Archive

Quotes

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

Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death.

—Blaise Pascal, c. 1640

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

—Brigitte Bardot, 1989

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.

—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 1747

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

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.

—Lawrence Durrell, 1957

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

—Francis Bacon, 1625

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

—Edward Gibbon, c. 1794

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

—Michel de Montaigne, 1580

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

—Mark Twain, 1894

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 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