Archive

Quotes

I think that to get under the surface and really appreciate the beauty of any country, one has to go there poor.

—Grace Moore, 1944

Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death.

—Blaise Pascal, c. 1640

When a traveler returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath traveled altogether behind him.

—Francis Bacon, 1625

Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, “I would stay here and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.”

—Lisa St. Aubin de Terán, 1989

There is nothing worse for mortals than a wandering life.

—Homer, c. 750 BC

A traveler’s chief aim should be to make men wiser and better, and to improve their minds by the bad—as well as good—example of what they deliver concerning foreign places.

—Jonathan Swift, 1726

Traveling is like gambling: it is ever connected with winning and losing, and generally where least expected we receive more or less than we hoped for.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1797

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.

—Saint Augustine, c. 390

More and more I like to take a train. I understand why the French prefer it to automobiling—it is so much more sociable, and of course these days so much more of an adventure, and the irregularity of its regularity is fascinating.

—Gertrude Stein, 1943

All traveling becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity.

—John Ruskin, 1856

People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence, and they think they have seen something.

—Søren Kierkegaard, 1843

There ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.

—Mark Twain, 1894

I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.

—Susan Sontag, 1977