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
The result of this bestial lust is an indiscriminate and promiscuous splaying of all of my energies- wanting all, I accomplish nothing; desiring everything, I satisfy nothing and am satisfied by nothing.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the futility of excessive desire and lack of focus in achieving satisfaction.
Edward Abbey articulates a profound truth about the nature of desire and ambition. He suggests that when one allows themselves to be overwhelmed by unchecked cravings, it leads to a chaotic expending of energies without ever attaining true fulfillment. Instead of finding satisfaction or achieving meaningful goals, one becomes a victim of their own insatiable desires, resulting in dissatisfaction and lack of accomplishment.
Themes
DesireSatisfactionFulfillmentFocusEnergy
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about the importance of focus.
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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Now you've given them hope, and they're unhappy. So the blame is all yours.
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No one who cannot limit himself has ever been able to write.
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Those who every morning plan the transactions of the day and follow out that plan carry a thread that will guide them through the labyrinth of the most busy life. The orderly arrangement of their time is like a ray of light which darts itself through all their occupations. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidents, chaos will soon reign.
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He only wishes there were something that would heal the scars in his mind, which he can still feel. He sees his mind now as an archipelago of islands that he labors to build bridges between - and while he's had great success engineering the most spectacular of bridges, he suspects there are some islands that he'll never reach.
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Ideas are nothing. They're irrelevant. If you think your idea is so important, you're doomed. The reality is if you don't like one idea, I've got 299 more. If I tell you my idea, and you can execute better against that idea than I can - great; I get to play a terrific game.
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Even as wisdom often comes from the mouths of babes, so does it often come from the mouths of old people. The golden rule is to test everything in the light of reason and experience, no matter from where it comes.
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