Married couples who quarrel bitterly every day may really need each other as deeply as those who appear to be desperately in love.
In the modern technoindustrial culture, it is possible to proceed from infancy into senility without ever knowing manhood.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that modern society can lead individuals to age without achieving maturity or true adulthood.
Edward Abbey's quote reflects on the impact of contemporary technoindustrial culture on personal development. It implies that in this fast-paced, technology-driven society, individuals may miss out on essential life experiences and growth that define manhood, resulting in a life of immaturity despite physical aging. This commentary on cultural influences raises questions about the values and priorities that govern our lives, emphasizing the need for deeper connections and personal growth.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about personal development during a public seminar on self-improvement.
More from Edward Abbey
All quotes βI 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.
Similar quotes
A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State's motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY.
If it can be verified, we don't need faith... Faith is for that which lies on the other side of reason. Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.
Affliction hardens and discourages us because, like a red hot iron, it stamps the soul to its very depths with the scorn, the disgust, and even the self-hatred and sense of guilt that crime logically should produce but actually does not.
It is not the cause for which men took up arms that makes a victory more just or less, it is the order that is established when arms have been laid down.
In the beautiful, man sets himself up as the standard of perfection; in select cases he worships himself in it. Man believes that the world itself is filled with beauty -he forgets that it is he who has created it. He alone has bestowed beauty upon the world -alas! only a very human, an all too human, beauty.
We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can - namely, surrender our will and fulfill God's will in us.