There is a deep, abiding, unshakable satisfaction in a life of complete failure.

In social institutions, the whole is always less than the sum of its parts. There will never be a state as good as its people, or a church worthy of its congregation, or a university equal to its faculty and students.

The world of employer and employee, like that of master and slave, debases both.

Every writer has his favorite coterie of enemies: Mine is the East Coast literati -- those prep school playmates and their Ivy League colleagues.

There are circumstances in which suicide presents a viable option; a workable alternative; the only sensible solution.

We are slaves in the sense that we depend for our daily survival upon an expand-or-expire agro-industrial empire—a crackpot machine—that the specialists cannot comprehend and the managers cannot manage. Which is, furthermore, devouring world resources at an exponential rate. We are, most of us, dependent employees. …Edward Abbey (1927-1989)

Most academic economists know nothing of economy. In fact, they know little of anything.