quotations about travel
Travel is like a game; there is always gain or loss, and mostly from the unexpected side; you receive more or less than you hope for; you can, with impunity, loiter along for a while, then you are again obliged to gather yourself up a moment. For natures like mine, that like to establish themselves firmly and hold fast to things, a journey is invaluable; it animates, instructs and cultivates.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
letter to Friedrich Schiller, October 14, 1797
For many of us, change is the biggest motivation for travel. We have a need for novel scenery, routine, weather or even people.
BLAKE SNOW
"Off The Grid: Why Do We Travel?", Paste Magazine, May 16, 2017
Soulful travel is the art of finding beauty even in ruins.
PHIL COUSINEAU
The Art of Pilgrimage
Better sit still where born, I say,
Wed one sweet woman and love her well,
Love and be loved in the old East way,
Drink sweet waters, and dream in a spell,
Than to wander in search of the Blessed Isles,
And to sail the thousands of watery miles
In search of love, and find you at last
On the edge of the world, and a curs'd outcast.
JOAQUIN MILLER
Pace Implora
If your goal is to broaden your world, travel is de rigueur.
LEWIS WALKER
"Travel dreams 2017", Dunwoody Crier, May 16, 2017
Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education, in the elder, a part of experience.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Travel", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
There are several other sources of enjoyment in a long voyage, which are of a more reasonable nature. The map of the world ceases to be a blank; it becomes a picture full of the most varied and animated figures.
CHARLES DARWIN
The Voyage of the Beagle
No matter how far we travel, the memories will follow in the baggage car.
AUGUST STRINDBERG
Miss Julie
Travel is an attitude, a state of mind. It is not residence, it is motion.
PAUL THEROUX
introduction, The Best American Travel Writing
Long-term travel doesn't require a massive bundle of cash; it requires only that we walk through the world in a more deliberate way.
ROLF POTTS
Vagabonding
To travel is to possess the world.
E. BURTON HOLMES
American Review of Reviews, December 1907
He travels safest in the dark night who travels lightest.
FERNANDO CORTEZ
attributed, Conquest of Mexico
Travelling is an excellent means of living in idleness; we acquire by it a kind of knowledge which is not always beneficial, and estrange ourselves from our daily avocations to partake liberally of the vices and pleasures of other people.
T. SMITH
attributed, Day's Collacon
Any youth who doesn't travel is like a blind person.
SEKOU CAMARA
"The Dan"
Travel is like a drug that permeates the mind with an indefinite but unusual tinge, stimulating and releasing, imparting a greater significance than they possess to the things that interest and amuse it.
OSBERT SITWELL
Discursions on Travel, Art, and Life
I have just been all round the world and have formed a very poor opinion of it.
SIR THOMAS BEECHAM
attributed, The Quotable Traveler
Traveling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, distances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents.
ITALO CALVINO
Invisible Cities
Travel is the soul of civilization.
ZORA NEALE HURSTON
attributed, The Art of Pilgrimage
The world is like a Mask dancing. If you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Arrow of God
Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour