Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death.

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.

See one promontory (said Socrates of old), one mountain, one sea, one river, and see all.

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

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

Those who travel heedlessly from place to place, observing only their distance from each other and attending only to their accommodation at the inn at night, set out fools, and will certainly return so.

Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will—whatever we may think.

Travel is like adultery: one is always tempted to be unfaithful to one’s own country. To have imagination is inevitably to be dissatisfied with where you live.

One should always have one’s boots on and be ready to leave.

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

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.

Travelers, poets, and liars are three words all of one significance.

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.”