Variant translation: The longest journey is the journey inward, for he who has chosen his destiny has started upon his quest for the source of his being.
Markings (1964)
p. 162
“The dawn speeds a man on his journey, and speeds him too in his work.”
Source: Works and Days (c. 700 BC), line 579.
“No cause has he to say his doom is harsh,
Who's made the master of his destiny.”
Gessler, Act III, sc. iii, as translated by Sir Thomas Martin
Wilhelm Tell (1803)
“There was hope in him, and soon perhaps the outline of his journey would take form.”
Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916)
Context: Though the West has accepted as its teacher him who boldly proclaimed his oneness with his Father, and who exhorted his followers to be perfect as God, it has never been reconciled to this idea of our unity with the infinite being. It condemns, as a piece of blasphemy, any implication of man's becoming God. This is certainly not the idea that Christ preached, nor perhaps the idea of the Christian mystics, but this seems to be the idea that has become popular in the Christian west.
But the highest wisdom in the East holds that it is not the function of our soul to gain God, to utilise him for any special material purpose. All that we can ever aspire to is to become more and more one with God. In the region of nature, which is the region of diversity, we grow by acquisition; in the spiritual world, which is the region of unity, we grow by losing ourselves, by uniting. Gaining a thing, as we have said, is by its nature partial, it is limited only to a particular want; but being is complete, it belongs to our wholeness, it springs not from any necessity but from our affinity with the infinite, which is the principle of perfection that we have in our soul.
“The scientific quest is a journey into the unknown.”
Source: The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World (1992), Ch. 1: 'Reason and Belief', p. 21
“The longest part of the journey is said to be the passing of the gate.”
Portam itineri dici longissimam esse.
Marcus Porcius Cato on Agriculture : Marcus Terentius Varro on Agriculture. W.D. Hooper & H.B. Ash. (translation). Harvard University Press, 1993. Bk. 1, ch. 2;
De Re Rustica
“The longest journey ends where apathy begins.”
Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)
Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from "Tales of Power" (Chapter 10)
From, On Loving of God, Paul Halsall trans., Ch. 3
