Edward Abbey Quotes

You cannot change the conclusion of the brain by torture, nor by social ostracism. But I will tell you what you can do by these and what you have done. You can make hypocrites by the million.

The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.

We must form men so that they can only will what we wish them to will.

Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.

If you don't watch it people will force you one way or the other, into doing what they think you should do, or into just being mule-stubborn and doing the opposite out of spite.

We are human beings, not ants.

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's somebody doing something because I pushed them in that direction.

At which point should we let go and do what we want to do, and when should we submit to rules? Coming to terms with our true natures and who we really are has always been a fascination to humans. I know it fascinates me.

People don't like to be nagged. When people nag us, we instantly resist, but when the facts force us in that same direction, we instantly adapt.

We human beings are strange creatures and still reserve the right to think for ourselves.

All forms of tampering with human beings, getting at them, shaping them against their will to your own pattern, all thought control and conditioning is, therefore, a denial of that in men which makes them men and their values ultimate.

You know, you can't make the people do what you want them to do.

Coercion, after all, merely captures man. Freedom captivates him.

Human beings have an inalienable right to invent themselves; when that right is pre-empted it is called brain-washing.

He who would dare to undertake to establish a nation would have to feel himself capable of altering, so to speak, human nature, to transform each individual, who by his very nature is a unique and perfect whole, into a mere part of a greater whole, from which this individual would in a sense receive his life and his being.

Man has been naturally so created that it is advantageous for him to be submissive, but disastrous for him to follow his own will, and not the will of his creator.

Once a person insists on how you are to think he immediately begins to insist on how you are to behave.

Every individual wishes the rest to live after his own mind, and to approve what he approves, and reject what he rejects.

The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.

I'm never going to change who I am for the UFC.

It's choice that makes us human.

Humans were free before the word freedom became necessary.

You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us. But we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable.

I think the idea of freedom or liberty is really misused for political reasons, but it's something that resonates with people to the core. People want to be masters of their own destinies, but at the same time, I think they do so selectively. Sometimes they want to be told exactly what to do so they don't have to think for themselves - as long as they can still exercise their free will.

All is one, all is different. How many natures exist in man? How many vocations? And by what chance does each man ordinarily choose what he has heard praised?