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
Wealth should come like manna from heaven, unearned and uncalled for. Money should be like grace -- a gift. It is not worth sweating and scheming for.
Interpretation
Wealth should be perceived as a natural gift rather than something to be tirelessly pursued.
In this quote, Edward Abbey reflects on the nature of wealth, suggesting that it should arrive unexpectedly and without effort, akin to divine grace. He critiques the societal obsession with acquiring money through excessive toil and scheming, proposing instead that true wealth is something freely given and appreciated rather than something that defines one's worth or happiness.
In practice
In a speech about financial freedom, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of appreciating what one has rather than obsessing over wealth.
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.
Let us work without desire for name or fame or rule over others. Let us be free from the triple bonds of lust, greed of gain, and anger. And this truth is with us!
What a pity that 'nothingness' has been devalued by an abuse of it made by philosophers unworthy of it!
The question is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what He intended us to be when He made us.
I want you to understand that I respect the rights of the poorest and weakest of colored people, oppressed by the slave system, just as much as I do those of the most wealthy and powerful. That is the idea that has moved me, and that alone.
I had long ago learned that when you are the giant, alien visitor to a remote and foreign culture it is sort of your job to become an object of ridicule. Itβs the least you can do, really, as a polite guest.
So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist. It does not then concern either the living or the dead, since for the former it is not, and the latter are no more.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.