Quotes about road

A collection of quotes on the topic of road, going, way, doing.

Quotes about road

Yuzuru Hanyu photo

“I believe that if you focus on what you should do, the road ahead will open up naturally.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Other quotes, 2016
Original: (ja) 自分がすべきことを集中してやっていけば、自ずと道は開かれてくると信じているので。
Source: Interview at the arrival in Marseille ahead of the Grand Prix Final 2016, published 7 December 2016 by テレビ朝日 フィギュアスケート https://twitter.com/figureskate5ch/status/806400507698876416 (TV Asahi Figure Skate on Twitter). (Retrieved 11 September 2020)

José Baroja photo

“I think that a literary work should not be a piece of spit thrown onto the road.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Interview. "No más cuentos para princesas".

Vincent Van Gogh photo
Dolly Parton photo
Bob Marley photo

“You can't find the right roads when the streets are paved.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician
Anne Sexton photo
Hirohito photo
Xenophon photo

“Who me marrying? Me, me, gonna be me, myself and I so you be on the road, run!”

E.M.S (1995) Nigerian rapper, singer and record producer

Never Told Me (2018)

Babur photo
Lewis Carroll photo

“Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, “What road do I take?”

The cat asked, “Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know,” Alice answered.

“Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?”

Variant: One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked. ‘Where do you want to go?’ was his response. ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Jean De La Fontaine photo

“A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.”

Jean De La Fontaine (1621–1695) French poet, fabulist and writer.

Source: Fables

Tennessee Williams photo
James Brown photo

“To make it in life, you and your wife need to be in the same business. That has been my problem all along. My wives didn't know what I was doing. I would come back home from the road to a stranger. That's no good.”

James Brown (1933–2006) American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist

Brown, J. & Tucker, B. (2003). James Brown: The Godfather of Soul, p. 266. Thunder's Mouth Press: New York. ISBN 1-56025-388-6

Euclid photo

“There is no royal road to geometry.”
Non est regia ad Geometriam via.

Euclid (-323–-285 BC) Greek mathematician, inventor of axiomatic geometry

μὴ εἶναι βασιλικὴν ἀτραπὸν ἐπί γεωμετρίαν, Non est regia [inquit Euclides] ad Geometriam via
Reply given when the ruler Ptolemy I Soter asked Euclid if there was a shorter road to learning geometry than through Euclid's Elements.The "Royal Road" was the road built across Anatolia and Persia by Darius I which allowed rapid communication and troop movement, but use of ἀτραπός (rather than ὁδός) conveys the connotation of "short cut".
The Greek is from Proclus (412–485 AD) in Commentary on the First Book of Euclid's Elements, the Latin translation is by Francesco Barozzi, 1560) the English translation follows Glenn R. Morrow (1970), p. 57 http://books.google.com/books?id=JZEHj2fEmqAC&q=royal#v=snippet&q=royal&f=false.
Attributed

Sun Tzu photo

“The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.”

(zh-TW) 孫子曰:國之上下,死生之地,存亡之道,不可不察也。
The Art of War, Chapter 1 · Detail Assessment and Planning

Hamis Kiggundu photo

“Emotions are a cancer in one's path to the road of prosperity in life, Emotions Defeat Reason.”

Hamis Kiggundu (1984) Ugandan business magnate, Internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author

Quoted from his first book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Success_and_Failure_Based_on_Reason_and_Reality, "Success and Failure Based on Reason and Reality" https://www.amazon.co.uk/SUCCESS-FAILURE-BASED-REASON-REALITY/dp/9970983903/ on Amazon, (July 2018)

Jesse Owens photo

“The road to the Olympics, leads to no city, no country. It goes far beyond New York or Moscow, ancient Greece or Nazi Germany. The road to the Olympics leads — in the end — to the best within us.”

Jesse Owens (1913–1980) American track and field athlete

As quoted in People In America : "Jesse Owens" by Barbara Dash http://web.archive.org/web/20071219045105/http://voanews.com/specialenglish/archive/2002-06/a-2002-06-07-2-1.cfm on VOA (7 June 2002)

Bob Marley photo
Yogi Berra photo

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It!: Inspiration and Wisdom from One of Baseball's Greatest Heroes, Hyperion, 2002, ISBN 0786867752, p. 1
Also in What Time Is It? You Mean Now?: Advice for Life from the Zennest Master of Them All, Simon and Schuster, 2003, ISBN 0743244532, p. 33
Berra says this is part of driving directions to his house in Montclair, New Jersey. There is a fork in the road, and whichever way you take, you will get to his house.
Found in newspapers from as early as 1913. The earliest known published evidence connecting the saying with Berra is from 1988. See http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/07/25/fork-road/
Disputed, Misattributed

Sigrid Undset photo
Stephen Hawking photo

“I have noticed that even people who claim everything is predetermined and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.”

Source: Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays (1993), pp. 133–135.
Context: The ultimate objective test of free will would seem to be: Can one predict the behavior of the organism? If one can, then it clearly doesn't have free will but is predetermined. On the other hand, if one cannot predict the behavior, one could take that as an operational definition that the organism has free will … The real reason why we cannot predict human behavior is that it is just too difficult. We already know the basic physical laws that govern the activity of the brain, and they are comparatively simple. But it is just too hard to solve the equations when there are more than a few particles involved … So although we know the fundamental equations that govern the brain, we are quite unable to use them to predict human behavior. This situation arises in science whenever we deal with the macroscopic system, because the number of particles is always too large for there to be any chance of solving the fundamental equations. What we do instead is use effective theories. These are approximations in which the very large number of particles are replaced by a few quantities. An example is fluid mechanics … I want to suggest that the concept of free will and moral responsibility for our actions are really an effective theory in the sense of fluid mechanics. It may be that everything we do is determined by some grand unified theory. If that theory has determined that we shall die by hanging, then we shall not drown. But you would have to be awfully sure that you were destined for the gallows to put to sea in a small boat during a storm. I have noticed that even people who claim everything is predetermined and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road. … One cannot base one's conduct on the idea that everything is determined, because one does not know what has been determined. Instead, one has to adopt the effective theory that one has free will and that one is responsible for one's actions. This theory is not very good at predicting human behavior, but we adopt it because there is no chance of solving the equations arising from the fundamental laws. There is also a Darwinian reason that we believe in free will: A society in which the individual feels responsible for his or her actions is more likely to work together and survive to spread its values.

Arthur Conan Doyle photo
Anna Quindlen photo

“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.”

Anna Quindlen (1952) journalist, Novelist

Source: How Reading Changed My Life

Stephen King photo

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Francis of Assisi photo
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman photo
Black Elk photo
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo
Amit Ray photo

“Some roads are covered with flower. Some hearts are full with kindness”

Amit Ray (1960) Indian author

Walking the Path of Compassion (2015)

John of the Cross photo
Socrates photo

“Anyone who holds a true opinion without understanding is like a blind man on the right road.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Republic, 506c
Plato, Republic

James Russell Lowell photo

“As life runs on, the road grows strange
With faces new, and near the end
The milestones into headstones change,
'Neath every one a friend.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

Sixty-eighth Birthday (1889)

Pope Francis photo

“This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the Good”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

2010s, 2013, Interview in La Repubblica
Context: Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us. Sometimes after a meeting I want to arrange another one because new ideas are born and I discover new needs. This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the Good.

Alexis Karpouzos photo

“In our brief life,
so many roads,
so many miracles
and blessings and glories,
but also so many curses and denials,
grief and contempt,
continuous waves on the planetary seas
that come and go,
and they crawl us into the vast heavens,
n that quiet rhythm universe
listen to your heart beat.”

The film ''We are the conversation'', gathers together the most famous poems and poets from all over the world. It is a celebration of our linguistic diversity and a reminder of our commonalities and the fundamental role verbal art plays in human life around the world.
Alexis karpouzos

Alexis Karpouzos photo
Neale Donald Walsch photo

“You begin on the road to your own glory when you begin on the road to your own truth. This path is taken when you declare that you will tell the truth all the time, about everything, to everyone. And that you will live your truth.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Source: https://www.facebook.com/NealeDonaldWalsch/posts/pfbid02YdVimv896xTUxM8Tx4Q27WXzEDdsZf4rd4bowY41iUqhn5CqutupKy8oHX6TPiJhl

Robert Frost photo

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Source: Poem "The Road Not Taken"
Context: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

James Joyce photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
Carol Gilligan photo
Heinrich Heine photo
Karl Marx photo

“There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Source: Capital, Vol 1: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production

André Breton photo

“Keep reminding yourself that literature is one of the saddest roads that leads to everything.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

Le Manifeste du Surréalisme, Andre Breton (Manifesto of Surrealism; 1924)
Context: After you have settled yourself in a place as favorable as possible to the concentration of your mind upon itself, have writing materials brought to you. Put yourself in as passive, or receptive, a state of mind as you can. Forget about your genius, your talents, and the talents of everyone else. Keep reminding yourself that literature is one of the saddest roads that lead to everything. Write quickly, without any preconceived subject, fast enough so that you will not remember what you're writing and be tempted to reread what you have written. The first sentence will come spontaneously, so compelling is the truth that with every passing second there is a sentence unknown to our consciousness which is only crying out to be heard.

John Masefield photo
Katherine Paterson photo
Walt Whitman photo
Clive Barker photo
Stephen King photo
Jodi Picoult photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

“You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”

Speech in the House of Commons, after taking office as Prime Minister (13 May 1940) This has often been misquoted in the form: "I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat and tears ..."
The Official Report, House of Commons (5th Series), 13 May 1940, vol. 360, c. 1502. Audio records of the speech do spare out the "It is" before the in the beginning of the "Victory"-Part.
The Second World War (1939–1945)
Context: You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
Context: I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.' We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

Karen Blixen photo

“Perhaps he knew, as I did not, that the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road.”

As quoted in obituaries (7 September 1962)
Variant: God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road.
Source: Out of Africa

Rainer Maria Rilke photo
Muhammad Ali photo
Virginia Woolf photo
Dr. Seuss photo

“And when you're alone there's a very good chance
you'll meet things that scare you right out of your pants
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won't want to go on.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Source: Oh, The Places You'll Go!

Lewis Carroll photo

“If you don't know where you are going any road can take you there”

Variant: If you do not know where you want to go, it doesn't matter which path you take.
Source: Alice in Wonderland

Douglas Adams photo
Anne Frank photo

“This week I've been reading a lot and doing little work. That's the way things ought to be. That's surely the road to success.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Source: Marina

Tim O'Reilly photo
Lewis Carroll photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Barbara Hall photo
Nisargadatta Maharaj photo
Jean Vanier photo
Adam Mickiewicz photo

“For mum we're fly. What mum you don't know who am I? I am Józio. And this is my sister Rózia. Now we're fly in sky! There is better than mum. See how heads in ray. Clothes with lucifer light. And on my hand as butterfly airfoil in sky we have all what we want, every day other toy, where we go here is grass, where we touch here is a flower. But we have what we want, torture us boring and trepidation. Oh mum for Your children road to heaven has been closed! On Always!”

Do mamy lecim do mamy! Cóż to, mamo nie znasz Józia? Ja to Józio ja ten samy. A to moja siostra Rózia. My teraz w raju latamy, Tam nam lepiej niż u mamy. Patrz jakie główki w promieniu, Ubiór z jutrzenki światełka, A na oboim ramieniu Jak u motylków skrzydełka, w raju wszystkiego dostatek, Co dzień to inna zabawka, gdzie stąpim wypływa trawka, gdzie dotkniem rozkwita kwiatek. Lecz choć wszystkiego dostatek dręczy nad nuda i trwoga. Ach mamo dla twoich dziatek zamknięta do nieba droga!
Part two.
Dziady (Forefathers' Eve) http://www.ap.krakow.pl/nkja/literature/polpoet/mic_fore.htm

Muhammad photo

“Ibn 'Umar said, "The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, took me by the shoulder and said, "Be in this world as if you were a stranger or a traveller on the road."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 574
Sunni Hadith

Jane Addams photo
T.S. Eliot photo

“Who is the third who walks always beside you
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you”

Source: The Waste Land (1922), Line 359 et seq.

Eliot's note: Stimulated by Shackleton's Antarctic expedition where the explorers at the extremity of their strength believed there was another who walked with them across South Georgia!

Gabriel Iglesias photo
Jakaya Kikwete photo

“Roads are the blood vessels of the economy.”

Jakaya Kikwete (1950) Tanzanian politician and president

2011-04-04 http://dailynews.co.tz/home/?n=18694&cat=home
2011

Bertrand Russell photo
Bill Hicks photo
Ernest Belfort Bax photo
Timothy McVeigh photo
Fabio Lanzoni photo
Albert Schweitzer photo

“Most men are scantily nourished on a modicum of happiness and a number of empty thoughts which life lays on their plates. They are kept in the road of life through stern necessity by elemental duties which they cannot avoid.
Again and again their will-to-live becomes, as it were, intoxicated: spring sunshine, opening flowers, moving clouds, waving fields of grain — all affect it. The manifold will-to-live, which is known to us in the splendid phenomena in which it clothes itself, grasps at their personal wills. They would fain join their shouts to the mighty symphony which is proceeding all around them. The world seem beauteous…but the intoxication passes. Dreadful discords only allow them to hear a confused noise, as before, where they had thought to catch the strains of glorious music. The beauty of nature is obscured by the suffering which they discover in every direction. And now they see again that they are driven about like shipwrecked persons on the waste of ocean, only that the boat is at one moment lifted high on the crest of the waves and a moment later sinks deep into the trough; and that now sunshine and now darkening clouds lie on the surface of the water.
And now they would fain persuade themselves that land lies on the horizon toward which they are driven. Their will-to-live befools their intellect so that it makes efforts to see the world as it would like to see it. It forces this intellect to show them a map which lends support to their hope of land. Once again they essay to reach the shore, until finally their arms sink exhausted for the last time and their eyes rove desperately from wave to wave. …
Thus it is with the will-to-live when it is unreflective.
But is there no way out of this dilemma? Must we either drift aimlessly through lack of reflection or sink in pessimism as the result of reflection? No. We must indeed attempt the limitless ocean, but we may set our sails and steer a determined course.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 256

Terry Pratchett photo
Ted Bundy photo
Richard Long photo
Slavoj Žižek photo