Quotes about walk
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Henri Barbusse photo

“I was walking, but I seemed to be falling from dream to dream, from desire to desire. A door ajar, an open window gave me a pang. A woman passing by grazed against me, a woman who told me nothing of what she might have told me. I dreamed of her tragedy and of mine.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVI
Context: I went out on the street like an exile, I who am an everyday man, who resemble everybody else so much, too much. I went through the streets and crossed the squares with my eyes fixed upon things without seeing them. I was walking, but I seemed to be falling from dream to dream, from desire to desire. A door ajar, an open window gave me a pang. A woman passing by grazed against me, a woman who told me nothing of what she might have told me. I dreamed of her tragedy and of mine. She entered a house, she disappeared, she was dead.

Nelson Mandela photo
Albert Schweitzer photo

“The ethic of reverence for life constrains all, in whatever walk of life they may find themselves, to busy themselves intimately with all the human and vital processes which are being played out around them, and to give themselves as men to the man who needs human help and sympathy. It does not allow the scholar to live for his science alone, even if he is very useful to the community in so doing. It does not permit the artist to exist only for his art, even if he gives inspiration to many by its means. It refuses to let the business man imagine that he fulfills all legitimate demands in the course of his business activities.”

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

Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 267
Context: The ethic of reverence for life constrains all, in whatever walk of life they may find themselves, to busy themselves intimately with all the human and vital processes which are being played out around them, and to give themselves as men to the man who needs human help and sympathy. It does not allow the scholar to live for his science alone, even if he is very useful to the community in so doing. It does not permit the artist to exist only for his art, even if he gives inspiration to many by its means. It refuses to let the business man imagine that he fulfills all legitimate demands in the course of his business activities. It demands from all that they should sacrifice a portion of their own lives for others. In what way and in what measure this is his duty, this everyone must decide on the basis of the thoughts which arise in himself, and the circumstances which attend the course of his own life. The self-sacrifice of one may not be particularly in evidence. He carries it out simply by continuing his normal life. Another is called to some striking self-surrender which obliges him to set on one side all regard for his own progress. Let no one measure himself by his conclusions respecting someone else. The destiny of men has to fulfill itself in a thousand ways, so that goodness may be actualized. What every individual has to contribute remains his own secret. But we must all mutually share in the knowledge that our existence only attains its true value when we have experienced in ourselves the truth of the declaration: 'He who loses his life shall find it.

Barack Obama photo

“It was in service of this long walk towards freedom and justice and equal opportunity that Nelson Mandela devoted his life.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2018, Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture (2018)
Context: It was in service of this long walk towards freedom and justice and equal opportunity that Nelson Mandela devoted his life. At the outset, his struggle was particular to this place, to his homeland – a fight to end apartheid, a fight to ensure lasting political and social and economic equality for its disenfranchised non-white citizens. But through his sacrifice and unwavering leadership and, perhaps most of all, through his moral example, Mandela and the movement he led would come to signify something larger. He came to embody the universal aspirations of dispossessed people all around the world, their hopes for a better life, the possibility of a moral transformation in the conduct of human affairs.
Madiba’s light shone so brightly, even from that narrow Robben Island cell, that in the late ‘70s he could inspire a young college student on the other side of the world to reexamine his own priorities, could make me consider the small role I might play in bending the arc of the world towards justice. And when later, as a law student, I witnessed Madiba emerge from prison, just a few months, you’ll recall, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I felt the same wave of hope that washed through hearts all around the world.
Do you remember that feeling? It seemed as if the forces of progress were on the march, that they were inexorable. Each step he took, you felt this is the moment when the old structures of violence and repression and ancient hatreds that had so long stunted people’s lives and confined the human spirit – that all that was crumbling before our eyes. And then, as Madiba guided this nation through negotiation painstakingly, reconciliation, its first fair and free elections; as we all witnessed the grace and the generosity with which he embraced former enemies, the wisdom for him to step away from power once he felt his job was complete, we understood that – we understood it was not just the subjugated, the oppressed who were being freed from the shackles of the past. The subjugator was being offered a gift, being given a chance to see in a new way, being given a chance to participate in the work of building a better world.

Epictetus photo

“Man, if thou art aught, strive to walk alone and hold converse with yourself, instead of skulking in the chorus! at length think; look around thee; bestir thyself, that thou mayest know who thou art!”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

Golden Sayings of Epictetus
Context: Even as bad actors cannot sing alone, but only in chorus: so some cannot walk alone. Man, if thou art aught, strive to walk alone and hold converse with yourself, instead of skulking in the chorus! at length think; look around thee; bestir thyself, that thou mayest know who thou art! (103).

AnnaSophia Robb photo

“I don't have time, really, to work out or play a sport. But I love to dance. I like to run in the springtime or in the fall. I like to go outside. I don't like running on a treadmill. I get tired… I just get sick of it. But if I'm outside, I could just run for ages. Or walk, if I need a break.”

AnnaSophia Robb (1993) American actress, singer, and model

Radio Free Entertainment interview (2007)
Context: I like to climb. I don't love to work out. Actually, I hate to work out. You know, I tell myself, "AnnaSophia, you have to work out. You haven't gotten any exercise in the longest time." You know, I don't have time, really, to work out or play a sport. But I love to dance. I like to run in the springtime or in the fall. I like to go outside. I don't like running on a treadmill. I get tired... I just get sick of it. But if I'm outside, I could just run for ages. Or walk, if I need a break.

Rudyard Kipling photo

“If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch”

Stanza 4.
The Second Jungle Book (1895), If— (1896)
Context: If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!

Omar Bradley photo

“I walked to the window and ripped open the blackout blinds. Outside the sun was climbing into the sky. The war in Europe had ended.”

Omar Bradley (1893–1981) United States Army field commander during World War II

Closing words, p. 554.
A Soldier's Story (1951)
Context: A canvas map lay under my helmet with its four silver stars. Only five years before on May 7, as a lieutenant colonel in civilian clothes, I had ridden a bus down Connecticut Avenue to my desk in the old Munitions building. I opened the mapboard and smoothed out the tabs of the 43 divisions now under my command. They stretched across a 640-mile front of the 12th Army Group. With a china-marking pencil, I wrote in the new date: D plus 335. I walked to the window and ripped open the blackout blinds. Outside the sun was climbing into the sky. The war in Europe had ended.

Oscar Wilde photo

“Unlimited and absolute is the vision of him who sits at ease and watches, who walks in loneliness and dreams”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

The Critic as Artist (1891), Part II
Context: It is to do nothing that the elect exist. Action is limited and relative. Unlimited and absolute is the vision of him who sits at ease and watches, who walks in loneliness and dreams.

Alan Watts photo

“The problem comes up because we ask the question in the wrong way. We supposed that solids were one thing and space quite another, or just nothing whatever. Then it appeared that space was no mere nothing, because solids couldn't do without it. But the mistake in the beginning was to think of solids and space as two different things, instead of as two aspects of the same thing. The point is that they are different but inseparable, like the front end and the rear end of a cat. Cut them apart, and the cat dies. Take away the crest of the wave, and there is no trough.
Here is someone who has never seen a cat. He is looking through a narrow slit in a fence, and, on the other side, a cat walks by. He sees first the head, then the less distinctly shaped furry trunk, and then the tail. Extraordinary! The cat turns round and walks back, and again he sees the head, and a little later the tail. This sequence begins to look like something regular and reliable. Yet again, the cat turns round, and he witnesses the same regular sequence: first the head, and later the tail. Thereupon he reasons that the event head is the invariable and necessary cause of the event tail, which is the head's effect. This absurd and confusing gobbledygook comes from his failure to see that head and tail go together: they are all one cat.
The cat wasn't born as a head which, sometime later, caused a tail; it was born all of a piece, a head-tailed cat. Our observer's trouble was that he was watching it through a narrow slit, and couldn't see the whole cat at once.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 26-27

Barack Obama photo

“That’s where courage comes from -- when we turn not from each other, or on each other, but towards one another, and we find that we do not walk alone. That’s where courage comes from.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, "Let Freedom Ring" Ceremony (August 2013)
Context: The March on Washington teaches us that we are not trapped by the mistakes of history; that we are masters of our fate. But it also teaches us that the promise of this nation will only be kept when we work together. We’ll have to reignite the embers of empathy and fellow feeling, the coalition of conscience that found expression in this place 50 years ago. And I believe that spirit is there, that truth force inside each of us. I see it when a white mother recognizes her own daughter in the face of a poor black child. I see it when the black youth thinks of his own grandfather in the dignified steps of an elderly white man. It’s there when the native-born recognizing that striving spirit of the new immigrant; when the interracial couple connects the pain of a gay couple who are discriminated against and understands it as their own. That’s where courage comes from -- when we turn not from each other, or on each other, but towards one another, and we find that we do not walk alone. That’s where courage comes from.

Barack Obama photo

“For too long, we were blind to the pain that the Confederate flag stirred in too many of our citizens. It’s true, a flag did not cause these murders. But as people from all walks of life, Republicans and Democrats, now acknowledge”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)
Context: For too long, we were blind to the pain that the Confederate flag stirred in too many of our citizens. It’s true, a flag did not cause these murders. But as people from all walks of life, Republicans and Democrats, now acknowledge -- including Governor Haley, whose recent eloquence on the subject is worthy of praise as we all have to acknowledge, the flag has always represented more than just ancestral pride. For many, black and white, that flag was a reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation. We see that now. Removing the flag from this state’s capitol would not be an act of political correctness; it would not be an insult to the valor of Confederate soldiers. It would simply be an acknowledgment that the cause for which they fought -- the cause of slavery -- was wrong -- the imposition of Jim Crow after the Civil War, the resistance to civil rights for all people was wrong. It would be one step in an honest accounting of America’s history; a modest but meaningful balm for so many unhealed wounds. It would be an expression of the amazing changes that have transformed this state and this country for the better, because of the work of so many people of goodwill, people of all races striving to form a more perfect union. By taking down that flag, we express God’s grace.

Jeff Lynne photo

“Midnight on the water
I saw the ocean's daughter
Walking on a wave's chicane
Staring as she called my name And I can't get it out of my head”

Jeff Lynne (1947) British rock musician

"" ("Walking on a wave's chicane" are the official lyrics, but these are often heard and quoted as "Walking on a wave she came")
Eldorado, A Symphony (1974)
Context: Midnight on the water
I saw the ocean's daughter
Walking on a wave's chicane
Staring as she called my name And I can't get it out of my head
No, I can't get it out of my head
Now my old world is gone for dead
'Cos I can't get it out of my head

Benjamin Franklin photo

“If your head is wax, don't walk in the sun. ”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …
Zakir Naik photo
A.A. Milne photo
Barack Obama photo
Bonaventure photo
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart photo

“When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer — say traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep — it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best, and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not, nor can I force them.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

From a letter now regarded as a forgery by Johann Friedrich Rochlitz http://www.aproposmozart.com/Stafford%20--%20Mozart%20and%20genius.rev.ref.pdf, http://www.mozartforum.com/Lore/article.php?id=108, http://www.mozartforum.com/Lore/article.php?id=106
Misattributed

Virginia Woolf photo
John Lennon photo

“What would you suggest I do? Give everything away and walk the streets? The Buddhist says, "Get rid of the possessions of the mind."”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Walking away from all the money would not accomplish that. It's like the Beatles. I couldn't walk away from the Beatles. That's one possession that's still tagging along, right?
Playboy interview (1980)

Bruce Lee photo

“Walk on.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Source: The Warrior Within: The Philosophies of Bruce Lee (1996), p. 174

Nikola Tesla photo

“One afternoon, which is ever present in my recollection, I was enjoying a walk with my friend in the city park and reciting poetry. At that age I knew entire books by heart, word for word. One of these was Goethe's Faust. The sun was just setting and reminded me of a glorious passage:
Sie rückt und weicht, der Tag ist überlebt,
Dort eilt sie hin und fördert neues Leben.
O! daß kein Flügel mich vom Boden hebt,
Ihr nach und immer nach zu streben!
Ein schöner Traum, indessen sie entweicht.
Ach! zu des Geistes Flügeln wird so leicht
Kein körperlicher Flügel sich gesellen![The glow retreats, done is the day of toil;
It yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring;
Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil
Upon its track to follow, follow soaring!
A glorious dream! though now the glories fade.
Alas! the wings that lift the mind no aid
Of wings to lift the body can bequeath me.
(tr. Bayard Taylor)
As I uttered these inspiring words the idea came like a flash of lightning and in an instant the truth was revealed. I drew with a stick on the sand the diagram shown six years later in my address before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and my companion understood them perfectly. The images I saw were wonderfully sharp and clear and had the solidity of metal and stone, so much so that I told him, "See my motor here; watch me reverse it."”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

I cannot begin to describe my emotions. Pygmalion seeing his statue come to life could not have been more deeply moved. A thousand secrets of nature which I might have stumbled upon accidentally, I would have given for that one which I had wrested from her against all odds and at the peril of my existence …

On the Invention of the Induction Motor
My Inventions (1919)

Benjamin Creme photo
Marcin Malek photo
Franz Kafka photo
Laozi photo

“To lead people walk behind them.”

Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…
Clive Staples Lewis photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Rumi photo

“It's your road & yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

https://twitter.com/wise_chimp/status/1488946174321205253?s=21

Joseph De Maistre photo

“Genius does not seem to derive any great support from syllogisms. Its carriage is free; its manner has a touch of inspiration. We see it come, but we never see it walk.”

Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821) Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat

"Tenth Dialogue"
St. Petersburg Dialogues (1821)

Origen photo
Kanye West photo
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien photo

“Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight? For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time.”

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works

Context: Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight? A man may do both, said Aragorn. For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day!

Seamus Heaney photo

“Walk on air against your better judgement.”

Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) Irish poet, playwright, translator, lecturer
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.

Henry Rollins photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo

“He who walks out of step hears another drum.”

Variant: He who marches out of line hears another drum.
Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), Ch. 1

Cassandra Clare photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Alice Walker photo
Jack Canfield photo
William Golding photo
Brandon Sanderson photo
Jodi Picoult photo
Jon Krakauer photo
Kristen Britain photo
Jack Kerouac photo
Anaïs Nin photo

“You are the poet, you walk inside my dreams…”

Source: Under a Glass Bell

Steven Wright photo
Libba Bray photo
John Muir photo

“The desert surrounds your every step and you walk forever a thirsty man.”

Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden

Source: Creatures of Forever

Jack London photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo
Suzanne Collins photo
Cassandra Clare photo

“I do not walk like a duck.”

Source: Clockwork Angel

Anne Brontë photo
Justin Cronin photo
John Adams photo

“When will you have a little pity for every soft thing that walks through the world, yourself included.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: Blue Pastures

Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
James Joyce photo

“God is willing to walk the earth again incarnate in us.”

Eugenia Price (1916–1996) American writer

Source: Early Will I Seek Thee

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

Francine Rivers (1947) American writer

Source: Redeeming Love

David Levithan photo
Jerry Spinelli photo

“Home is everything you can walk to.”

Source: Stargirl

Elizabeth Gilbert photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Bram Stoker photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Markus Zusak photo

“I feel the fear, but I walk fast toward it.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

Elizabeth Wurtzel photo
Guillaume Apollinaire photo
Charlaine Harris photo
Leo Buscaglia photo

“Don't walk in my head with your dirty feet.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

Source: Living Loving and Learning

Sylvia Plath photo

“It is a terrible thing to be so open: it is as if my heart put on a face and walked into the world.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: Drei Frauen: Ein Gedicht für drei Stimmen

Nick Hornby photo
André Gide photo
Khaled Hosseini photo