Quotes about travel
page 2

Shreya Ghoshal photo

“I love to travel and read books but it's cooking that has a healing effect on me. Whenever I am not well I cook something nice and the aroma of the food works wonders for me.”

Shreya Ghoshal (1984) Indian playback singer

Cooking that helps to de-stress me http://www.timesofindia.com/entertainment/hindi/music/news/Balance-music-and-education-Shreya/articleshow/5291639.cms

Barack Obama photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Jules Verne photo

“Hobson perceived with some alarm that bears were very numerous in the neighbourhood and that scarcely a day passed without one or more of them being sighted. Sometimes these unwelcome visitors belonged to the family of brown bears, so common throughout the whole "Cursed Land"; but now and then a solitary specimen of the formidable Polar bear warned the hunters what dangers they might have to encounter as soon as the first frost should drive great numbers of these fearful animals to the neighborhood of Cape Bathurst. Every book of Arctic explorations is full of accounts of the frequent perils in which travelers and whalers are exposed from the ferocity of these animals.”

Hobson constata, non sans une certaine appréhension, que les ours étaient nombreux sur cette partie du territoire. Il était rare, en effet, qu'un jour se passât sans qu'un couple de ces formidables carnassiers ne fût signalé. Bien des coups de fusil furent adressés à ces terribles visiteurs. Tantôt, c'était une bande de ces ours bruns qui sont fort communs sur toute la région de la Terre-Maudite, tantôt, une de ces familles d'ours polaires d'une taille gigantesque, que les premiers froids amèneraient sans doute en plus grand nombre aux environs du cap Bathurst. Et, en effet, dans les récits d'hivernage, on peut observer que les explorateurs ou les baleiniers sont plusieurs fois par jour exposés à la rencontre de ces carnassiers.
Source: The Fur Country, or Seventy Degrees North Latitude (1872), Ch. 14: Some Excursions

Charles Stross photo

“The first rule of space travel…is that mistakes are fatal. Space isn’t friendly; it kills you. And there are no second chances.”

Source: Singularity Sky (2003), Chapter 4, “The Admiral’s Man” (p. 72; ellipsis represents a minor elision of description)

Edward Hopper photo

“To me the most important thing is the sense of going on. You know how beautiful things are when you're traveling.”

Edward Hopper (1882–1967) prominent American realist painter and printmaker

'Edward Hopper in Saõ Paulo', as cited by William C. Seitz, Smithsonian Press, Washington D.C., 1967
posthumous

Rabindranath Tagore photo

“The light of the stars travels millions of miles to reach the earth, but it cannot reach our hearts — so many millions of miles further off are we!”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Glimpses of Bengal http://www.spiritualbee.com/tagore-book-of-letters/ (1921)

Barack Obama photo
A. J. Cronin photo
Woody Allen photo

“I think crime pays. The hours are good, you meet a lot of interesting people, you travel a lot.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Take the Money and Run (1969).

Ronald Reagan photo

“If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals — if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to ensure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are traveling the same path.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Interview published in Reason (1 July 1975)
1970s

Stephen Hawking photo
Jane Goodall photo
Aurelius Augustinus photo

“People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.”

Variant: Men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty billows of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, and pass themselves by.
Source: Confessions (c. 397), X

Darius Milhaud photo
Barack Obama photo

“But we are here today because we know we cannot be complacent. For history travels not only forwards; history can travel backwards, history can travel sideways. And securing the gains this country has made requires the vigilance of its citizens. Our rights, our freedoms -- they are not given. They must be won. They must be nurtured through struggle and discipline, and persistence and faith. And one concern I have sometimes during these moments, the celebration of the signing of the Civil Rights Act, the March on Washington -- from a distance, sometimes these commemorations seem inevitable, they seem easy. All the pain and difficulty and struggle and doubt -- all that is rubbed away. And we look at ourselves and we say, oh, things are just too different now; we couldn’t possibly do what was done then -- these giants, what they accomplished. And yet, they were men and women, too. It wasn’t easy then. It wasn’t certain then. Still, the story of America is a story of progress. However slow, however incomplete, however harshly challenged at each point on our journey, however flawed our leaders, however many times we have to take a quarter of a loaf or half a loaf -- the story of America is a story of progress. And that’s true because of men like President Lyndon Baines Johnson.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by the President at LBJ Presidential Library Civil Rights Summit at Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas on April 10, 2014. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/04/10/remarks-president-lbj-presidential-library-civil-rights-summit
2014

Bashō Matsuo photo
V.S. Naipaul photo
H.P. Lovecraft photo
Cate Blanchett photo
Angelus Silesius photo
Benjamin Mkapa photo

“Terrorist attacks in their own countries do not generate travel advisories aimed at discouraging citizens of other countries from visiting. Why is it that only when threats of terrorist attacks are perceived in our kind of countries are travel advisories issued?”

Benjamin Mkapa (1938) Tanzanian politician and former president

Accusing western countries of issuing indiscriminate travel warnings, 2003-06-24 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3016226.stm http://www.tznews.go.tz/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=1092
2003

Anthony Trollope photo
Bias of Priene photo

“Cherish wisdom as a means of travelling from youth to old age, for it is more lasting than any other possession.”

Bias of Priene (-600–-530 BC) ancient Greek philosopher, one of the Seven Sages

The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 230)

Tennessee Williams photo
Ludwig Wittgenstein photo

“If you want to go down deep you do not need to travel far; indeed, you don't have to leave your most immediate and familiar surroundings.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 50e

Bertrand Russell photo
Juvenal photo

“The traveller with empty pockets will sing in the thief's face.”
Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator.

X, line 22.
Satires, Satire X

Ban Ki-moon photo
Charles Spurgeon photo

“It is a great deal easier to set a story afloat than to stop it. If you want truth to go round the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go round the world, it will fly: it is as light as a feather, and a breath will carry it. It is well said in the old proverb, "A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on." Nevertheless, it does not injure us; for if light as feather it travels as fast, its effect is just about as tremendous as the effect of down, when it is blown against the walls of a castle; it produces no damage whatever, on account of its lightness and littleness. Fear not, Christian. Let slander fly, let envy send forth its forked tongue, let it hiss at you, your bow shall abide in strength. Oh! shielded warrior, remain quiet, fear no ill; but, like the eagle in its lofty eyrie, look thou down upon the fowlers in the plain, turn thy bold eye upon them and say, "Shoot ye may, but your shots will not reach half-way to the pinnacle where I stand. Waste your powder upon me if ye will; I am beyond your reach."”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

Then clap your wings, mount to heaven, and there laugh them to scorn, for ye have made your refuge God, and shall find a most secure abode.
"No. 17: Joseph Attacked by the Archers (Genesis 49:23–24, delivered on Sunday 1855-04-01)" pp.130
Sermons delivered in Exeter Hall, Strand, during the enlargement of New Park Street Chapel, Southmark (1855)

Marquis de Sade photo
Freya Stark photo

“One can only really travel if one lets oneself go and takes what every place brings without trying to turn it into a healthy private pattern of one's own and I suppose that is the difference between travel and tourism.”

Freya Stark (1893–1993) British explorer and writer

Cited in Molly Izzard, A Marvellous Eye, Cornucopia Issue 2. From Wikipedia: Freya Stark. Retrieved 2009-08-25

Aurelius Augustinus photo

“O sons of Peace, sons of the One Catholic [Church], walk in your way, and sing as you walk. Travelers do this in order to keep up their spirits.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p.427

Laozi photo

“A good traveler has no fixed plans
and is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition
lead him wherever it wants.
A good scientist has freed himself of concepts
and keeps his mind open to what is. Thus the Master is available to all people
and doesn't reject anyone.
He is ready to use all situations
and doesn't waste anything.
This is called embodying the light.”

Variants:
A good traveller has no fixed plan and is not intent on arriving.
As quoted in In Search of King Solomon's Mines‎ (2003) by Tahir Shah, p. 217
A true traveller has no fixed plan, and is not intent on arriving.
Source: Tao Te Ching, Ch. 27, as interpreted by Stephen Mitchell (1992)

Cassandra Clare photo
Georg Trakl photo
Ozzy Osbourne photo
Barack Obama photo
Ernest Bramah photo
Barack Obama photo

“Over the last fifteen months we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been in fifty…seven states… I think one left to go. One left to go — Alaska and Hawaii I was not allowed to go to, even though I really wanted to visit — but my staff would not justify it.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

A gaffe during a campaign address, where he had obviously meant to say forty-seven in reference to the 47 of the 48 contiguous US states he had visited. (9 May 2008) Official transcript of address http://www.barackobama.com/2008/05/09/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_63.php - video of actual delivery of the introduction http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpGH02DtIws
2008

Bertrand Russell photo

“My abandonment of former beliefs was, however, never complete. Some things remained with me, and still remain: I still think that truth depends upon a relation to fact, and that facts in general are nonhuman; I still think that man is cosmically unimportant, and that a Being, if there were one, who could view the universe impartially, without the bias of here and now, would hardly mention man, except perhaps in a footnote near the end of the volume; but I no longer have the wish to thrust out human elements from regions where they belong; I have no longer the feeling that intellect is superior to sense, and that only Plato's world of ideas gives access to the 'real' world. I used to think of sense, and of thought which is built on sense, as a prison from which we can be freed by thought which is emancipated from sense. I now have no such feelings. I think of sense, and of thoughts built on sense, as windows, not as prison bars. I think that we can, however imperfectly, mirror the world, like Leibniz's monads; and I think it is the duty of the philosopher to make himself as undistorting a mirror as he can. But it is also his duty to recognize such distortions as are inevitable from our very nature. Of these, the most fundamental is that we view the world from the point of view of the here and now, not with that large impartiality which theists attribute to the Deity. To achieve such impartiality is impossible for us, but we can travel a certain distance towards it. To show the road to this end is the supreme duty of the philosopher.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1950s, My Philosophical Development (1959), p. 213

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo
Bertrand Russell photo
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues photo
Romain Rolland photo
Jules Verne photo

“In spite of the opinions of certain narrow-minded people, who would shut up the human race upon this globe, as within some magic circle which it must never outstep, we shall one day travel to the moon, the planets, and the stars, with the same facility, rapidity, and certainty as we now make the voyage from Liverpool to New York!”

À en croire certains esprits bornés, — c'est le qualificatif qui leur convient, — l'humanité serait renfermée dans un cercle de Popilius qu'elle ne saurait franchir, et condamnée à végéter sur ce globe sans jamais pouvoir s'élancer dans les espaces planétaires! Il n'en est rien! On va aller à la Lune, on ira aux planètes, on ira aux étoiles, comme on va aujourd'hui de Liverpool à New York, facilement, rapidement, sûrement, et l'océan atmosphérique sera bientôt traversé comme les océans de la Lune!
Tr. Walter James Miller (1978)
Variant: If we are to believe certain narrow minded people — and what else can we call them? — humanity is confined within a circle of Popilius from which there is no escape, condemned to vegetate upon this globe, never able to venture into interplanetary space! That's not so! We are going to the moon, we shall go to the planets, we shall travel to the stars just as today we go from Liverpool to New York, easily, rapidly, surely, and the oceans of space will be crossed like the seas of the moon.
Source: From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Ch. XIX: A Monster Meeting (Charles Scribner's Sons "Uniform Edition", 1890, p. 93)

H.P. Lovecraft photo
Barack Obama photo
Richard Long photo
Newton Lee photo
François Fénelon photo
Novalis photo

“Men travel in manifold paths: whoso traces and compares these, will find strange Figures come to light; Figures which seem as if they belonged to that great Cipher-writing which one meets with everywhere”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

Pupils at Sais (1799)
Context: I. The Pupil. — Men travel in manifold paths: whoso traces and compares these, will find strange Figures come to light; Figures which seem as if they belonged to that great Cipher-writing which one meets with everywhere, on wings of birds, shells of eggs, in clouds, in the snow, in crystals, in forms of rocks, in freezing waters, in the interior and exterior of mountains, of plants, animals, men, in the lights of the sky, in plates of glass and pitch when touched and struck on, in the filings round the magnet, and the singular conjunctures of Chance. In such Figures one anticipates the key to that wondrous Writing, the grammar of it; but this Anticipation will not fix itself into shape, and appears as if, after all, it would not become such a key for us. An Alcahest seems poured out over the senses of men. Only for a moment will their wishes, their thoughts thicken into form. Thus do their Anticipations arise; but after short whiles, all is again swimming vaguely before them, even as it did.

“I am a being of Heaven and Earth,
of thunder and lightning,
of rain and wind,
of the galaxies,
of the suns and the stars
and the void through which they travel.”

Eden ahbez (1908–1995) American songwriter and recording artist

Tape recording declaring how he recited one of his poems in response to a question "What is your background?" (1992)
Shadowbox Studio
Context: I am a being of Heaven and Earth,
of thunder and lightning,
of rain and wind,
of the galaxies,
of the suns and the stars
and the void through which they travel.
The essence of nature,
eternal, divine that all men seek to know to hear,
known as the great illusion time,
and the all-prevailing atmosphere.
And now you know my background.

J. M. Barrie photo

“Occasionally in her travels through her children's minds Mrs. Darling found things she could not understand, and of these quite the most perplexing was the word Peter.”

Source: Peter and Wendy (1911), Ch. 1
Context: Occasionally in her travels through her children's minds Mrs. Darling found things she could not understand, and of these quite the most perplexing was the word Peter. She knew of no Peter, and yet he was here and there in John and Michael's minds, while Wendy's began to be scrawled all over with him. The name stood out in bolder letters than any of the other words, and as Mrs. Darling gazed she felt that it had an oddly cocky appearance.
"Yes, he is rather cocky," Wendy admitted with regret. Her mother had been questioning her.

Barack Obama photo

“I tell you this not to lull you into complacency, but to spur you into action — because there’s still so much more work to do, so many more miles to travel. And America needs you to gladly, happily take up that work.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, Howard University commencement address (May 2016)
Context: Racism persists. Inequality persists. Don’t worry — I’m going to get to that. But I wanted to start, Class of 2016, by opening your eyes to the moment that you are in. If you had to choose one moment in history in which you could be born, and you didn’t know ahead of time who you were going to be — what nationality, what gender, what race, whether you’d be rich or poor, gay or straight, what faith you'd be born into — you wouldn’t choose 100 years ago. You wouldn’t choose the fifties, or the sixties, or the seventies. You’d choose right now. If you had to choose a time to be, in the words of Lorraine Hansberry, “young, gifted, and black” in America, you would choose right now.
I tell you all this because it's important to note progress. Because to deny how far we’ve come would do a disservice to the cause of justice, to the legions of foot soldiers; to not only the incredibly accomplished individuals who have already been mentioned, but your mothers and your dads, and grandparents and great grandparents, who marched and toiled and suffered and overcame to make this day possible. I tell you this not to lull you into complacency, but to spur you into action — because there’s still so much more work to do, so many more miles to travel. And America needs you to gladly, happily take up that work.

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“Life is as if you were traveling a ridge crest. You have the gulf of inefficiency on one side and the gulf of wickedness on the other, and it helps not to have avoided one gulf if you fall into the other.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, Address at the Prize Day Exercises at Groton School (1904)
Context: You often hear people speaking as if life was like striving upward toward a mountain peak. That is not so. Life is as if you were traveling a ridge crest. You have the gulf of inefficiency on one side and the gulf of wickedness on the other, and it helps not to have avoided one gulf if you fall into the other. It shall profit us nothing if our people are decent and ineffective. It shall profit us nothing if they are efficient and wicked. In every walk of life, in business, politics; if the need comes, in war; in literature, science, art, in everything, what we need is a sufficient number of men who can work well and who will work with a high ideal. The work can be done in a thousand different ways. Our public life depends primarily not upon the men who occupy public positions for the moment, because they are but an infinitesimal fraction of the whole. Our public life depends upon men who take an active interest in that public life; who are bound to see public affairs honestly and competently managed; but who have the good sense to know what honesty and competency actually mean. And any such man, if he is both sane and high-minded, can be a greater help and strength to any one in public life than you can easily imagine without having had yourselves the experience. It is an immense strength to a public man to know a certain number of people to whom he can appeal for advice and for backing; whose character is so high that baseness would shrink ashamed before them; and who have such good sense that any decent public servant is entirely willing to lay before them every detail of his actions, asking only that they know the facts before they pass final judgment.

W.B. Yeats photo

“Imitate him if you dare,
World-besotted traveller; he
Served human liberty.”

Swift's Epitaph http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1586/.
The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)
Context: Swift has sailed into his rest;
Savage indignation there
Cannot lacerate his breast.
Imitate him if you dare,
World-besotted traveller; he
Served human liberty.

Novalis photo

“We dream of travels throughout the universe: is not the universe within us? We do not know the depths of our spirit. The mysterious path leads within. In us, or nowhere, lies eternity with its worlds, the past and the future.”

Fragment No. 16
Variant translations:
We dream of a journey through the universe. But is the universe then not in us? We do not know the depths of our spirit. Inward goes the secret path. Eternity with its worlds, the past and the future, is in us or nowhere.
As translated in "Bildung in Early German Romanticism" by Frederick C. Beiser, in Philosophers on Education : Historical Perspectives (1998) by Amélie Rorty, p. 294
We dream of journeys through the cosmos — Is the cosmos not then in us? We do not know the depths of our own spirit. — The mysterious path leads within. In us, or nowhere, is eternity with its worlds — the past and the future.
Blüthenstaub (1798)
Context: Imagination places the future world for us either above or below or in reincarnation. We dream of travels throughout the universe: is not the universe within us? We do not know the depths of our spirit. The mysterious path leads within. In us, or nowhere, lies eternity with its worlds, the past and the future.

Marlene Dietrich photo

“To lose your prejudices you must travel.”

Marlene Dietrich (1901–1992) German-American actress and singer
Al Capone photo
Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo

“Whenever I travel the world, from Europe to Africa, South America to Southeast Asia, one of the things I most enjoy doing is meeting young men and women like you.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

It’s more fun than being in a conference room. And it’s also more important -- because you are the young leaders who will determine the future of this country and this region. So I’m going to keep my remarks short at the top, because I want to take as many questions and comments from you.
2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall Speech (November 2014)

Jawaharlal Nehru photo
Bertrand Russell photo
Nikola Tesla photo
Mark Twain photo
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart photo

“When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer — say traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep — it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best, and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not, nor can I force them.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

From a letter now regarded as a forgery by Johann Friedrich Rochlitz http://www.aproposmozart.com/Stafford%20--%20Mozart%20and%20genius.rev.ref.pdf, http://www.mozartforum.com/Lore/article.php?id=108, http://www.mozartforum.com/Lore/article.php?id=106
Misattributed

Ronald Reagan photo
Premchand photo
Arthur C. Clarke photo
James Baldwin photo

“I am beginning to feel like part of a travelling circus.”

Pt. 1, Ch. 3 - p.45
Giovanni's Room (1956)

Voltaire photo
Zakir Naik photo

“The rich non-Muslims travel to Gulf and different Muslim countries. If these Muslim countries have data of these people attacking or spreading venom against Muslims, they should arrest them under their (own) law once they enter their territory”

Zakir Naik (1965) Islamic televangelist

Zakir Naik on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc3h-gjiRTg https://swarajyamag.com/politics/zakir-naik-wants-islamic-nations-to-collect-data-on-indian-non-muslims-attacking-muslims-arrest-them-during-travel
2020

Ghalib photo

“If what the eye sees does not rankle in the heart
Sweet is the flow of life in travel spent.”

Ghalib (1797–1869) Urdu-Persian poet

Ghalib (M. Mujeeb), p. 15
Poetry, Couplets

Tupac Shakur photo
Alex Morgan photo

“I would say I'm good at organizing things, like trips or vacations. I'm always the one to book the flights, and do things like that. I like to do my research. I wouldn't say I'm a super type A personality, but I like to be organized when it comes to travel and vacation.”

Alex Morgan (1989) American soccer player

"The Advice Alex Morgan Would Give Her Daughter About Getting Into Sports" https://www.romper.com/life/alex-morgan-olympics-daughter-interview (July 10, 2021)

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
G. K. Chesterton photo
Fernando Pessoa photo
Albert Einstein photo
Gabrielle Zevin photo

“They should tell you when you’re born: have a suitcase heart, be ready to travel.”

Variant: Have a suitcase heart, be ready to travel.
Source: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

“I would like to travel light on this journey of life, to get rid of the encumbrances I acquire each day.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: The Irrational Season

Philip Roth photo
Patrick Rothfuss photo

“It’s hard to be wrongfully accused, but it’s worse when the people looking down on you are clods who have never read a book or traveled more than twenty miles from the place they were born.”

Variant: It’s hard to be wrongfully accused, but it’s worse when the people looking down on you are clods who have never read a book or traveled more than twenty miles from the place they were born.
Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 8, “Thieves, Heretics, and Whores” (p. 63)

Kelley Armstrong photo
Donna Tartt photo
Gustave Flaubert photo
André Gide photo
Brian Selznick photo
William Blake photo
Michael Palin photo
John Flanagan photo
Cesar Millan photo

“Wolves are disciplined not only when they hunt but also when they travel, when they play, and when they eat. Nature doesn't view discipline as a negative thing. Discipline is DNA. Discipline is survival.”

Cesar Millan (1969) Mexican - American dog trainer and television personality

Source: Cesar's Way: The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems

Italo Calvino photo