Abbey, Edward Paul

1927 - Born on the 29th of January in Indiana, Pennsylvania.

1944 - He received a Master's Degree in philosophy from the University of New Mexico and also studied at

              the University of Edinburgh,Scotland.

1950 - He worked as as seasonal ranger for the United States Park Service at Arches National Monument

                (now a national park), near the town of Moab, Utah.

1968 - He wrote "Desert Solitaire" which he described as an elegy, not a travel guide.

        - He also attacked the "industrial tourism" and resulting development in the national parks ("national

                 parking lots"), railsagainst Glen Canyon Dam, and comments on various other subjects.

1980 - Earth First! ( a radical environmentalist organization) was formed, and he became associated with

                    many of its members, and occasionally wrote for the organization.

1989 - He died on the 14th of March because of complications from surgery.

• "If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government --and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws."
• "Men love their ideas more than their lives. And the more preposterous the idea, the more eager they are to die for it. And to kill for it."
• "When the philosopher's argument becomes tedious, complicated, and opaque, it is usually a sign that he is attempting to prove as true to the intellect what is plainly false to common sense."
• "Abolition of a woman's right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State."
• "Nobody seems more obsessed by diet than our anti-materialistic, otherworldly, New Age spiritual types. But if the material world is merely illusion, an honest guru should be as content with Budweiser and bratwurst as with raw carrot juice, tofu and seaweed slime."