Quotes about path
page 5

“May you walk a lighted path. May you fight for truth - your truth, not someone else's - and may you understand, above all things, that you are the most important concept, theory, and philosophy I have ever known.”

Marisha Pessl Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Source: Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Truth, Understanding, Light, Fight

“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Love, Peaceful, Cute, Romantic

“No one behind, no one ahead.
The path the ancients cleared has closed.
And the other path, everyone's path,
easy and wide, goes nowhere.
I am alone and find my way.”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

Way

“Declining from the public ways, walk in unfrequented paths.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

Symbol 5
The Symbols

Way

“In a day, when you don't come across any problems - you can be sure that you are travelling in a wrong path”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Travel, Problem

“Imagination is a very high sort of seeing, which does not come by study, but by the intellect being where and what it sees, by sharing the path, or circuits of things through forms, and so making them translucid to others.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Imagination, Study

“Nothing can be more cruel than the leniency which abandons others to their sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than the severe reprimand which calls another Christian in one’s community back from the path of sin.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

Communication

“Fernanda, on the other hand, looked for it in vain along the paths of her everyday itinerary without knowing that the search for lost things is hindered by routine habits and that is why it is so difficult to find them.”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude

“The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With each step, the wind blows. With each step, a flower blooms.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Peace, Beauty, Flowers, Beauty

“Absolutely nothing visible to the eye provides a reason for or even evidence of those terrifying shifts which can in a matter of moments reconstitute a simple path into an extremely complicated one.”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Source: House of Leaves

“If you are on the right path, it will always be uphill.”

Henry B. Eyring (1933) American Mormon leader

“You know how every now and then, you have a moment where your whole life stretches out ahead of you like a forked road, and even as you choose one gritty path you've got your eyes on the other the whole time, certain that you're making a mistake.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Life, Time

“And so I wait. I wait for time to heal the pain and raise me to me feet once again - so that I can start a new path, my own path, the one that will make me whole again.”

Jack Canfield (1944) American writer

Source: Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul II

Pain, Time, Waiting

“Those who get in the way of love's path will be kicked by horses.
~Kyoya”

Bisco Hatori (1975) Japanese manga artist

Source: Ouran High School Host Club, Vol. 17

Love, Way, Horse

“There are no mistakes. Only new paths to explore.”

Gregory David Roberts (1952) Australian writer and bank robber

“It'll be all right, my fine fellow," said the Otter. "I'm coming along with you, and I know every path blindfold; and if there's a head that needs to be punched, you can confidently rely upon me to punch it.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows

Confidence

“Fever jumped aside just in time to dodge the shower of urine, and stumbled into the path of a religious procession - celebrants in robes and pointed hats whirling and clapping and chanting the name of some old-world prophet”

Philip Reeve book Fever Crumb

Source: Fever Crumb

World, Time

“So you see, Good and Evil have the same face; it all depends on when they cross the path of each individual human being.”

Paulo Coelho book The Devil and Miss Prym

Source: The Devil and Miss Prym

Evil, Dependency

“When I first arrived in London, I so quickly tired of being surrounded by so many people that it was only with great difficulty that I refrained from seizing the next unfortunate who crossed my path and committing violent acts upon their person.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

People, Personality

“Have you ever been torn between two impossibilities and knew in your heart that no matter which way you went or which path you chose that you were doomed to unhappiness?”

Maya Banks (1964) Author

Source: Sweet Addiction

Way, Heart

“I have always been full of lust - as I am now - but I have always been placing conceptual obstacles in my own path.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Source: Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963

“Waiting patiently doesn't suit you. I can see you have a great deal of water in your personality. Water never waits. It changes shape and flows around things, and finds the secret paths no one else has thought about.
[Mameha]”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Secret, Water, Change, Waiting

“it is only courage on the path itself that makes the path appear”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Courage, Appearance

“O Shepherd. You said you would make my feet like hinds' feet and set me upon High Places".

"Well", he answered "the only way to develop hinds' feet is to go by the paths which the hinds use.”

Hannah Hurnard book Hinds' Feet on High Places

Source: Hinds' Feet on High Places

Way

“It would be so great if it were possible to go through life without making a single mistake but there is no such path. Falling, tripping, losing the way, making mistakes, little by little, walking one step at a time, this is the only way.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Life, Way, Time

“The path I choose through the maze makes me what I am. I am not only a thing, but also a way of being--one of many ways--and knowing the paths I have followed and the ones left to take will help me understand what I am becoming.”

Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon

Source: Flowers for Algernon

Way, Understanding, Help

“I don't think everyone wants to create the great American novel, but we all have a dream of telling our stories-of realizing what we think, feel, and see before we die. Writing is a path to meet ourselves and become intimate.”

Natalie Goldberg (1948) American writer

Source: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

Dreams, Feeling, Thinking

“Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will…”

George Lucas (1944) American film producer

“The world we suggest is a new wild west. A sensuous evil world. Strange and haunting, the path of the sun…”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

World, Evil, Sun

“Wherever goodness lay, it did not lie in ritual, unthinking obeisance before a deity but rather, perhaps, in the slow clumsy, error-strewn working out of an individual or collective path.”

Salman Rushdie book The Enchantress of Florence

Source: The Enchantress of Florence

Lie, Error

“There is a time in every life when paths are chosen, character is forged. I could have chosen a different path. But I didn’t. I failed myself.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Life, Time

“In reality, you don’t ever change the hurricane. You just learn how to stay out of its path.”

Jodi Picoult book House Rules

Source: House Rules

Reality, Learning, Change

“When you are on the right path, invisible hands will come to your aid.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

“For the first forty days a child
is given dreams of previous lives. Journeys, winding paths,
a hundred small lessons
and then the past is erased.”

Michael Ondaatje (1943) Canadian writer

Source: Handwriting

Dreams, Past

“With no surroundings there can be no path, and with no path one cannot become free.”

Gary Snyder (1930) American poet

Source: Practice of the Wild

“He crossed the street toward the man in the trench coat, which left me with two choices: follow my dad and see what was going on, or do what I was told.
I decided on the slightly less dangerous path.
I went to retrieve my sister”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Sister

“To find a mountain path all by oneself gives a greater feeling of strength than to take a path that is shown.”

Karen Horney (1885–1952) American-German psychoanalyst

Source: Self-Analysis

Feeling, Mountain

“No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.”

Julia Cameron book The Artist's Way

Source: The Artist's Way

Life, Age, Dreams, Art

“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Pain, Feeling, Thinking, Personality

“A path is a prior interpretation of the best way to traverse a landscape.”

Rebecca Solnit (1961) Author and essayist from United States

Source: Wanderlust: A History of Walking

Way

“I longed to return to that bloody riverbank, to throw myself in the path of the final arrow, to die ignorant, and so, in love. Better to be killed by an arrow than by the words of the one I most trusted.”

Robin Wasserman (1978) American writer of speculative fiction for young people

Source: The Book of Blood and Shadow

Love

“Love can't mature in one room. It has to come out of the full sharing of everything: joys, aspirations, downfalls, all of it. That's the only real path to love.”

Leon Uris book Trinity

Source: Trinity

Love, Joy

“Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Quoted various times by different characters in all three books.
Old Kingdom series (The Abhorsen Trilogy)
Source: Sabriel

“You make me thank god for every mistake I ever made, Because each one led me down the path that brought me to you.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: The Poetry of Pablo Neruda

God

“You may be your own best helper, if you choose the right path.”

Juliet Marillier book Daughter of the Forest

Source: Daughter of the Forest

“Do the right thing by whoever crosses your path. Those coincidental people are your people.”

Maxine Hong Kingston book Tripmaster Monkey

Source: Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book

People

“Adversity is the first path to truth.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Truth

“The author should die once he has finished writing. So as not to trouble the path of the text.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

Source: Postscript to the Name of the Rose

“*Only if you reject all the other paths can you discover your own path.”

U.G. Krishnamurti (1918–2007) Indian philosopher

Source: Mind Is a Myth

“Long since, the desert wind wiped away our footprints in the sand. But at every second of my existence, I remember what happened, and you still walk in my dreams and in my reality. Thank you for having crossed my path.”

Paulo Coelho book The Fifth Mountain

Source: The Fifth Mountain

Dreams, Reality

“Also, one of the simplest paths to deep change is for the less powerful to speak as much as they listen, and for the more powerful to listen as much as they speak.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Source: My Life on the Road

Change

“I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

Light

“Travelers, there is no path, paths are made by walking.”

Antonio Machado book Kampos di Kastilia

"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.

Travel

“Many young men started down a false path to their true destiny. Time and fortune usually set them aright.”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Source: The Godfather

Men, Time, Falseness

“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

I searched for keywords of that text in his books online and on an electronic copy of Muir of the Mountains, and was unable to find it. On rare occasions we find something in Muir's unpublished journals that is new and which can be verified. So I also did a search of the John Muir Papers at the University of the Pacific, and once again came up empty:
Misattributed

Life

“There are no wrong turnings. Only paths we had not known we were meant to walk.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Part 3 “Ember to Ember”, Chapter 10 (p. 317)
Source: Tigana (1990)

“The things you think are the disasters in your life are not the disasters really. Almost anything can be turned around: out of every ditch, a path, if you can only see it.”

Hilary Mantel Bring Up the Bodies

Source: Bring Up the Bodies

Life, Thinking

“You had to take risks, follow some paths and abandon others.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Source: Brida

“Very good, Jason Grace," Notus said. "You are a son of Jupiter, yet you have chosen your own path- as all the greatest demigods have done before you. You cannot control your parentage, but youchoose your legacy.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

“I wondered again why the right thing always seemed to be met with so much resistance, when you'd think it would be the easier path. You had to fight to be virtuous…”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Someone Like You (1998)

Thinking, Fight

“Go oft to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Housing

“There is a story, always ahead of you. Barely existing. Only gradually do you attach yourself to it and feed it. You discover the carapace that will contain and test your character. You will find in this way the path of your life.”

Michael Ondaatje The Cat's Table

Source: The Cat's Table

Life, Way

“If you only try to please others, you're going to resent those people you're trying to please; the ones who are often closest to you. If you choose a path that you yourself want to take, then you're going to be much kinder to the people in your life.”

Sarah McLachlan (1968) Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter

Source: Plenty: A Collection of Sarah McLachlan's Favorite Recipes

Life, People

“When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Source: Brida (1990).
Context: When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way.

Courage, Motivational

“It never fails. God will put people in your path that irritate you, especially if you're prone to be irritated.”

Rich Mullins (1955–1997) American christian musician

God, People

“Paths are made by walking”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

“A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 6; translated by Luigi Ricci

Men

“Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden

Fate

“All of us have a path to follow and the path begins on earth.”

Richard Matheson book What Dreams May Come

Source: What Dreams May Come

“This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, (1963)

God, Children, Justice, Democracy

“other people maay be there to help us, teach us, guide us aolng our path, But the lesson to be learned is always ours”

Melody Beattie (1948) American writer

People, Learning, Help

“Your mind knows only somethings. Your inner voice, your instinct, knows everything. If you listen to what youknow instinctively, it will always lead you down the right path”

Henry Winkler (1945) American actor, director and writer

“The tricky thing about mazes is that you don't know if you've chosen the right path until the very end. If it turns out you were wrong, it's usually too late to go back and start again. That's the problem with mazes.”

Haruki Murakami book The Strange Library

Source: The Strange Library

Problem

“Old books that we have known but not possessed cross our path and invite themselves over. New books try to seduce us daily with tempting titles and tantalizing covers.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Source: The Library at Night

Books

“We are like water, aren’t we? We can be fluid, flexible when we have to be. But strong and destructive, too.” And something else, I think to myself. Like water, we mostly follow the path of least resistance.”

Wally Lamb (1950) american novelist

Source: We Are Water

Thinking, Strong, Water

“But as I guided her to my belt and then laid her down on the bed, I knew which way our path would go. Webe together forever. We had to be. There was no way that all these feelings between us could ever dim or be defeated.”

Richelle Mead book The Fiery Heart

Source: The Fiery Heart

Way, Feeling

“Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.”

Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) Peruvian-American author

Life, Knowledge

“A word grows to a thought – a thought to an idea – an idea to an act. The change is slow, and the Present is a sluggish traveler loafing in the path Tomorrow wants to take.”

Beryl Markham book West with the Night

Source: West with the Night

Travel, Idea, Change

“Through buried paths, where sleepy twilight dreams
The summer time away.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Source: Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

Dreams, Time, Summer

“… it is presumptuous in me to wish to choose my path, because I cannot tell which path is best for me. I must leave it to the Lord, Who knows me, to lead me by the path which is best for me, so that in all things His will may be done.”

Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) Roman Catholic saint

Source: Interior Castle

“It's all well and good to look back after the fact and see what we should have done, but we rarely know what path is best when we take that first step.”

Christine Feehan American writer

Source: Oceans of Fire

“We are not mad. We are human. We want to love, and someone must forgive us for the paths we take to love, for the paths are many and dark, and we are ardent and cruel in our journey.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Source: Leonard Cohen: Poems and Songs

Love, Forgiveness, Madness

“It has been my experience that most human stories are circular rather than linear. Regardless of the path we choose, we somehow end up where we commenced - in part, I suspect, because the child who lives in us goes along for the ride.”

James Lee Burke (1936) Novelist, short story writer

Source: The Glass Rainbow

Parting

“There’s a reason we are drawn to the light. A reason why we fear darkness. It’s important to be terrified and unnerved about certain things. That way we will choose another path. The path that leads us to truth and love.”

Ted Dekker (1962) American writer

Love, Truth, Fear, Way

“All of us started normal. All of us started out as functioning human beings with the potential to do almost anything we wanted, but somewhere along the paths of our lives, we got lost.”

James Frey book A Million Little Pieces

page 332
Source: A Million Little Pieces (2003)
Context: All of us started out normal. All of us started out as functioning human beings with the potential to do almost anything we wanted, but somewhere along the paths of our lives we got lost. Though we are here at this Clinic trying to find our way back, we all know that most of us will never get there. Things like the fight allow us to dream, and take us away from here, and allow us to imagine what the normal World must be like and how normal people must live in it.