Archive

Quotes

In the Middle Ages people were tourists because of their religion, whereas now they are tourists because tourism is their religion.

—Robert Runcie, 1988

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

—Saint Augustine, c. 390

The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes “sightseeing.”

—Daniel Boorstin, 1961

There is nothing worse for mortals than a wandering life.

—Homer, c. 750 BC

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

The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases. We go on a journey chiefly to be free of all impediments and of all inconveniences—to leave ourselves behind, much more to get rid of others.

—William Hazlitt, 1822

The traveler with nothing on him sings in the robber’s face.

—Juvenal, c. 125

All traveling becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity.

—John Ruskin, 1856

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

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

If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.

—Samuel Johnson, 1777

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