Quotes about mile

A collection of quotes on the topic of mile, thousand, likeness, time.

Quotes about mile

Tupac Shakur photo
Ilya Ehrenburg photo
Confucius photo

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Laozi in the Tao Te Ching, Chapter 64
Misattributed, Chinese

Robert Frost photo

“I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.”

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" (1923) http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171621
Variant: And miles to go before I sleep.
Context: The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

José Baroja photo
John Muir photo

“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!”

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!

Frederick Buechner photo
Bill Evans photo
Scott Jurek photo
Barack Obama photo
Nikola Tesla photo
Dante Alighieri photo

“Now who art thou, that on the bench wouldst sit
In judgment at a thousand miles away,
With the short vision of a single span?”

Canto XIX, lines 79–81 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

“Long, long journey
through the darkness,
long, long way to go;
but what are miles
across the ocean
to the heart that's coming home?”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

Song lyrics, Amarantine (2005)

Paul McCartney photo
John Cage photo
Sting photo

“Many miles away something crawls from the slime
At the bottom of a dark Scottish lake”

Sting (1951) English musician

"Synchronicity II"
Synchronicity (1983)
Context: Mother chants her litany of boredom and frustration
But we know all her suicides are fake
Daddy only stares into the distance
There's only so much more that he can take
Many miles away something crawls from the slime
At the bottom of a dark Scottish lake

George Orwell photo

“As to a pseudonym, a name I always use when tramping etc is P. S. Burton, but if you don't think this sounds a probable kind of name, what about Kenneth Miles, George Orwell, H. Lewis Allways. I rather favour George Orwell.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Letter to Leonard Moore (19 November 1932)
Source: The Collected Essays, Journalism & Letters, George Orwell: An Age Like This, 1920–1940, Editors: Sonia Orwell, Ian Angus.  p. 106.

Richard Bach photo
Steve Martin photo
Jhumpa Lahiri photo
Wendell Berry photo
Billie Holiday photo
Hugh Laurie photo
Jack Kerouac photo
Kathrine Switzer photo

“I could feel my anger dissipating as the miles went by--you can't run and stay mad!”

Kathrine Switzer (1947) American distance runner

Source: Marathon Woman: Running the Race to Revolutionize Women's Sports

Lewis Carroll photo
Ernest Shackleton photo
John Lennon photo

“Please don’t spoil my day; I’m miles away and, after all, I’m only sleeping.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Source: Lyrics of John Lennon

Steve Martin photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Mark Twain photo

“When I was a boy a farmer's wife who lived five miles from our village had great fame as a faith-doctor—that was what she called herself. Sufferers came to her from all around, and she laid her hand upon them and said, "Have faith—it is all that is necessary," and they went away well of their ailments. She was not a religious woman, and pretended to no occult powers. She said that the patient's faith in her did the work. Several times I saw her make immediate cures of severe toothaches. My mother was the patient. In Austria there is a peasant who drives a great trade in this sort of industry, and has both the high and the low for patients. He gets into prison every now and then for practising without a diploma, but his business is as brisk as ever when he gets out, for his work is unquestionably successful and keeps his reputation high. In Bavaria there is a man who performed so many great cures that he had to retire from his profession of stage-carpentering in order to meet the demand of his constantly increasing body of customers. He goes on from year to year doing his miracles, and has become very rich. He pretends to no religious helps, no supernatural aids, but thinks there is something in his make-up which inspires the confidence of his patients, and that it is this confidence which does the work, and not some mysterious power issuing from himself.”

Source: Christian Science (1907), Ch. 4

Barack Obama photo
Gordon Moore photo

“If the auto industry advanced as rapidly as the semiconductor industry, a Rolls Royce would get half a million miles per gallon, and it would be cheaper to throw it away than to park it.”

Gordon Moore (1929) American businessman, co-founder of Intel and author of the eponym law

Moore's Law | ZEISS International http://www.zeiss.com/semiconductor-manufacturing-technology/en_de/products-solutions/lithography-optics/about-optical-lithography/moore_s-law.html (quoting an unidentified statement pertaining to Moore's Law.)

Kurt Vonnegut photo
Kurt Tucholský photo

“Translated: For four years, there were whole square miles of land where murder was obligatory, while it was strictly forbidden half an hour away. Did I say: murder? Of course murder. Soldiers are murderers.”

Kurt Tucholský (1890–1935) German-Jewish journalist, satirist and writer

Da gab es vier Jahre lang ganze Quadratmeilen Landes, auf denen war der Mord obligatorisch, während er eine halbe Stunde davon entfernt ebenso streng verboten war. Sagte ich: Mord? Natürlich Mord. Soldaten sind Mörder.
From Der bewachte Kriegsschauplatz, published 1931 under the pseudonym Ignaz Wrobel; compare http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldaten_sind_M%C3%B6rder.

Richard Henry Dana Jr. photo
Jane Fonda photo

“It's not about how you look, it's about how you feel. I can do more with ease and grace now at 52 than I could when I was 20. I can ride my bike 60 miles, I can handle stress, I have good muscle tone. That's what it's about. Not about being thin but about being healthy”

Jane Fonda (1937) American actress and activist

Telephone interview quoted by Carol Krucoff. Why Jane's Fonda Exercise;Stress-Busting Workouts and Other News About Staying in Shape. Washington Post, 13 March 1990

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)

Terry Pratchett photo
Michael Prysner photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Hilaire Belloc photo
Nathanael Greene photo
Barack Obama photo
George Carlin photo

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, that we've enjoyed some good times this evening, and enjoyed some laughter together, I feel it is my obligation to remind you of some of the negative, depressing, dangerous, life-threatening things that life is really all about; things you have not been thinking about tonight, but which will be waiting for you as soon as you leave the theater or as soon as you turn off your television sets. Anal rape, quicksand, body lice, evil spirits, gridlock, acid rain, continental drift, labor violence, flash floods, rabies, torture, bad luck, calcium deficiency, falling rocks, cattle stampedes, bank failure, evil neighbors, killer bees, organ rejection, lynching, toxic waste, unstable dynamite, religious fanatics, prickly heat, price fixing, moral decay, hotel fires, loss of face, stink bombs, bubonic plague, neo-Nazis, friction, cereal weevils, failure of will, chain reaction, soil erosion, mail fraud, dry rot, voodoo curse, broken glass, snake bite, parasites, white slavery, public ridicule, faithless friends, random violence, breach of contract, family scandals, charlatans, transverse myelitis, structural defects, race riots, sunspots, rogue elephants, wax buildup, killer frost, jealous coworkers, root canals, metal fatigue, corporal punishment, sneak attacks, peer pressure, vigilantes, birth defects, false advertising, ungrateful children, financial ruin, mildew, loss of privileges, bad drugs, ill-fitting shoes, widespread chaos, Lou Gehrig's disease, stray bullets, runaway trains, chemical spills, locusts, airline food, shipwrecks, prowlers, bathtub accidents, faulty merchandise, terrorism, discrimination, wrongful cremation, carbon deposits, beef tapeworm, taxation without representation, escaped maniacs, sunburn, abandonment, threatening letters, entropy, nine-mile fever, poor workmanship, absentee landlords, solitary confinement, depletion of the ozone layer, unworthiness, intestinal bleeding, defrocked priests, loss of equilibrium, disgruntled employees, global warming, card sharks, poisoned meat, nuclear accidents, broken promises, contamination of the water supply, obscene phone calls, nuclear winter, wayward girls, mutual assured destruction, rampaging moose, the greenhouse effect, cluster headaches, social isolation, Dutch elm disease, the contraction of the universe, paper cuts, eternal damnation, the wrath of God, and PARANOIAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Playing With Your Head (1986)

Adolf Galland photo
Archie Carr photo
Sally Ride photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Kathrine Switzer photo
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo
Jamie Oliver photo
Huey Long photo

“We swapped the tyrant 3,000 miles away for a handful of financial slaveowning overlords who make the tyrant of Great Britain seem mild.”

Huey Long (1893–1935) American politician, Governor of Louisiana, and United States Senator

1933 Congressional Record, 72d Cong, 2d sess., Vol. 76; quoted in Hugh Davis Graham, Huey Long (1970), p. 55.

Jules Verne photo

“Everybody knows that the great reversed triangle of land, with its base in the north and its apex in the south, which is called India, embraces fourteen hundred thousand square miles, upon which is spread unequally a population of one hundred and eighty millions of souls. The British Crown exercises a real and despotic dominion over the larger portion of this vast country, and has a governor-general stationed at Calcutta, governors at Madras, Bombay, and in Bengal, and a lieutenant-governor at Agra.

But British India, properly so called, only embraces seven hundred thousand square miles, and a population of from one hundred to one hundred and ten millions of inhabitants. A considerable portion of India is still free from British authority; and there are certain ferocious rajahs in the interior who are absolutely independent.”

<p>Personne n'ignore que l'Inde — ce grand triangle renversé dont la base est au nord et la pointe au sud — comprend une superficie de quatorze cent mille milles carrés, sur laquelle est inégalement répandue une population de cent quatre-vingts millions d'habitants. Le gouvernement britannique exerce une domination réelle sur une certaine partie de cet immense pays. Il entretient un gouverneur général à Calcutta, des gouverneurs à Madras, à Bombay, au Bengale, et un lieutenant-gouverneur à Agra.</p><p>Mais l'Inde anglaise proprement dite ne compte qu'une superficie de sept cent mille milles carrés et une population de cent à cent dix millions d'habitants. C'est assez dire qu'une notable partie du territoire échappe encore à l'autorité de la reine; et, en effet, chez certains rajahs de l'intérieur, farouches et terribles, l'indépendance indoue est encore absolue.</p>
Source: Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), Ch. X: In Which Passepartout Is Only Too Glad to Get Off with the Loss of His Shoes

The Mother photo

“I was on the boat, at sea, not expecting anything (I was of course busy with the inner life, but I was living physically on the boat), when all of a sudden, abruptly, about two nautical miles from Pondicherry, the quality, I may even say physical quality, of the atmosphere of the air, changed so much that I knew we were entering the aura of Sri Aurobindo. It was a physical experience.”

The Mother (1878–1973) spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo

On her return to Pondicherry in April 1920 accompanied by an English lady, Miss Dorothy Hodgeson, after she had refused an offer by Rabindranath Tagore to take charge of Shantiniketan, his educational institute, quoted in "Japan (1916-20)", in [ Chapter 14 Second Coming, K R Srinivas Iyengar http://sriaurobindoashram.com/Content.aspx?ContentURL=_staticcontent/sriaurobindoashram/-09%20e-library/-03%20Disciples/K%20R%20Srinivas%20Iyengar/On%20The%20Mother/-16_Second%20Coming.htm, p. 202

Bertrand Russell photo

“A great deal of work is sedentary, and most manual work exercises only a few specialized muscles. When crowds assemble in Trafalgar Square to cheer to the echo an announcement that the government has decided to have them killed, they would not do so if they had all walked twenty-five miles that day. This cure for bellicosity is, however, impracticable, and if the human race is to survive – a thing which is, perhaps, undesirable – other means must be found for securing an innocent outlet for the unused physical energy that produces love of excitement. This is a matter which has been too little considered, both by moralists and by social reformers. The social reformers are of the opinion that they have more serious things to consider. The moralists, on the other hand, are immensely impressed with the seriousness of all the permitted outlets of the love of excitement; the seriousness, however, in their minds, is that of Sin. Dance halls, cinemas, this age of jazz, are all, if we may believe our ears, gateways to Hell, and we should be better employed sitting at home contemplating our sins. I find myself unable to be in entire agreement with the grave men who utter these warnings. The devil has many forms, some designed to deceive the young, some designed to deceive the old and serious. If it is the devil that tempts the young to enjoy themselves, is it not, perhaps, the same personage that persuades the old to condemn their enjoyment? And is not condemnation perhaps merely a form of excitement appropriate to old age? And is it not, perhaps, a drug which – like opium – has to be taken in continually stronger doses to produce the desired effect? Is it not to be feared that, beginning with the wickedness of the cinema, we should be led step by step to condemn the opposite political party, dagoes, wops, Asiatics, and, in short, everybody except the fellow members of our club? And it is from just such condemnations, when widespread, that wars proceed. I have never heard of a war that proceeded from dance halls.”

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

1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)

Charles Darwin photo
Scott Jurek photo
Theodoros Kolokotronis photo

“It was not until our rising that all the Greeks were brought into communication. There were men who knew of no place beyond a mile of their own locality.”

Theodoros Kolokotronis (1770–1843) Greek general

Theodoros Kolokotronis' memoirs (1846), quoted in: Jim Potts (2010) The Ionian Islands and Epirus: A Cultural History, p. 176

Nikola Tesla photo
Wang Wei photo

“Fighting single-handed for a thousand miles,
With his naked dagger he could hold a multitude.”

Wang Wei (699–759) a Tang dynasty Chinese poet, musician, painter, and statesman

"Song of an Old General" http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/wang_wei/poems/11147.html (老将行)

Nikola Tesla photo

“Alternate currents, especially of high frequencies, pass with astonishing freedom through even slightly rarefied gases. The upper strata of the air are rarefied. To reach a number of miles out into space requires the overcoming of difficulties of a merely mechanical nature.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

"Experiments With Alternate Currents Of High Potential And High Frequency" http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1892-02-03.htm an address to the Institution of Electrical Engineers, London (February 1892)

Sandra Bullock photo

“My mind goes a mile a minute. I'm difficult on every single level. I'm aware that I can be annoying.”

Sandra Bullock (1964) American actress and producer

Parade interview (2009)
Context: I know I'm not easy to deal with. I'm controlling, and I want everything orderly, and I need lists. My mind goes a mile a minute. I'm difficult on every single level. I'm aware that I can be annoying.

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.

Nikola Tesla photo
Nikola Tesla photo

“While I have not, as yet, actually effected a transmission of a considerable amount of energy, such as would be of industrial importance, to a great distance by this new method, I have operated several model plants under exactly the same conditions which will exist in a large plant of this kind, and the practicability of the system is thoroughly demonstrated. The experiments have shown conclusively that, with two terminals maintained at an elevation of not more than thirty thousand to thirty-five thousand feet above sea-level, and with an electrical pressure of fifteen to twenty million volts, the energy of thousands of horse-power can be transmitted over distances which may be hundreds and, if necessary, thousands of miles. I am hopeful, however, that I may be able to reduce very considerably the elevation of the terminals now required, and with this object I am following up an idea which promises such a realization. There is, of course, a popular prejudice against using an electrical pressure of millions of volts, which may cause sparks to fly at distances of hundreds of feet, but, paradoxical as it may seem, the system, as I have described it in a technical publication, offers greater personal safety than most of the ordinary distribution circuits now used in the cities. This is, in a measure, borne out by the fact that, although I have carried on such experiments for a number of years, no injury has been sustained either by me or any of my assistants.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

The Problem of Increasing Human Energy (1900)

Miles Davis photo

“Miles said he looked on his need for constant change as a curse. However, Miles, along with Duke Ellington, in terms of looking for models of how you strategize with a band, have been there constantly in the background for me. Not the Beatles as a construct for a group, not Led Zeppelin, not the Floyd. My guides have always been Miles and Duke.”

Miles Davis (1926–1991) American jazz musician

Robert Fripp, on how Miles Davis influenced his leadership in King Crimson.
As quoted in a Rolling Stone interview "The Crimson King Seeks a New Court" by Hank Shteamer (15 April 2019) https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/robert-fripp-interview-king-crimson-tour-david-bowie-kanye-west-820783/.
Quotes by others

Laozi photo

“Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…
Ellen DeGeneres photo

“You have to stay in shape. My grandmother, she started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She's 97 today and we don't know where the hell she is.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Variant: My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's ninety-seven now, and we don't know where the heck she is.

Alyson Nöel photo
Spencer W. Kimball photo

“Lengthen your stride/go the extra mile”

Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
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)

Eoin Colfer photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“Make friends with pain, and you will never be alone.~Ken Chlouber, Colorado miner and creator of the Leadville Trail 100 mile race”

Christopher McDougall (1962) American journalist and writer

Source: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Albert Einstein photo
John Wesley photo

“Light yourself on fire with passion and people will come from miles to watch you burn.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

As quoted in The Peaceful Path of Prosperity : Practical and Spiritual Approaches to Enrich Your Life with Your Inner Wealth (2001) by Danny Babineaux; not found in any record of Wesley before 2001.
Misattributed
Variant: I set myself on fire and people come to watch me burn.

“… for some of us, one mile can be more to walk than thirty.”

Francine Rivers (1947) American writer

Source: Redeeming Love

Carl Hiaasen photo
Suzanne Collins photo
Steven Wright photo
Anna Quindlen photo
Jerry Spinelli photo
Irvine Welsh photo
Carrie Fisher photo
Wayne W. Dyer photo
Jim Butcher photo