Quote #22

Knowing now what we have learned, unless the need were urgent, I could no more sink the blade of an ax into the tissues of a living tree than I could drive it into the flesh of a fellow human.

More from Edward Abbey

  1. There are some good things to be said about walking. Not many, but some. Walking takes longer, for example, than any other known form of lo…
  2. The idea of wilderness needs no defense. It only needs more defenders.
  3. Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
  4. 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 w…
  5. Balance, that's the secret. Moderate extremism.
  6. When I write 'paradise' I mean not only apple trees and golden women but also scorpions and tarantulas and flies, rattlesnakes and Gila mon…
  7. To die alone, on rock under sun at the brink of the unknown, like a wolf, like a great bird, seems to me very good fortune indeed.
  8. Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread.

All Edward Abbey quotes