“Travelers, there is no path, paths are made by walking.”
"Proverbios y cantares XXIX" [Proverbs and Songs 29], Campos de Castilla (1912); trans. Betty Jean Craige in Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Louisiana State University Press, 1979)
Context: Wanderer, your footprints are
the path, and nothing else;
wanderer, there is no path,
the path is made by walking.
Walking makes the path,
and on glancing back
one sees the path
that will never trod again.
Wanderer, there is no path—
Just steles in the sea.
Original
Caminante, son tus huellas el camino, y nada más; caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar. Al andar se hace "Camino, y al volver la vista atrás se ve la senda que nunca se ha de volver a pisar. Caminante, no hay camino, sino estelas en la mar.
Variant: Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino, y nada más;
caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante, no hay camino,
sino estelas en la mar.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Antonio Machado 8
Spanish poet 1875–1939Related quotes
Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino, y nada más;
caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante, no hay camino,
sino estelas en la mar.
"Proverbios y cantares XXIX" [Proverbs and Songs 29], Campos de Castilla (1912); trans. Betty Jean Craige in Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Louisiana State University Press, 1979)

“You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself.”
“They’ll say you’re walking down the wrong path, if you’re walking down your path.”
Dirán que andas por un camino equivocado, si andas por tu camino.
Voces (1943)

The Prophet (1923)
Context: Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have found the soul walking upon my path." For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

Source: The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation
Buddhist Socteriological Ethics: A Study of the Buddha’s Central Teachings (1999)

“The eye travels along the paths cut out for it in the work.”
I.13 Productive | Receptive, p. 33
1921 - 1930, Pedagogical Sketch Book, (1925)