“My home is in Heaven. I'm just traveling through this world.”
Billy Graham (1918–2018) American Christian evangelist
A collection of quotes on the topic of home, world, freedom, travel.
“My home is in Heaven. I'm just traveling through this world.”
Billy Graham (1918–2018) American Christian evangelist
“To lose your prejudices you must travel.”
Marlene Dietrich (1901–1992) German-American actress and singer
Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet
The Fairy Tale of My Life
Fairy Tales (1835)
Source: The Fairy Tale of My Life: An Autobiography
“It is better to travel well than to arrive.”
Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism
“Tell me, O muse, of travellers far and wide”
Homér Ancient Greek epic poet, author of the Iliad and the Odyssey
“You don't need to travel, laughter is an instant vacation”
Milton Berle (1908–2002) American comedian and actor
Variant: Laughter is an instant vacation.
“Peculiar Travel Suggestions are Dancing Lessons From God”
Kurt Vonnegut book Cat's Cradle
Cat's Cradle (1963)
“5272. Travel makes a wise Man better, but a Fool worse.”
Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“If time travel is possible, where are the tourists from the future?”
Stephen Hawking book A Brief History of Time
Source: A Brief History of Time
“Traveling—it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.”
Ibn Battuta (1304–1377) Moroccan explorer
Source: The Travels of Ibn Battutah
“So shut up, live, travel, adventure, bless and don't be sorry”
Jack Kerouac book Desolation Angels
Variant: Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don't be sorry.
Source: Desolation Angels
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer
Letter to Leopold Mozart (Mannheim, 2 February 1778), from The letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1769-1791, translated, from the collection of Ludwig Nohl, by Lady [Grace] Wallace (Oxford University Press, 1865, digitized 2006) vol. I, # 91 (p. 164) http://books.google.com/books?vid=0SGwLiCNxu7qZ5ch&id=KEgBAAAAQAAJ&printsec=titlepage&dq=%22The+letters+of+Wolfgang+Amadeus+Mozart,+1769-1791%22&hl=en#PRA1-PA164,M1
Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer
Designing the Future (2007)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer
Letter to Leopold Mozart (11 September 1778), from Wolfgang Amadé Mozart by Georg Knepler (1991), trans. J. Bradford Robinson [Cambridge University Press, 1994, ], p. 12.
Variant: A fellow of mediocre talent will remain a mediocrity, whether he travels or not; but one of superior talent (which without impiety I cannot deny that I possess) will go to seed if he always remains in the same place.
Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac
“Wisconsin: Flambeau”, p. 113.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Wisconsin: Marshland Elegy," "Wisconsin: The Sand Counties" "Wisconsin: On a Monument to the Pigeon," and "Wisconsin: Flambeau"
Najmuddin Kubra (1145–1221) Iranian sufi poet and philosopher
Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2002), p. 117
“Light travels faster than sound. Isn't that why people appear bright before you hear them speak?”
Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author
John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author
July 1890, page 313
(From Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Second Series (1844) "Essay VI: Nature": "the trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment, rooted in the ground.")
John of the Mountains, 1938
Context: It has been said that trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment rooted in the ground. But they never seem so to me. I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!
Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet
dies slowly… <br class="br">Muere lentamente quien no viaja, quien no lee,<br>quien no oye música,<br>quien no encuentra gracia en sí mismo.<br>Muere lentamente<br>quien destruye su amor propio,<br>quien no se deja ayudar... <br class="br">Poem "Muere lentamente" (Dying Slowly), wrongly attributed to Pablo Neruda. See "Fake Pablo Neruda Poem Spreads on Internet" http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=325275&CategoryId=14094 by Ana Mendoza, Latin American Herald Tribune (12 January 2009). <br class="br">Misattributed <br class="br">Source: Selected Poems
Douglas Adams book Mostly Harmless
Variant: Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.
Source: Mostly Harmless
Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) Peruvian-American author
Source: The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
"As I Please," Tribune (12 May 1944)<sup> http://alexpeak.com/twr/orwell/quotes/</sup> <br class="br">"As I Please" (1943–1947)
Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio
Canto VIII, lines 1–6 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio
Robert Louis Stevenson book Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes
Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1878).
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
"Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels" (1946)
Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor
Vibe "Justin Bieber on Photo Shoots, Puberty, 2Pac & Drake" http://www.vibe.com/article/justin-bieber-photo-shoots-puberty-2pac-drake, 22 July 2010
Paul Robeson (1898–1976) American singer and actor
"’I Love Above All, Russia,’ Robeson Says," Afro-American, (25 June 1949), p. 7
“Nevertheless I long—I pine, all my days—
to travel home and see the dawn of my return.”
V. 219–220 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)
Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty
Source: The Art of War, Chapter XI · The Nine Battlegrounds
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter
"Suzanne" - Isle of Wight performance (1970) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_56ep729TE - Live in London (2008) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snMOmHzgssk <br class="br">Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967) <br class="br">Context: Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river.<br>You can hear the boats go by,<br>You can spend the night beside her,<br>And you know that she's half crazy<br>But that's why you want to be there,<br>And she feeds you tea and oranges<br>That come all the way from China.<br>And just when you mean to tell her<br>That you have no love to give her<br>Then she gets you on her wavelength<br>And she lets the river answer<br>That you've always been her lover.<br>And you want to travel with her,<br>And you want to travel blind,<br>And you know that she will trust you,<br>For you've touched her perfect body with your mind.
Attar of Nishapur (1145–1230) Persian Sufi poet
"Looking For Your Own Face" as translated by Coleman Barks in The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia
Context: Don't be dead or asleep or awake.
Don't be anything.
What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you'll be that.
Geoff Dyer (1958) English writer
Source: Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It (1993), p. 15
“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”
Martin Buber (1878–1965) German Jewish Existentialist philosopher and theologian
The Legend of the Baal-Shem (1955),1995 edition, p. 36
Guy De Maupassant (1850–1893) French writer
Source: The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant, Part One
Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet
Source: Poem "The Road Not Taken"
Context: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest
Gwendolen, Act II
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Sadhguru book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy
Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy
“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Variant: A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
“In our imaginations we can go anywhere. Travel with me to Redwall in Mossflower country.”
Brian Jacques (1939–2011) British fiction writer known for Redwall animal fantasy novels
“There is meaning in every journey that is unknown to the traveler.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi
“Air travel is nature's way of making you look like your passport photo.”
Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States
“Every perfect traveller always creates the country where he travels.”
Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) Greek writer
As quoted in Reporter in Red China (1966) by Charles Taylor
Elias Canetti (1905–1994) Bulgarian-born Swiss and British jewish modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer
Source: The Voices of Marrakesh: A Record of a Visit
Anthony Bourdain book Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
Medium Raw (2010)
Source: Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
“Life is what we make of it. Travel is the traveler. What we see isn't what we see but what we are.”
Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet
Original: (pt) Viajar? Para viajar basta existir. [...] Para quê viajar? Em Madrid, em Berlim, na Pérsia, na China, nos Pólos ambos, onde estaria eu senão em mim mesmo, e no tipo e género das minhas sensações?
A vida é o que fazemos dela. As viagens são os viajantes. O que vemos não é o que vemos, senão o que somos.
Source: The Book of Disquiet, p. 360
Context: To travel? In order to travel it's enough to be. […] Why travel? In Madrid, in Berlin, in Persia, in China, at the Poles both, where would I be but in myself, and in the sort and kind of my sensations?
Life is what we make of it. Travels are travellers. What we see is not what we see but what we are.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
“Like all great travellers I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.”
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Book VIII, Chapter 4.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Vivian Grey (1826)
“I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night.”
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer
Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman
Siren http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/siren-7/ <br class="br">From the poems written in English
Mitch Hedberg (1968–2005) American stand-up comedian
Mitch All Together (2003)
Jules Verne book Around the World in Eighty Days
Qu'un Anglais comme lui fît le tour du monde un sac à la main, passe encore; mais une femme ne pouvait entreprendre une pareille traversée dans ces conditions.
Source: Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), Ch. XX: In Which Fix Comes Face to Face with Phileas Fogg
Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam
Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 574
Sunni Hadith
J. J. Thomson (1856–1940) British physicist
Royal Institution Lecture (April 30, 1897) as quoted by Edmund Taylor Whittaker, A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity from the Age of Descartes to the Close of the Nineteenth Century http://books.google.com/books?id=CGJDAAAAIAAJ (1910). <br class="br">Quotes eat me
Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England
They should know their place and keep quiet.
On Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine in What Not to Wear
[Screen Burn, The Guardian, 8 December 2001]
Guardian columns, Screen Burn
Melvil Dewey (1851–1931) American librarian and educator
"Field and Future of Traveling Libraries". Home Education Department. Bulletin. State University of New York (1901), (40).
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works
Letter to Deborah Webster (25 October 1958)
Tiffany Brar (1988) Indian Social Activist
As quoted in They Say the Blind Should Not Lead the Blind. She Proves Them Wrong. https://www.thebetterindia.com/40485/tiffany-brar-working-for-blind/ (December 22, 2015) by Ranjini Sivaswamy, The Better India.
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Source: 1910s, Why Men Fight https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Why_Men_Fight (1917), pp. 18-19