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.

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

I am leaving the town to the invaders: increasingly numerous, mediocre, dirty, badly behaved, shameless tourists.

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.

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.

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.”

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

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

According to the law of custom, and perhaps of reason, foreign travel completes the education of an English gentleman.

Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death.

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

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.

It is delightful to read on the spot the impressions and opinions of tourists who visited a hundred years ago, in the vehicles and with the aesthetic prejudices of the period, the places which you are visiting now. The voyage ceases to be a mere tour through space; you travel through time and thought as well.