quotations about travel
Soulful travel is the art of finding beauty even in ruins.
PHIL COUSINEAU
The Art of Pilgrimage
The soul of the journey is liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Table Talk
The traveler is active; he goes strenuously in search of people, of adventure, or experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him.
DANIEL J. BOORSTIN
attributed, Voyages of Discover
Every traveler has a tale to tell.
DAVID C. SMITH & RICHARD L. TIERNEY
The Ring of Ikribu
The traveled mind is the catholic mind educated from exclusiveness and egotism.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Those who visit foreign nations, but who associate only with their own countrymen, change their climate, but not their customs; they ... return home with travelled bodies, but untravelled minds.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness.
RAY BRADBURY
attributed, Emily the Strange: Piece of Mind
I assure you that without travel we (at least men of the arts and sciences) are miserable creatures. A man of mediocre talent will remain mediocre whether he travels or not; but one of superior talent (which I cannot deny that I am, without doing wrong) will go to seed if he remains continually in one place.
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
letter to Leopold Mozart, September 11, 1778
Foreign travel is like a tarantula bite--once beginning to dance, one must dance on. The exertion may be more painful than pleasurable, still we keep it up. The lookers-on--the quiet, phlegmatic, or selfish stayers at home--think us very foolish; perhaps we ourselves have our doubts whether we are not rather foolish too. Nevertheless we go dancing on, and dance until we die.
DINAH CRAIK
We Four in Normandy
Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.
CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI
Up-Hill
The reading of tourist prospectuses is one of the joys of the world -- it is like operetta in prose -- all so flowery and heavenlike.
MARSDEN HARTLEY
Somehow a Past
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
The reason why there are so many narrow-minded people in the world is, because there is so little travelling in it.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
He didn't really like travel, of course. He liked the idea of travel, and the memory of travel, but not travel itself.
JULIAN BARNES
Flaubert's Parrot
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
Travel is ... a means of conquering space and time.
JILLY TRAGANOU
Travel, Space, Architecture
When a traveller returneth home, let him not leave the countries, where he hath travelled, altogether behind him; but maintain a correspondence by letters, with those of his acquaintance, which are of most worth. And let his travel appear rather in his discourse, than his apparel or gesture; and in his discourse, let him be rather advised in his answers, than forward to tell stories; and let it appear that he doth not change his country manners, for those of foreign parts; but only prick in some flowers, of that he hath learned abroad, into the customs of his own country.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Travel", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
He travels safest in the dark night who travels lightest.
FERNANDO CORTEZ
attributed, Conquest of Mexico
In travelling by land, there is a continuity of scene, and a connected succession of persons and incidents, that carry on the story of life, and lessen the effect of absence and separation.
WASHINGTON IRVING
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon
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