to afford the preservation of wilderness is not worthy of the name civilization. — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
Men come and go, cities rise and fall, whole civilizations appear and disappear-the earth remains, slightly modified. The earth remains, and the… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
Civilization, like an airplane in flight, survives only as it keeps going forward. — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
The knowledge that refuge is available, when and if needed, makes the silent inferno of the desert more easily bearable. Mountains complement… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“To make the distinction unmistakably clear: Civilization is the vital force in human history; culture is that inert mass of institutions and… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
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… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
Except for the scale of the operation, there was nothing unusual about Hitler's massacre of the Jews. Genocide's an old tradition, as human as… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
By the age of eighteen, a human has acquired enough joy and heartache to provide the food of reflection for a century. — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“Our institutions are too big; they represent not the best but the worst characteristics of human beings. By submitting to huge hierarchies of power,… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
No man-made structure in all of American history has been hated so much, by so many, for so long, with such good reason, as… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all. — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“But why, the questioner insists, why do people like you pretend to love uninhabited country so much? Why this cult of wilderness? Why the… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
Civilization is a youth with a molotov cocktail in his hand. Culture is the Soviet tank or L.A. cop that guns him down. — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
All revolutions have failed? Perhaps. But rebellion for good cause is self- justifying -- a good in itself. Rebellion transforms slaves into human beings,… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
“Me, I'm living under a sword too, as Jack may have told you. An old wino's disease, which could lay me in the grave… — Edward Abbey Copy Share Image
