quotations about travel
A wise traveller never despises his own country.
CARLO GOLDONI
attributed, Day's Collacon
Never travel by sea when you can go by land.
CATO
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
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
To travel is to possess the world.
E. BURTON HOLMES
American Review of Reviews, December 1907
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Voyaging great distances -- through forests, from island to island, across plains and into the mountains -- is all about finding ourselves.
TIM LEBBON
Fallen
A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles.
EDWARD ABBEY
Desert Solitaire
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
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
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
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