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
Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Wilderness is essential for the human spirit, just like water and food.
Edward Abbey emphasizes the importance of wilderness to human well-being, asserting that it is a fundamental necessity rather than a luxury. He argues that when a civilization disregards and destroys its wild spaces, it loses touch with its roots and undermines the very principles that allow civilization to thrive.
Themes
WildernessNatureCivilizationNecessityHuman Spirit
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about environmental conservation, this quote can highlight the importance of preserving natural spaces.
More from Edward Abbey
All quotes →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.
Edward AbbeyRead
If it's knowledge and wisdom you want, then seek out the company of those who do real work for an honest purpose.
Edward AbbeyRead
The earth is real. Only a fool, milking his cow, denies the cow's reality.
Edward AbbeyRead
I believe in nothing that I cannot touch, kiss, embrace.... The rest is only hearsay.
Edward AbbeyRead
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.
Edward AbbeyRead
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I would I were alive again To kiss the fingers of the rain, To drink into my eyes the shine Of every slanting silver line, To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze From drenched and dripping apple-trees. For soon the shower will be done, And then the broad face of the sun Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth Until the world with answering mirth Shakes joyously, and each round drop Rolls twinkling, from its grass-blade top.
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All the world was before me and every day was a holiday, so it did not seem important to which one of the world's wildernesses I first should wander.
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From the grasses in the field to the stars in the sky, each one is doing just that; and there is such profound peace and surpassing beauty in nature because none of these tries forcibly to transgress its limitations.
Rabindranath TagoreRead