By Photographer: G. Frank E. Pearsall (1860-1899) — NYPL Digital Gallery, Public Domain
Best Travel Quotes Ever
From Real On The Road
I used to have a collection of quotations on my blog that inspired, amused or moved me in some way during my travels.
But I missed having my favorite quotes nearby in a convenient place, so I’ve edited down the original list of some that have worn thin and added some new favorites that I’ve picked up since dropping this feature.
Now the quotes are back!
Perhaps my favorite is the first one I put on the list more than five years ago, the one that I now have inked on my forearm: “Forever alive, forever forward,” from Whitman’s Song of the Open Road.
But I like them all or they wouldn’t be here.
My collection of quotations remains compiled according to somewhat arbitrary categories, noted above each section in no particular order.
The quotations themselves come from a variety of sources — books I’ve read, music, films and conversations mostly. Some are my own, yes, quoting myself (DHB). A few also have comments or notes on context.
In all, they’ve become a telling repository of thoughts about who I am and what I do now with my life. Some represent periods when things happened that don’t seem as important now as they did once, yet I keep them, seeing them as mileposts along the evolution of my life on the road, and I refer to them often.
If you have your own favorite travel-related quotation that you don’t see on my list, I’d love to hear it. Just drop me a note in the comments or via email.
Your comments, suggestions and contributions, as always, are welcome. Enjoy!
Advice
“Be yourself,
“Take chances,
“Create happiness,
“Be passionate,
“Fall in love,
“Practice kindness,
“Travel often,
“Be generous,
“Value friendship,
“Learn new things,
“Laugh every day,
“Respect others,
“Let go,
“Be fearless.”
— Unattributed poster on the wall of the S&S Diner, Miami, Florida USA (2016), where by chance I’d finally found the proper articulation of the kind of traveler I wanted to be.
“Men who travel should leave their prejudices at home.” — Frederick Douglass
“Always walk with your head down. You might find money.” — George R. Bishop Sr., my dad, who grew up during the Great Depression when, on a good day, he had a nickel in his pocket to buy a pair of socks on the way to school.
“Everything in moderation, including moderation.” — Oscar Wilde
“Don’t follow leaders, watch the parking meters.” — Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues
“Please be a traveler, not a tourist. Try new things, meet new people, and look beyond what’s right in front of you. Those are the keys to understanding this amazing world we live in.” — Andrew Zimmern, American TV personality, traveler, food writer, chef
“The best travel experiences often happen where people, guide books or governments tell me not to go.” — DHB
“Smile a lot, talk to strangers, accept all invitations, eat everything offered.” — Rita Golden Gelman, Tales of a Female Nomad
“Comfortable shoes and the freedom to leave are the two most important things in life.” — Sheldon Silverstein
“Smiles are more contagious than germs.” — DHB
“Stupidity is an immovable object. You can’t try to attack it without being broken by it.” — Gustave Flaubert
” … the truest form of wealth is expressed not in the things you own, but in the freedom to spend your time in a manner that enhances your life. — Rolf Potts, Vagabond’s Way
“To refuse to see through another’s eyes is to blind one’s own.” — Kai Yufeng Convery, musician, teacher, philosopher
“There is no perfection in adventure travel.” — Lillie Echevarria, contemporary traveler
“The world is imperfect. Find your own light.” — Buddha’s last words, according to Paul Theroux in a discussion with Pico Iyer.
“There is no such thing as a misadventure; they are all adventures, the makings of a journey.” — DHB
“No matter how far we try to wander off the tourist trail … we are still outsiders and dilettantes, itinerant consumers in distant lands.” — Rolf Potts, introduction to Marco Polo Didn’t Go There
Age
“Years are not an affliction. Old age is strength.” — Paul Theroux, Dark Star Safari
“That we age is inevitable. How we age is largely up to us.” — Dr. Andrea Brandt
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.” — George Bernard Shaw
“Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter” — Satchel Paige, American baseball player
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
— Dylan Thomas
“If I’d known I would live this long, I might’ve taken better care of myself.” — Often attributed to Mickey Mantle, but also sometimes to Eubie Blake or Mae West
“Don’t let the old man in.” — Toby Keith
“For old age is respected only if it defends itself, maintains its rights, submits to no one, and rules over its domain until its last breath.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman philosopher and statesman
Fear
“Fear isn’t overcome, it’s managed.” — Teresa Carey, sailor
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” — Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
“Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die.” — Theodore Roosevelt in the book The River of Doubt by Candice Millard
An enigmatic statement befitting the adventurous former president in an outstanding book about an ill-fated, Roosevelt-planned river trip in the Brazilian Amazon. While easily misunderstood, I believe he means fear is a debilitating emotion that hinders the ability to live a full life.
“The sins we often regret are the sins we never commit.” — A Greek proverb
Politics
“The popular mind is incapable of skepticism; and that incapacity delivers their helpless strength to the wiles of swindlers and to the pitiless enthusiasms of leaders inspired by visions of a high destiny.” — Joseph Conrad, Nostromo
“A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.” — Albert Einstein, 1901
“Action is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.” — Mark Twain, The Esquimaux Maiden’s Romance (1893)
“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.” — Mark Twain, 1887
“ … if I’d known my son was going to be president of the republic I’d have sent him to school …” — Gabriel Marquez, Autumn of the Patriarch
“The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it.” — William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
“Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile.” — William Shakespeare, King Lear
Civilization
“The quality of civilization depends on the calling of things by their proper names as far as we can know them. It is the endless quest and the nations that turn from it totter and fall.” — Freya Stark
Writing/Reading
“I write for myself and my friends, and I write to ease the passing of time.” — Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Sand
“A reader meeting another reader … it’s like kindred spirits.” — Paul Theroux
“Their imaginations were fed by exile, a nourishment drawn not through roots but through rootlessness.” — Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City, referring to the works of Conrad, Nabokov, Naipaul
“What is important for a painter is not a thing’s reality but its shape, and what is important for a novelist is not the course of events but their ordering, and what is important for a memoirist is not the factual accuracy of the account but its symmetry.” — Orhan Pamuk, “Istanbul: Memoirs and The City”
“The successful memoirist … knows that truth is both different from facts and greater than facts, and not always their sum.” — Bill Roorbach
The Path Forward
“You cannot travel the path until you become the path itself.” — Buddha
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” — Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
“If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” — Yogi Berra, American baseball player
“ … the road is life.” — Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Half the fun of travel is the esthetic of lostness.” — Ray Bradbury
“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” — Lewis Carroll
“It’s not where you been, it’s where you’re going.” — Jimmy Wayne Barber, “Walk to Beautiful”
“Every sad departure comes with the promise of a new arrival, and thoughts of returning one day to the wonderful places you’ve been.” — DHB
“ … it is in the nature of travel to be uncomfortable, if not scared silly.” — Paul Theroux, Last Train to Zona Verde
“To travel unconnected, away from anyone’s gaze or reach, is bliss.” — Paul Theroux
“You don’t need tickets in advance to go ‘round the world. You need only the means to your next destination. One destination at a time.” — DHB 4/24/19
“And God hath spread the Earth as a carpet for you that ye may walk therein through spacious paths.” — Quoran LXXI
“A true journey, no matter how long the travel takes, has no end.” — William Least Heat-Moon, Blue Highways
“Instead of worrying about whether you’re a tourist or a traveler, the secret to “seeing” your surroundings on the road is simply to keep things real. – Rolf Potts
“Life lies ahead of us, not behind.” — Bernard Ollivier, Out of Istanbul
Home
“The brave succeed in all adventures, even those who come from countries far away.” — Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom and battle, to Odysseus, the wandering traveler trying to reach his home. The Odyssey by Homer (translation by Emily Wilson)
“We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” — T. S. Eliot
“You go away for a long time and return a different person — you never come all the way back.” — Paul Theroux, Dark Star Safari
Balance
“ … the word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.” — Carl Jung
“Sing, dance, laugh and cry every day, it’s exercise for your soul.” — DHB
Movement
“Man’s real home is not a house, but the Road, and … life itself is a journey to be walked on foot.” — Bruce Chatwin
“Oh the places you’ll go.” — Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel)
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you have to keep moving.” — Albert Einstein, 1930
“Things move to live. The more they move, the stronger they get.” — Bruce Lee, martial artist, philosopher
“I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” — Robert Louis Stevenson
“We don’t go anywhere. Going somewhere is for squares. We just go!” — Johnny Strabler, played by Marlon Brando in the 1953 film, The Wild One
“There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.” — Jack Kerouac
“Staying alive by not staying still.” — DHB
“I know I can’t be free, but these people keep a movin’, that’s what tortures me.” — Johnny Cash, Folsom Prison Blues, an agonizing antithesis to life on the road, a prisoner laments from his cell block, watching trains pass by carrying “rich folks in fancy dining cars, prob’ly drinkin’ whisky, and smokin’ big cigars …”
“If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food, it’s a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.” — Anthony Bourdain
“To move, to breathe, to fly, to float,
To gain all while you give,
To roam the roads of lands remote,
To travel is to live.”
— Hans Christian Andersen
“You gotta keep movin’ or you gonna get left behind.” — T-Bone Walker, American blues artist
Love
“ … we travel, in essence, to become young fools again, to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.” — Pico Iyer
“You’re the reason that I’m traveling on. Don’t think twice, it’s alright.” — Bob Dylan
“Traveling makes one modest — you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” — Gustave Flaubert, lamenting that his Egyptian paramour will not likely remember their dalliance, and that his memory will not “remain in her heart,” as he so desires (from Theroux’s Dark Star Safari).
“If you want love and abundance, give it away.” — Mark Twain
Religion
“The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man.” — Albert Einstein
“Being an agnostic means all things are possible, even God, even the Holy Trinity. This world is so strange that anything may happen, or may not happen. Being an agnostic makes me live in a larger, a more fantastic kind of world, almost uncanny. It makes me more tolerant.” — Jorge Luis Borges
Change
“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” — Henry Miller
“I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.” — Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Abroad
“… there ain’t no journey what don’t change you some.” — David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
“Time has made me easier.” — Ben Franklin
“All plans, all safeguards are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.” — John Steinbeck Travels with Charley: In Search of America
“A little piece of everywhere I go becomes a big part of everything I do.” — Richie Norton, motivational speaker
“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” — Miriam Beard, American author, traveler
“It’s sad and scary and wonderfully exciting all at the — Nita Smith, Puna, Hawaii, describing the nearby eruption of Kilauea Volcano
“Travel changes you before you even leave; you start to change the first time you dream of travel.” — DHB
” … Earth is a restless planet, and change is part 99 — Gabrielle Walker, Antarctica, An Intimate Portrait of the World’s Most Mysterious Continent
Motivation
“The traveler’s conceit is that he is heading into the unknown. The best travel is a leap into the dark. If the destination were familiar and friendly, what would be the point of going there?” — Paul Theroux, Dark Star Safari
“You start traveling and you travel and keep on traveling, that’s how you become a traveler.” — Abhishek Kumar, Stardust Family – We Are One!
“What gives value to travel is fear.” — Albert Camus
“My purpose in making this wonderful journey is not to delude myself in the objects I see. Nothing, above all is comparable to the new life that a reflective person sees when he observes a new country. Though I am still always myself, I believe I have been changed to the very marrow of my bones.” — Goethe, Italian Journey
“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality, nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.” — Chris McCandless, Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer
“As a tiny, self-conscious creature in a mad, endless universe, the exquisite nature of the unknown leads me to travel.” -– DHB
“Every last one of us can do better than give up.” — Cheryl Strayed, Sugar
Salutations
“May your journey always lead you to a better place in your heart.” — DHB
“Que les vaya bien.” (Good luck, or, travel well) — Traditional
“Bright moments” — a favorite of my late brother, George Riley Bishop Jr.
“May the universe and beyond be yours.” — DHB
Inspiration
“Forever alive, forever forward.” — Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road
“The only home I have now is where I rest my head. Vive el camino” –DHB
“The brave succeed in all adventures, even those who come from countries far away.” — Athena, goddess of wisdom and battle, to Odysseus, in Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey, by Homer
“You just put one foot in front of the other …” — Capt. Merrill, Merrill’s Marauders (U.S. film, 1962)
“When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego, and when we escape like squirrels turning in the cage of our personality and get into the forests again, we shall shiver with cold and fright but things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool unlying life will rush in, and passion will make our bodies taut with power, we shall stamp our feet with new power and old things will fall down, we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper.” — D.H. Lawrence
“I inhale great draughts of space, the east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.” — Walt Whitman, Songs of the Open Road
“Vivir Mi Vida” (To Live My Life) — Marc Anthony
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” — Andre Gide
“The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.” — Carl Jung
“Remember the future. Today you eat; tomorrow you don’t know.” — Zenovia Requena, a Maya farmer on the Columbia River, Belize
“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” — Santiago, the shepherd, in Paul Coelho’s The Alchemist
“To a wise man, the whole earth is open, because the true country of a virtuous soul is the entire universe.” — Democritus, 5th century BC Greek philosopher, founder of atomic theory
“My address is on the sole of my shoes. It travels with me.” — Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, labor organizer, 1837-1930.
“The world is imperfect; find your own light.” — Buddha’s last words, as told by Paul Theroux in conversation with Pico Iyer
Good things happen, and some things not so good, but as long as I’m still traveling, it’s all good. — DHB
Music
“If you got time to breathe, you got time for music.” — Grandpa Darling, a character in the U.S. television show, Mayberry RFD
“Without music, life would be a mistake.” — Fredrich Nietzsche
“Wonderful World, Beautiful People” — Jimmy Cliff
“Don’t Worry About A Thing, Every Little Thing Is Gonna Be Alright” — Bob Marley
Reality
“Loneliness does not worry me. LIfe is difficult enough, putting up with yourself and your own habits.” — Jorge Luis Borges
“Only if this were a film would I consider it real.” — Werner Herzog, Of Walking in Ice
“ … there was always another truth behind the truth.” — Gabriel Marquez, Autumn of the Patriarch
“Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” — The intrepid Dorothy to her little dog, Toto, in the original film version of L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz
“Guaranteed it’s all fiction, even the true parts.” — DHB
“Nothing’s sure in this world.” — Billy Idol, song lyrics, White Wedding
“Certainty is overrated.” — Sherry Ott, ottsworld.com
“In the end, writing and photography probably destroy more of the past than they ever preserve of it.” — Sigrid Nunez, The Friend: A Novel
From an award-winning book in which, preceding the quote, the author explains that only the selected words and photos are remembered, as memories of everything else fade into oblivion.
Individuality
“Hago lo que quiero.” (“I do what I want.”) — DHB
“ … a man possessed of passion is not a bankrupt in life.” — Joseph Conrad, Nostromo
“Damn the rules, it’s the feeling that counts.” — John Coltrane
“Being normal is boring.” — Marilyn Monroe
“I was born with emotions and a song was in my soul — T-Bone Walker, “I got the Blues,” The Imperial Blues Years
“Being alone on the road makes you ready to meet someone when you stop. You get sociable traveling alone.” — William Least Heat-Moon, Blue Highways
“Travel warnings? Travel warnings? I don’t heed no travel warnings!” — DHB
“Travel is one of the greatest expressions of freedom.” — David Farley
The Great Inevitable
An absolute condition of all successful living, whether for an individual or a nation, is the acceptance of death. — Freya Stark, British Author and Traveler, born Jan. 31, 1893, died May 9, 1993
“The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.” — Jim Morrison, Roadhouse Blues
“We forget that we are all dead men, conversing with dead men.” — Jorge Luis Borges, Book of Sand
“Death is only for the living.” — DHB
“That irreparable change a death makes in the course of our daily thoughts can be felt in a vague and poignant discomfort of mind.” — Joseph Conrad, Nostromo
“C’mon everybody, Let’s have some fun, You only live but once, And when you’re dead, you’re done.” — Sam Theard, Fleecy Moore, song lyrics, Let the Good Times Roll
“In traveling, one is always accompanied by the retinue of Death or his batman.” — Henry Miller, Remember to Remember
“We live above others’ ruins, programmed for extinction.” — Christopher Shaw, Sacred Monkey River
“The older I get the freer I become. Accepting mortality sets me free.” — Randall Collis, Global Sojourner Photography
“The journey doesn’t end when you go home; the journey ends when you die.” — DHB
“One who does not embrace death will not know life at all.” — Sadhguru, Death: An Inside Story
“Every man’s death begins with the death of his father.” — Orhan Pamuk
Grief
“We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.” — William Wordsworth, Ode Intimations of Immortality
“There is no healing, only a reckoning with the pain.” — DHB
Why Travel?
“The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot.” — Werner Herzog to a dying Bruce Chatwin
“Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all of one’s lifetime.” — Mark Twain
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” — Mark Twain
“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 ‘sight-seeing.’ — Daniel J. Boorstin
“Travel far enough, you meet yourself.” — Cloud Atlas
“Connecting with people brings joy. It’s a spiritual thing.” — Rita Golden Gelman, Tales of a Female Nomad
“I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.” — H.D. Thoreau, Life Without Principle
“… a traveler like me, more interested in conversation than sightseeing, …” — Paul Theroux, Deep South
“It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I still have to go, the more there is to learn. Maybe that’s enlightenment enough; to know that there is no final resting place of the mind; no smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom … is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.” — Anthony Bourdain
“(T)he art of learning fundamental common values is perhaps the greatest gain of travel to those who wish to live at ease among their fellows.” — Freya Stark, Perseus In The Wind
“There is something spectacular about seeing a new place, being exposed to new ideas and experiencing a new culture. Traveling makes you grow.” — Barack Obama, from Rolf Potts’ Vagabond’s Way
“If you leave yourself at home and are eager to let the world remake you as it seems fit, you can be at home almost everywhere you go.” — Pico Iyer
Health
“Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” — Michael Pollan