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, 1777Quotes
The traveler with nothing on him sings in the robber’s face.
—Juvenal, c. 125Traveling is the ruin of all happiness! There’s no looking at a building here after seeing Italy.
—Fanny Burney, 1782After midnight the moon set and I was alone with the stars. I have often said that the lure of flying is the lure of beauty, and I need no other flight to convince me that the reason flyers fly, whether they know it or not, is the aesthetic appeal of flying.
—Amelia Earhart, 1935Traveling 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, 1797Traveling 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, 1989Journeys, 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.
—Lawrence Durrell, 1957There is nothing worse for mortals than a wandering life.
—Homer, c. 750 BCThere ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.
—Mark Twain, 1894When a traveler returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath traveled altogether behind him.
—Francis Bacon, 1625The 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, 1822One should always have one’s boots on and be ready to leave.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.
—Saint Augustine, c. 390