Married couples who quarrel bitterly every day may really need each other as deeply as those who appear to be desperately in love.
Edward AbbeyRead
Our modern industrial economy takes a mountain covered with trees, lakes, running streams and transforms it into a mountain of junk, garbage, slime pits, and debris.
Interpretation
The quote criticizes the negative impact of industrialization on natural landscapes.
Edward Abbey's quote highlights the destructive transformation of natural environments due to industrialization. He contrasts the beauty of untouched nature, represented by mountains, trees, and clear waters, with the pollution and waste created by industrial processes, underscoring the environmental degradation that results from human activity.
In practice
In a speech about environmental conservation, one might refer to Abbey's quote to illustrate the consequences of neglecting nature.
Married couples who quarrel bitterly every day may really need each other as deeply as those who appear to be desperately in love.
I love America because it is a confused, chaotic mess - and I hope we can keep it this way for at least another thousand years. The permissive society is the free society.
If it's knowledge and wisdom you want, then seek out the company of those who do real work for an honest purpose.
The earth is real. Only a fool, milking his cow, denies the cow's reality.
I believe in nothing that I cannot touch, kiss, embrace.... The rest is only hearsay.
Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience.
Tis a morning pure and sweet, And a dewy splendour falls On the little flower that clings To the turrets and the walls; 'Tis a morning pure and sweet, And the light and shadow fleet; She is walking in the meadow, And the woodland echo rings; In a moment we shall meet; She is singing in the meadow, And the rivulet at her feet Ripples on in light and shadow To the ballad that she sings.
When you go to the mountains, you see them and you admire them. In a sense, they give you a challenge, and you try to express that challenge by climbing them.
Nature, with equal mind, Sees all her sons at play, Sees man control the wind, The wind sweep man away.
Do you love this world? Do you cherish your humble and silky life? Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath? Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden, and softly, and exclaiming of their dearness, fill your arms with the white and pink flowers, with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling, their eagerness to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are nothing, forever?
There was now a distinct manifestation of morning in the air, and presently the bleared white visage of a sunless winter day emerged like a dead-born child.
We try to exile ourselves more and more from nature - not always consciously: We build houses; we dismiss nature; nature has to be outside, because we're inside. God forbid something like a cockroach comes inside, or some dust.
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