“Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places.”
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance
Context: Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson 727
American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803–1882Related quotes

version in original Dutch (citaat van Johannes Warnardus Bilders, in Nederlands): Met mijn vaders knecht sprak ik af [c. 1825], om stil naar Griekenland [om de Grieken in hun vrijheidsstrijd tegen de Turken te helpen] te gaan; alles was voor den tocht gereed, toen mijn vader het plan ondekte. Bij die gelegenheid kreeg ik mijn eerste en eenigste pak slaag.
Source: 1880's, Johannes Warnardus Bilders' (1887/1900), pp. 73-74

“Our English economists have been living in a fool's paradise.”
Preface To The Second Edition, p. 27-28.
The Theory of Political Economy (1871)
Context: The conclusion to which I am ever more clearly coming is that the only hope of attaining a true system of economics is to fling aside, once and forever, the mazy and preposterous assumptions of the Ricardian school. Our English economists have been living in a fool's paradise. The truth is with the French school, and the sooner we recognize the fact, the better it will be for all the world, except perhaps the few writers who are far too committed to the old erroneous doctrines to allow for renunciation.

Source: Ripping Time (2000), Chapter 4 (p. 98; ellipses indicate a minor elision of description)

“In this fool's paradise he drank delight.”
The Borough (1810), Letter xii, "Players".

“Paradise in which there is no way to leave territory — hell for a traveler.”
Quotes from books, Six months by the islands... and countries (Russian: Полгода по островам... и странам)

“There is meaning in every journey that is unknown to the traveler.”

“How did a fool and his money get together in the first place?”