Some fine quotes. Plenty, to be precise.

[Skybird]

Yesterday night, in bed, I read a philosophic essay, and the author repeatedly mentioned a name previously unknown to me, Edward Abbey. I have no clue on him, but found this site with quotes by him, and I liked what I read, and found plenty of lines I especially liked, especially in the later part of the list.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edward_Abbey

Some foretastes:

Whatever we cannot easily understand we call God; this saves much wear and tear on the brain tissues.

• According to the current doctrines of mysticoscientism, we human animals are really and actually nothing but "organic patterns of nodular energy composed of collocations of infinitesimal points oscillating on the multi-dimensional coordinates of the space-time continuum." I'll have to think about that. Sometime. Meantime, I'm going to gnaw on this sparerib, drink my Blatz beer, and contemplate the a posteriori coordinates of that young blonde over yonder, the one in the tennis skirt, tying her shoelaces.

• Orthodoxy is a relaxation of the mind accompanied by a stiffening of the heart.

• Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.

• The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.

• No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets.

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

• 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.

• Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.

• In a nation of sheep, one brave man forms a majority.

• The more corrupt a society, the more numerous its laws.

• Freedom begins between the ears.

• The "Terror" of the French Revolution lasted for ten years. The terror that preceded and led to it lasted for a thousand years.

• Counterpart to the knee-jerk liberal is the new knee-pad conservative, always groveling before the rich and powerful.

• What's the difference between a whore and a congressman? A congressman makes more money.

• When the situation is hopeless, there's nothing to worry about.

• Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.

• An empty man is full of himself.

• I come more and more to the conclusion that wilderness, in America or anywhere else, is the only thing left that is worth saving.

• If wilderness is outlawed, only outlaws can save wilderness.

• The only thing worse than a knee-jerk liberal is a knee-pad conservative.

• God is a sound people make when they're too tired to think anymore.

• Hierarchical institutions are like giant bulldozers ***8212; obedient to the whim of any fool who takes the controls.

That picture! Made in 1986. And no, he is no founding father.



On the guy: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/books/review/Miles.t.html?_r=1&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/A/Abbey,%20Edward?ref=edwardabbey

I know not more about him than the quotes, the picture and this NYT article, but I think it is possible I would have liked this man.