Edward Abbey - Wilderness Quotes

18 Sourced Quotes

View all Edward Abbey Quotes
The idea of wilderness needs no defense. It only needs more defenders.

Edward Abbey
Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread.

Edward Abbey
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
It is my fear that if we allow the freedom of the hills, and the last of the wilderness to be taken from us, then the very idea of freedom may die with it.

Edward Abbey
We would guard and defend and save it [wilderness] as a place for all who wish to discover the nearly lost pleasures of adventure, adventure not only in the physical sense, but also mental, spiritual, moral, aesthetic, and intellectual adventure. A place for the free.

Edward Abbey
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
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
My job is to save the fucking wilderness. I don't know anything else worth saving.

Edward Abbey
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
We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may not ever need to go there.

Edward Abbey
But the love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need — if only we had the eyes to see. Original sin, the true original sin, is the blind destruction for the sake of greed of this natural paradise which lies all around us — if only we were worthy of it.

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

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

Edward Abbey
If wilderness is outlawed, only outlaws can save wilderness.

Edward Abbey
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