Authors:
  1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. H
  4. Henry David Thoreau
  5. Travel

Henry David Thoreau Quotes about Travel

All Henry David Thoreau Quotes Achievement Acting Adventure Age Aids Alcohol Ambition Anxiety Appreciation Army Art Atheism Atmosphere Attitude Authority Autumn Beach Beauty Beer Being Alone Being Yourself Bible Birth Bones Bravery Business Caring Change Character Charity Chastity Children Christ Christianity Church Civil Disobedience College Commitment Common Sense Communication Community Confidence Conformity Confusion Consciousness Constitution Contemplation Cooking Copper Country Courage Creation Creativity Criticism Culture Curiosity Darkness Death Deception Democracy Depression Design Desire Destiny Determination Devil Disappointment Discipline Dogma Doubt Drinking Duty Dying Earth Eating Ecology Economics Economy Education Effort Encouraging Energy Enthusiasm Environment Eternity Ethics Evil Excellence Exercise Expectations Experience Failing Failure Faith Fame Family Farming Fashion Fate Fear Feelings Fighting Finding Yourself Flying Focus Food Freedom Friends Friendship Funny Future Gardening Generosity Genius Giving Giving Up God Gold Good Deeds Good Morning Goodbye Goodness Gossip Grace Graduation Gratitude Greatness Greed Greek Grief Grieving Growth Happiness Hard Work Harmony Hate Healing Health Heart Heaven Heroism History Home Honesty Honor Hope House Human Nature Humanity Humility Hunger Hunting Hypocrisy Ignorance Imagination Immortality Imperfection Impulse Independence Individuality Injustice Innocence Insanity Inspiration Inspirational Inspiring Integrity Intelligence Jesus Journalism Journey Joy Judging Justice Kindness Knowledge Labor Language Latin Laughter Learning Liberty Life Listening Literature Live Life Loneliness Losing Loss Love Luck Lying Manhood Mankind Marriage Meditation Memories Mental Health Mercy Mindfulness Money Moon Morality Morning Motivation Motivational Mountain Music Nature Navy Observation Office Opportunity Optimism Overcoming Past Patience Patriotism Peace Perception Perfection Perseverance Personality Perspective Philanthropy Philosophy Physics Pleasure Poetry Police Politics Positive Poverty Power Praise Prayer Pride Privacy Progress Property Purity Purpose Quality Rain Reading Reality Rebellion Reflection Regret Reincarnation Religion Reputation Respect Responsibility Revelations Revolution Risk Running Sabbath Sacrifice Sad Sadness Sailing Sanity School Science Self Esteem Self Reliance Self Respect Serenity Silence Simple Life Simplicity Sin Sincerity Singing Skins Slavery Sleep Sloth Social Responsibility Society Solitude Son Sorrow Soul Sports Spring Strength Struggle Students Study Style Success Suffering Summer Sunrise Sunshine Sympathy Tea Teaching Technology Temperance Thanksgiving Time Today Tradition Tragedy Transcendentalism Travel quotes True Love Trust Truth Understanding Universe Violence Virtue Vision Volunteer Voting Waiting Walking Wall War Water Weakness Wealth Weed Wilderness Wine Winter Wisdom Work Writing Yoga Youth
Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

Henry David Thoreau
Wisdom, Travel, Character

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Travel, Hands
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.149, Courier Corporation

Methinks that the moment my legs began to move, my thoughts began to flow.

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Travel, Moving

A worm is as good a traveler as a grasshopper or a cricket, and a much wiser settler. With all their activity these do not hop away from drought nor forward to summer. We do not avoid evil by fleeing before it, but by rising above or diving below its plane; as the worm escapes drought and frost by boring a few inches deeper.

Henry David Thoreau
Summer, Travel, Evil
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.217, Xist Publishing

I cannot but regard it as a kindness in those who have the steering of me that, by the want of pecuniary wealth, I have been nailed dawn to this my native region so long and steadily, and made to study and love this spot of earth more and more. What would signify in comparison a thin and diffused love and knowledge of the whole earth instead, got by wandering? The traveler's is but a barren and comfortless condition. Wealth will not buy a man a home in nature-house nor farm there. The man of business does not by his business earn a residence in nature, but is denaturalized rather.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Kindness, Home

He who is only a traveler learns things at second-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. We are most interested when science reports what those men already know practically or instinctively, for that alone is a true humanity, or account of human experience.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Knowledge, Men
Henry David Thoreau, Michael McCurdy, Terry Tempest Williams (2010). “Walden”, p.118, Shambhala Publications

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.

Henry David Thoreau
Witty, Travel, Work
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.52, Xist Publishing

Some hard and dry book in a dead language, which you have found it impossible to read at home, but for which you still have a lingering regard, is the best to carry with you on a journey.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Book, Reading
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.232, Delphi Classics

What is the use of going right over the old track again? There is an adder in the path which your own feet have worn. You must make tracks into the Unknown.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Feet, Track
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1872, Delphi Classics

I have climbed several higher mountains without guide or path, and have found, as might be expected, that it takes only more time and patience commonly than to travel the smoothest highway.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Mountain, Might
Henry David Thoreau (1999). “Elevating Ourselves: Thoreau on Mountains”, p.21, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

It makes no odds where a man goes or stays, if he is only about his business.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Integrity, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.197, Jazzybee Verlag

At the extreme north, the voyagers are obliged to dance and act plays for employment.

Henry David Thoreau
Dance, Travel, Play
Henry David Thoreau (1873). “The Maine Woods”, p.159

A man must generally get away some hundreds or thousands of miles from home before he can be said to begin his travels. Why not begin his travels at home? Would he have to go far or look very closely to discover novelties? The traveler who, in this sense, pursues his travels at home, has the advantage at any rate of a long residence in the country to make his observations correct and profitable. Now the American goes to England, while the Englishman comes to America, in order to describe the country.

Henry David Thoreau
Country, Travel, Home
Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.86, Yale University Press

The cheapest way to travel, and the way to travel the farthest in the shortest distance, is to go afoot, carrying a dipper, a spoon, and a fish line, some Indian meal, some salt, and some sugar.... Any one of these things I mean, not all together. I have traveled thus some hundreds of miles without taking any meal in a house, sleeping on the ground when convenient, and found it cheaper, and in many respects more profitable, than staying at home. So that some have inquired why it would not be best to travel always. But I never thought of traveling simply as a means of getting a livelihood.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Travel, Distance

I am accustomed to think very long of going anywhere,--am slow to move. I hope to hear a response of the oracle first.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Moving, Thinking
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.205, Jazzybee Verlag

The village is the place to which the roads tend, a sort of expansion of the highway, as a lake of a river.... The word is from the Latin villa, which together with via, a way, or more anciently ved and vella, Varro derives from veho, to carry, because the villa is the place to and from which things are carried.... Hence, too, the Latin word vilis and our vile, also villain. This suggests what kind of degeneracy villagers are liable to. They are wayworn by the travel that goes by and over them, without traveling themselves.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Latin, Lakes

We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Home, Adventure
Henry David Thoreau, Laura Ross (2009). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods: Bold-faced Ideas for Living a Truly Transcendent Life”, p.273, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.

Far travel, very far travel, or travail, comes near to the worth of staying at home.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Home, Staying
Allen Clapp Thomas, American Antiquarian Society, Andrew McFarland Davis, Austin Samuel Garver, Edward Everett Hale (1904). “Mary Griffin and Her Creed”

Today you may write a chapter on the advantages of traveling, and tomorrow you may write another chapter on the advantages of not traveling.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Home, Writing
Henry David Thoreau (1993). “A Year in Thoreau's Journal: 1851”, p.280, Penguin

We need only travel enough to give our intellects an airing.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Memorable, Intelligent
Henry David Thoreau (1894). “The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: With Bibliographical Introductions and Full Indexes”

Even the elephant carries but a small trunk on his journeys. The perfection of traveling is to travel without baggage.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Journey, Elephants
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.885, Delphi Classics

So far as my experience goes, travelers generally exaggerate the difficulties of the way. Like most evil, the difficulty is imaginary; for what's the hurry?

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Evil, Optimism
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.101, Penguin

I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Journey, Wish
Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.209, Courier Corporation

Ktaadnis an Indian word signifying highest land,... very few, even among backwoodsmen and hunters, have ever climbed it, andit will be a long time before the tide of fashionable travel sets that way.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Land, Long

I suspect that, if you should go to the end of the world, you would find somebody there going farther, as if just starting for home at sundown, and having a last word before he drove off.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Home, World
Henry David Thoreau (1864). “The Maine Woods”, p.11

You May Also Like: