Quotes about road
page 6

Lloyd Kaufman photo
Stanley Baldwin photo
Primo Levi photo

“For me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law, the principle of order in me, around me, and in the world. I was fed up with books, which I still continued to gulp down with indiscreet voracity, and searched for a key to the highest truths; there must be a key, and I was certain that, owing to some monstrous conspiracy to my detriment and the world's, I would not get in school. In school they loaded with me with tons of notions that I diligently digested, but which did not warm the blood in my veins. I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: "I will understand this, too, I will understand everything, but not the way they want me to. I will find a shortcut, I will make a lock-pick, I will push open the doors."
It was enervating, nauseating, to listen to lectures on the problem of being and knowing, when everything around us was a mystery pressing to be revealed: the old wood of the benches, the sun's sphere beyond the windowpanes and the roofs, the vain flight of the pappus down in the June air. Would all the philosophers and all the armies of the world be able to construct this little fly? No, nor even understand it: this was a shame and an abomination, another road must be found.”

"Hydrogen"
The Periodic Table (1975)

Warren Farrell photo
Janusz Korwin-Mikke photo

“The purpose of road traffic is speed, not safety.”

Janusz Korwin-Mikke (1942) polish politician

Source: Program III PR, 10 November 2006

Deendayal Upadhyaya photo
Katie Couric photo

“The road less traveled is sometimes fraught with barricades, bumps, and uncharted terrain. But it is on that road where your character is truly tested”

Katie Couric (1957) American journalist

Graduation speech at Williams College, 2007 http://www.graduationwisdom.com/speeches/0029-couric.htm

“The uncomfortable moments in a person's life make great stories down the road.”

Donald Miller (1971) American writer

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

Larry Wall photo

“It is my job in life to travel all roads, so that some may take the road less travelled, and others the road more travelled, and all have a pleasant day.”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[199709241628.JAA08908@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

Parmenides photo

“Never will this prevail, that the things that are not are — bar your thought from this road of inquiry.”

Parmenides (-501–-470 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

Frag. B 7.1-2, quoted by Plato, Sophist, 237a

Ellsworth Kelly photo
Bernard Goldberg photo
Mike Oldfield photo
Nick Cave photo

“It was still the custom of the countryside to build with local materials produced as close to the selected site as possible, for transport was difficult, even the best of country roads being more fitted for horseback traffic rather than heavy loads.”

Flora Thompson (1876–1947) English author and poet

Source: Dashpers http://www.dashper.net.nz/dashpers.htm (unfinished, unpublished novel), Chapter Two - A House is built

Firuz Shah Tughlaq photo

“The idol, Jwalamukhi, much worshipped by the infidels, was situated on the road to Nagarkot Some of the infidels have reported that Sultan Firoz went specially to see this idol and held a golden umbrella over it. But the author was informed by his respected father, who was in the Sultans retinue, that the infidels slandered the Sultan, who was a religious, God-fearing man, who, during the whole forty years of his reign, paid strict obedience to the law, and that such an action was impossible. The fact is, that when he went to see the idol, all the rais, ranas and zamindars who accompanied him were summoned into his presence, when he addressed them, saying, O fools and weak-minded, how can ye pray to and worship this stone, for our holy law tells us that those who oppose the decrees of our religion, will go to hell? The Sultan held the idol in the deepest detestation, but the infidels, in the blindness of their delusion, have made this false statement against him. Other infidels have said that Sultan Muhammad Shah bin Tughlik Shah held an umbrella over the same idol, but this is also a lie; and good Muhammadans should pay no heed to such statements. These two Sultans were sovereigns especially chosen by the Almighty from among the faithful, and in the whole course of their reigns, wherever they took an idol temple they broke and destroyed it; how, then, can such assertions be true? The infidels must certainly have lied!”

Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1309–1388) Tughluq sultan

Nagarkot Kangra (Himachal Pradesh) . Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi, Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. Elliot and Dowson. Vol. III, p. 318 ff

Jozef Israëls photo

“[quoting a verse from the Torah, including some faults]: Behold, I send an angel before you, to guard you on this road, and to bring you to the place which I have prepared; Exodus 23:20.”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

translation from Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
version in Dutch (citaat van Israëls, in het Nederlands) [een vers citerend uit de nl:Thora, inclusief enkele foutjes]: Zie, ik zend eenen Engel voor uw aangezicht, om u te behoeden op dezen weg, en om u te brengen tot de plaats, die ik bereid heb; Exodus 23:20.
Quote in his letter from Scheveningen 2 Sept. 1908, to Madam Alexander Levy-van Son in Hamburg; ; as cited in Jozef Israëls, 1824 – 1911, ed. Dieuwertje Dekkers; Waanders, Zwolle 1999, p. 62
the same text Israels was reading as a 13 years old boy, on his Bar Mitzvah; After his death the same text was engraved on his tombstone, according to his will
Quotes of Jozef Israels, after 1900

Charles Darwin photo
Kabir photo
Stendhal photo

“A novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies at another the mire of the puddles at your feet. And the man who carries this mirror in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! His mirror shews the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame that high road upon which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows the water to gather and the puddle to form.”

Un roman est un miroir qui se promène sur une grande route. Tantôt il reflète à vos yeux l’azur des cieux, tantôt la fange des bourbiers de la route. Et l’homme qui porte le miroir dans sa hotte sera par vous accusé‚ d’être immoral ! Son miroir montre la fange, et vous accusez le miroir! Accusez bien plutôt le grand chemin où est le bourbier, et plus encore l’inspecteur des routes qui laisse l’eau croupir et le bourbier se former.
Vol. II, ch. XIX
Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black) (1830)

Tony Abbott photo

“Obviously we have now had a number of very credible leads and there is increasing hope - no more than hope, no more than hope - that we might be on the road to discovering what did happen to this ill-fated aircraft.”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

About Malaysia Airlines MH370, quoted on BBC News, "Malaysia flight MH370: New data 'shows possible debris'" http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26705073, March 23, 2014.
2014

Alexander Graham Bell photo

“Don't keep forever on the public road. Leave the beaten track behind occasionally and dive into the woods.”

Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) scientist and inventor known for his work on the telephone

As quoted in "The Chemistry of Life" by Ralph Whiteside Kerr in Rosicrucian Digest (1947), p. 131.
Disputed
Context: Don't keep forever on the public road. Leave the beaten track behind occasionally and dive into the woods. You will be certain to find something you have never seen before, and something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the result of thought.

Nikos Kazantzakis photo
Tanith Lee photo
Willa Cather photo
Christopher Pitt photo
Elton John photo

“So goodbye yellow brick road,
Where the dogs of society howl.
You can't plant me in your penthouse,
I'm going back to my plough.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Song lyrics, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Devin Townsend photo
Leszek Kolakowski photo
Sufjan Stevens photo

“I forgive you mother; I can hear you
And I long to be near you
But every road leads to an end”

Sufjan Stevens (1975) American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist

"Death With Dignity"
Lyrics, Carrie and Lowell (2015)

Francis Escudero photo
Lawrence Wright photo
Tim McGraw photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Chuck Berry photo
Gamal Abdel Nasser photo

“We have to go along a road covered with blood. We have no other alternative. For us it is a matter of life or death, a matter of living or existing. We have to be ready to face the challenges that await us.”

Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970) second president of Egypt

Gamal Abdel Nasser, speech to Egypt's National Assembly, Cairo (November 6, 1969), as reported by The Washington Post (November 7, 1969), p. 1.

Edgar Degas photo

“I always urged my contemporaries to look for interest and inspiration to the development and study of drawing, but they would not listen. They thought the road to salvation lay by the way of colour.”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

Quote of Degas, as cited by Walter Sickert, in 'Post-Impressionism and Cubism', Pall Mall Gazette (1914-03-11).
According to Sickert, Degas had said this quote to him in 1885
1876 - 1895

Tom Petty photo

“There's rain on the road
And the faithful have gone.
In a crowd all alone,
Walking 'round in a song.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Damaged By Love
Lyrics, Highway Companion (2006)

J. B. Bury photo
Ragnar Frisch photo
Diogenes Laërtius photo

“The road to Hades is the easiest to travel.”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Bion, 49.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 4: The Academy

George William Russell photo
Neil Young photo
Emir Kusturica photo

“I just don't get it. The pigeon was already dead, we found it in the road. And no other censor has objected. What is the problem with you, English? You killed millions of Indians and Africans, and yet you go nuts about the circumstances of the death of a single Serbian pigeon. I am touched you hold the lives of Serbian birds so dear, but you are crazy. I will never understand how your minds work.”

Emir Kusturica (1954) Serbian film director, actor and musician of Bosnian origin

In an interview in The Guardian (4 March 2005) http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,6737,1429569,00.html about a British censor demanding that a shot of a cat pouncing on a pigeon be cut from his film Life is a Miracle
2000s

Sarah Brightman photo

“If only cars were fueled by road rage…”

Carlos Gershenson (1978) Mexican researcher

Treo Notes (December 2006 - December 2009)

Steve Jobs photo
Ben Carson photo

“Reading is the way out of ignorance, and the road to achievement.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big (1996), p. 22

Harry Chapin photo

“No straight lines make up my life;
And all my roads have bends;
There's no clear-cut beginnings;
And so far no dead-ends.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

Circle
Song lyrics, Sniper and Other Love Songs (1972)

“There are always obstacles and competitors. There is never an open road, except the wide road that leads to failure. Every great success has always been achieved by fight. Every winner has scars. The men who succeed are the efficient few. They are the few who have the ambition and will power to develop themselves.”

Herbert N. Casson (1869–1951) Canadian journalist and writer

Herbert N. Casson in: National Printer Journalist Vol 51 (1933), Nr. 7-12. p. 28; Cited in Arthur Tremain (1951) Successful Retailing: A Handbook for Store Owners and Managers p. xi
1920s-1940s

Winston S. Churchill photo
Sarah McLachlan photo
Dan Quayle photo

“My friends, no matter how rough the road may be, we can and we will never surrender to what is right.”

Dan Quayle (1947) American politician, lawyer

In a speech to the Christian Coalition
Attributed

Stephen Foster photo
Shankar Dayal Sharma photo
Ilana Mercer photo
René Descartes photo
Maxwell D. Taylor photo
Kenneth Grahame photo
Christopher Hitchens photo
Hesiod photo
Learned Hand photo

“Justice, I think, is the tolerable accomodation of the conflicting interests of society, and I don't believe there is any royal road to attain such accomodations concretely.”

Learned Hand (1872–1961) American legal scholar, Court of Appeals judge

From The Great Judge by Philip Hamburger (1946).
Extra-judicial writings

Bob Dylan photo

“Wheels on fire, rolling down the road, best notify my next of kin, this wheel shall explode!”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, The Basement Tapes (1975), This Wheel's on Fire (recorded in 1967)

Nile Kinnick photo
Amir Khusrow photo
Sher Shah Suri photo

“Sher Shah Sur’s name is associated in our textbooks with the Grand Trunk Road from Peshawar to Dacca, with caravanserais, and several other schemes of public welfare. It is true that he was not a habitual persecutor of Hindus before he became the emperor at Delhi. But he did not betray Islam when he became the supreme ruler. The test came at Raisen in 1543 AD. Shaykh Nurul Haq records in Zubdat-ul-Tawarikh as follows: “In the year 950 H., Puranmal held occupation of the fort of Raisen… He had 1000 women in his harem… and amongst them several Musulmanis whom he made to dance before him. Sher Khan with Musulman indignation resolved to conquer the fort. After he had been some time engaged in investing it, an accommodation was proposed and it was finally agreed that Puranmal with his family and children and 4000 Rajputs of note should be allowed to leave the fort unmolested. Several men learned in the law (of Islam) gave it as their opinion that they should all be slain, notwithstanding the solemn engagement which had been entered into. Consequently, the whole army, with the elephants, surrounded Puranmal’s encampment. The Rajputs fought with desperate bravery and after killing their women and children and burning them, they rushed to battle and were annihilated to a man.””

Sher Shah Suri (1486–1545) founder of Sur Empire in Northern India

Zubdat-ul-Tawarikh quoted in Goel, Sita Ram (2001). The story of Islamic imperialism in India. Chapter 7 ISBN 9788185990231

Amit Chaudhuri photo
David Icke photo
Rudolph Rummel photo
Jean Chrétien photo
Jeremy Clarkson photo
Zhang Zhijun photo

“At the end of the road of Taiwan independence lies unification.”

Zhang Zhijun (1953) Chinese politician

Zhang Zhijun (2017) cited in " Premier seeks goodwill after Chinese warnings on independence http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/china-taiwan-relations/2017/03/08/493122/Premier-seeks.htm" on The China Post, 8 March 2017.

Queen Rania of Jordan photo
Francis Quarles photo

“The road to resolution lies by doubt:
The next way home's the farthest way about.”

Francis Quarles (1592–1644) English poet

Book IV, no. 2, Epigram.
Emblems (1635)

Nathanael Greene photo
Aneurin Bevan photo

“We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run down.”

Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) Welsh politician

In the Observer, 6 December 1953.
1950s

Max Scheler photo

“These two characteristics make revenge the most suitable source for the formation of ressentiment. The nuances of language are precise. There is a progression of feeling which starts with revenge and runs via rancor, envy, and impulse to detract all the way to spite, coming close to ressentiment. Usually, revenge and envy still have specific objects. They do not arise without special reasons and are directed against definite objects, so that they do not outlast their motives. The desire for revenge disappears when vengeance has been taken, when the person against whom it was directed has been punished or has punished himself, or when one truly forgives him. In the same way, envy vanishes when the envied possession becomes ours. The impulse to detract, however, is not in the same sense tied to definite objects—it does not arise through specific causes with which it disappears. On the contrary, this affect seeks those objects, those aspects of men and things, from which it can draw gratification. It likes to disparage and to smash pedestals, to dwell on the negative aspects of excellent men and things, exulting in the fact that such faults are more perceptible through their contrast with the strongly positive qualities. Thus there is set a fixed pattern of experience which can accommodate the most diverse contents. This form or structure fashions each concrete experience of life and selects it from possible experiences. The impulse to detract, therefore, is no mere result of such an experience, and the experience will arise regardless of considerations whether its object could in any way, directly or indirectly, further or hamper the individual concerned. In “spite,” this impulse has become even more profound and deep-seated—it is, as it were, always ready to burst forth and to betray itself in an unbridled gesture, a way of smiling, etc. An analogous road leads from simple *Schadenfreude* to “malice.””

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

The latter, more detached than the former from definite objects, tries to bring about ever new opportunities for *Schadenfreude*.
Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Anthony Trollope photo

“There is no royal road to learning; no short cut to the acquirement of any art.”

Source: Barchester Towers (1857), Ch. 20; this derives from an expression attributed to Euclid.

Siddharth Katragadda photo
Happy Rhodes photo
Han-shan photo
Bob Dylan photo

“An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)