#edward abbey

“Men come and go, cities rise and fall, whole civilizations appear and disappear—the earth remains slightly modified. The earth remains, and the heartbreaking beauty where there are no hearts to break. Under the desert sun, in that dogmatic clarity, the fables of theology and the myths of classical philosophy dissolve like mist. The air is clean, the rock cuts cruelly into flesh; shatter the rock and the odor of flint rises to your nostrils, bitter and sharp. Whirlwinds dance across the salt flats, a pillar of dust by day; the thornbush breaks into flame at night. What does it mean? It means nothing. It is as it is and has no need for meaning. The desert lies beneath and soars beyond any possible human qualification. Therefore, sublime.”

Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness: A Celebration of the Beauty of Living in a Harsh and Hostile Land — Edward Abbey

“Alone, in the silence, I understand for a moment the dread which many feel in the presence of primeval desert, the unconscious fear which compels them to tame, alter or destroy what they cannot understand, to reduce the wild and prehuman to human dimensions. Anything rather than confront directly the antehuman, that other world which frightens not through danger or hostility but in something far worse—its implacable indifference.”

Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness: A Celebration of the Beauty of Living in a Harsh and Hostile Land — Edward Abbey

“If a man’s imagination were not so weak, so easily tired, if his capacity for wonder not so limited, he would abandon forever such fantasies of the supernal. He would learn to perceive in water, leaves and silence more than sufficient of the absolute and marvelous, more than enough to console him for the loss of the ancient dreams.”

Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness: A Celebration of the Beauty of Living in a Harsh and Hostile Land — Edward Abbey

“No, 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.”

Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness: A Celebration of the Beauty of Living in a Harsh and Hostile Land — Edward Abbey

“But there is still too much to see and marvel at, the world very much alive in the bright light and wind, exultant with the fever in the spring, the delight of morning.”

Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness: A Celebration of the Beauty of Living in a Harsh and Hostile Land — Edward Abbey

“For my own part I am pleased enough with surfaces—in fact they alone seem to me to be of much importance. Such things for example as the grasp of a child’s hand in your own, the flavor of an apple, the embrace of friend or lover, the silk of a girl’s thigh, the sunlight on rock and leaves, the feel of music, the bark of a tree, the abrasion of granite and sand, the plunge of clear water into a pool, the face of the wind—what else is there? What else do we need?”

Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness: A Celebration of the Beauty of Living in a Harsh and Hostile Land — Edward Abbey