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
I am hopeful, though not full of hope, and the only reason I don't believe in happy endings is because I don't believe in endings.
Interpretation
The quote conveys a sense of optimism without certainty in outcomes, emphasizing a belief in the ongoing journey rather than final conclusions.
Edward Abbey reflects on the nature of hope and endings in this quote. He expresses a nuanced view that while he remains hopeful about the future, he doesn't fully embrace the concept of 'happy endings' because he perceives life as a continuous process without definitive conclusions. This perspective suggests that the journey itself is more important than reaching a specific endpoint, inviting us to value the experiences along the way.
In practice
This quote could inspire a discussion about resilience during difficult times.
Married couples who quarrel bitterly every day may really need each other as deeply as those who appear to be desperately in love.
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.
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.
You could watch entire villages and see what everyone was doing. I watched NSA tracking people's Internet activities as they typed. I became aware of just how invasive U.S. surveillance capabilities had become. I realized the true breadth of this system. And almost nobody knew it was happening.
Usually, if we hate, it is the shadow of the person that we hate, rather than the substance. We may hate a person because he reminds us of someone we feared and disliked when younger; or because we see in him some gross caricature of what we find repugnant in ourself; or because he symbolizes an attitude that seems to threaten us.
Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.
The social system based on and consonant with the altruist morality-with the code of self-sacrifice- is socialism, in all or any of its variants: fascism, Nazism, communism. All of them treat man as a sacrificial animal to be immolated for the benefit of the group, the tribe, the society, the state.
The only place where poverty should be is in museums.
There's a notion I'd like to see buried: the ordinary person. Ridiculous. There is no ordinary person.
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