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“There there is nothing like a wilderness journey
for rekindling the fires of life. Simplicity is part of it. Cutting
the cackle. Transportation reduced to leg – or arm – power, eating
irons to one spoon. Such simplicity, together with sweat and
silence, amplify the rhythms of any long journey, especially through
unknown, untattered territory. And in the end such a journey can
restore an understanding of how insignificant you are --- and
thereby set you free.”
- Colin Fletcher, The River
"When my neighbor walks the dogs, he performs a
ritual act of sacer simplicitas, to use the church Latin: "sacred
simplicity." Walking the dog is in truth a ritual of renewal and revival
on an intimate scale - a small rebirth of well-being on a daily basis."
- Robert Fulghum, From Beginning to End
"I have two doctors, my left leg and
my right."
- G. M. Trevelyan
"Freedom - to walk free
and own no superior."
- Walt Whitman
“It is not down in any map;
true places never are.”
- Herman Melville
"The soil is the great connector of our
lives, the source and destination of all."
- Wendell Berry
"Whenever we make changes in our surroundings, we can too easily shortchange ourselves, by cutting ourselves off from some of the sights and sounds, the shapes or textures, or other information from a place that have helped mold our understanding and are now necessary for us to thrive. Overdevelopment and urban sprawl can damage our own lives as much as they damage our cities and countryside."
"If you want to know if your
brain is flabby, feel your legs."
- Bruce Barton
"Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
"Our philosophies must be rewritten to remove
them from the domain of words and "ideas," and to plant their roots
firmly in the earth."
- William Vogt
"If you look for the truth outside
yourself,
It gets farther and farther away.
Today walking alone, I meet it everywhere I step.
It is the same as me, yet I am not it.
Only if you understand it in this way
Will you merge with the way things are."
- Tung-Shan
"Give me odorous at
sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed."
- Walt Whitman
"People need wild places. Whether or not we think we do, we do. We need to be able to taste grace and know again that we desire it. We need to experience a landscape that is timeless, whose agenda moves at the pace of speciation and glaciers. To be surrounded by a singing, mating, howling commotion of other species, all of which love their lives as much as we do ours, and none of which could possibly care less about us in our place. It reminds us that our plans are small and somewhat absurd. It reminds us why, in those cases in which our plans might influence many future generations, we ought to choose carefully. Looking out on a clean plank of planet earth, we can get shaken right down to the bone by the bronze-eyed possibility of lives that are not our own."
"Although the vast majority of walkers never even think
of using a walking staff, I unhesitatingly include it among the foundations of
the house that travels on my back."
- Colin Fletcher, The Complete Walker III
Staff Weapons and Walking Sticks
"Our way is not soft grass,
it's a mountain path with lots of rocks.
But it goes upward, forward, toward the sun."
- Ruth Westheimer
"Climb the mountains and get their
good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like falling leaves."
- John Muir
Sierra Nevada, CA 1984
Rock Creek Basin, Mt. Starr (12,870')
The walker in all but one of the photos on this webpage is
Mike Garofalo
"All truly great
thoughts are conceived by walking."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"There is more to life than increasing its speed.'
- Ghandi
"Today I know there is nothing beyond the
farthest of far ridges except a sign-post to unknown places. The end is in
the means - in the sight of that beautiful long straight line of the Downs in
which a curve is latent - in the houses we shall never enter, with their dark
secret windows and quiet hearth smoke, or their ruins friendly only to elders
and nettles - in the people passing whom we shall never know thought we may love
them. Today I know that I walk because it is necessary to do so in order
to both live and to make a living."
- Edward Thomas, A Fellow Walker
"Gardening is a long road, with many
detours and way stations, and here we all are at one point or another. It's not a question of superior or inferior taste,
merely a question of which detour we are on at the moment. Getting there (as they say) is not important; the wandering about in the wilderness or in the olive groves or in the bayous is the whole point."
- Henry Mitchell, Gardening Is a Long Road
"Hope is the thing with feathers that
perches in the soul and sings the tune without words and
never stops at all."
- Emily Dickinson
"If you are seeking creative ideas, go
out walking.
Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk."
- Raymond Inmon
"The basic rule of thumb is to start a walk
having had 16 oz. of water (a pint or half liter), then replenishing with a cup
of water every 15-20 minutes. That is about a water bottle-full an hour, about a
half liter or pint. End your walk with a big glass of water. That will prevent
dehydration - losing too much fluid from your body. New guidelines in 2003 tell
distance walkers and runners to drink as soon as thirsty."
- Wendy Bumgardner
"As I went walking
That ribbon of highway
I saw above me
The endless skyway
I saw below me
The lonesome valley
This land was made for you and me."
- Woody Guthrie, This Land is Your Land
"Frankly, I fail to see how going for a
six-month, thousand-mile walk through deserts and mountains can be judged less
real than spending six months working eight hours a day, five days a week, in
order to earn enough money to be able to come back to a comfortable home in the
evening and sit in front of a TV screen and watch the two-dimensional image of
some guy talking about a book he has written on a six-month, thousand-mile walk
through deserts and mountains."
- Colin Fletcher, The Complete Walker III
"Above all do not lose your desire to walk.
Everyday I walk myself into
a state of well being and walk away from every illness. I have
walked myself into my best thoughts and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, and the
more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill ... if one keeps on walking
everything will be alright."
- Soren Kierkegaard.
"It's when you are safe at home that
you're having an adventure.
When you're having an adventure you wish you were safe at home."
- Thorton Wilder
“Her pleasure in the walk must
arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the
year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself
some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn--that season of
peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness--that
season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at
description, or some lines of feeling.”
- Jane Austen, Persuasion
“Of all the causes which conspire to render
the life of a man short and miserable, none have greater influence than the want
of proper exercise.”
- Dr. William Buchan, 18th Century Scottish physician
“Exercise thy lasting youth defends.”
- John Gay, British poet
“Resting is rusting.”
- Helen Hayes
"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose."
- Dr. Seuss
"True confidence comes from realizing the
view."
- Tulku
Urgyen
"Our suicidal poets (Plath, Berryman,
Lowell, Jarrell, et al.) spent too much of their lives inside rooms and
classrooms when they should have been trudging up mountains, slogging through
swamps, rowing down rivers. The indoor life is the next best thing to premature
burial."
- Edward Abbey
"Walked for half an hour in the garden.
A fine rain was falling, and the landscape was that of autumn. The sky was
hung with various shades of gray, and mists hovered about the distant mountains
- a melancholy nature. The leaves were falling on all sides like the last
illusions of youth under the tears of irremediable grief. A brood of
chattering birds were chasing each other through the shrubberies, and playing
games among the branches, like a knot of hiding schoolboys. Every
landscape is, as it were, a state of the soul, and whoever penetrates into both
is astonished to find how much likeness there is in each detail."
- Henri Frederic Amiel
"Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening
earth,
By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose-stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves opening as I pass."
- Felicia Hemans
"I can only meditate when I
am walking. When I stop, I cease to think; my mind works only with my legs."
- Jean Jacques Rousseau, Confessions
"Too often, the advocates of trails and
linear parks along rights-of-way come up against officials who recognize only
one kind of park–the squared-off kind that comes in chunks; and one kind of
recreation–the supervised kind known as ‘organized sweating.’ Such officials
refuse to acknowledge that there has been a change in US recreation trends,
reflected in the phenomenal growth of hiking, biking, and horseback riding."
- Constance Stallings
"The street curves in and out, up and down
in great waves of asphalt;
at night the granite tomb is noisy with starlings
like the creaking of many axles;
only the tired walker know how much there is to climb,
how the sidewalk curves into the cold wind."
- Charles Reznikoff, Walking and Watching
"When man ventures into the wilderness,
climbs the ridges, and sleeps in the forest, he comes in close communion with
his Creator. When man pits himself against the mountain, he taps inner springs
of his strength. He comes to know himself."
- William O. Douglas
"When, through automation, a man’s job has
become unchallenging, boring and just a way to obtain purchasing power, if he is
to keep that yeastlike feeling of being a prime mover in the world, he must do
something of value with his spare time."
- Ray Lowes
"Recreation in the open is of the finest
grade. The moral benefits are all positive. The individual with any soul cannot
live long in the presence of towering mountains or sweeping plains without
getting a little of the high moral standard of Nature infused into his being …
with eyes opened, the great story of the Earth’s forming, the history of a tree,
the life of a flower or the activities of some small animal will all unfold
themselves to the recreationist."
- Arthur Carhart, 1919
Montani semper liberi.
Mountaineers are always free.
- A Saying in Latin
"Society as we know it is almost a
conspiracy against human health. One of the main forces working to counteract
that is the trailsman."
- Steward Udall
"A garden should feel like a walk in
the woods."
- Dan Kiley
"What a joy it is to feel the soft, springy
earth under my feet once more, to follow grassy roads that lead to ferny brooks
where I can bathe my fingers in a cataract of rippling notes, or to clamber over
a stone wall into green fields that tumble and roll and climb in riotous
gladness!"
- Helen Keller
"I like long walks, especially when
they are taken
by people who annoy me."
- Fred Allen
"I only went out for a walk, and finally
concluded to stay out until sundown:
for going out, I found, was really going in."
- John Muir
"Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for
the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein…"
- Jeremiah 6:16
"Those who contemplate the beauty of the
earth find resources of strength that will endure as long as life lasts."
- Rachel Carson
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth."
- Robert Frost, Two Roads
"Thoughts come clearly while one walks."
- Thomas Mann
"Happy is the
man who has acquired the love of walking for its own sake!"
- W.J.
Holland
"There is this to be
said for walking: It's the one mode of human locomotion by which a man proceeds on his own two feet, upright, erect, as a man should be, not squatting on his rear haunches like
a frog."
- Edward Abbey
"The rhythm of walking
generates a kind of rhythm of thinking, and
the passage through a landscape echoes or stimulates the passage
through a series of thoughts. The creates an odd consonance between
internal and external passage, one that suggests that the mind is also a landscape of sorts and that walking is one way to traverse it.
A new thought often seems like a feature of the landscape that was
there all along, as though thinking were traveling rather than making."
- Rebecca Solnit,
Wanderlust:
A History of Walking
"Some people like to make a little
garden out of life and walk down a path."
- Jean Anouilh
"He who limps is still walking."
- Stanislaw J. Lec
"Solvitur ambulando," St. Jerome was
fond of saying. To solve a problem, walk around."
- Gregory McNamee
"We seek a renewed stirring of love for the earth.
We plead that what we are capable of doing to it is often
what we ought not to do. We urge that all people now
determine that an untrammeled wildness shall remain here to
testify that this generation had love for the next.
We would celebrate a new renaissance. The old one found
a way to exploit. The new one has discovered the Earth's
limits. Knowing them, we may learn anew what compassion and
beauty are, and pause to listen to the Earth's music.
We may see that progress is not the accelerating speed
with which we multiply and subdue the Earth nor the growing
number of things we possess and cling to. It is a way along
which to search for truth, to find serenity and love and
reverence for life, to be part of an enduring harmony,
trying hard not to sing out of tune."
- David Brower
"Hiking is the best workout! ... You can
hike for three hours and not even realize you're working out. And, hiking alone
lets me have some time to myself."
- Jamie Luner
"Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk.
It is walking toward me, without hurrying."
- Jean Cocteau
"To find new things, take the path you
took yesterday."
- John Burroughs
"Walking isn't a lost art - one must, by
some means, get to the garage."
- Evan Esar
"Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head,
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread."
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"Walking is the natural recreation for a man who desires not absolutely to suppress his intellect but to turn it out to play for a season."
- Leslie Stephen
"The wilderness is a place of rest -- not in
the sense of being motionless, for the lure, after all, is to move,
to round the next bend. The rest comes in the isolation from
distractions, in the slowing of the daily centrifugal forces that
keep us off balance."
- David Douglas
"If a walker is indeed an
individualist there is nowhere he can't go
at dawn and not
many places he can't go at noon. But just as it demeans life to live
alongside
a great river you can no longer swim in or drink from, to be crowded into safer
areas and hours takes much of the gloss off walking - one sport you shouldn't
have to reserve a time and a court for."
- Edward Hoagland
"Perhaps the truth depends on a walk
around the lake."
- Wallace Stevens
"Singing the same song
at a different tone,
In thoughts, destined to die, unknown.
Born unto a world not of our own,
We walked together, walking alone."
- Michael R. Anderson, Walking
Alone
" Wilderness is a place where the wild potential
is fully expressed, a diversity of living and nonliving
beings flourishing according to their own sorts of order. In
ecology we speak of "wild systems." When an ecosystem is
fully functioning, all the members are present at the
assembly. To speak of wilderness is to speak of wholeness.
Human beings came out of that wholeness, and to consider the
possibility of reactivating membership in the Assembly of
All Beings is in no way regressive."
- Gary Snyder
"All power comes from the legs. Through the
correct training of stepping, the martial artist
will be able to make quick and agile transitions during combat. Victory in
fighting depends
on the proper use of footwork. There is an old Chinese martial arts
proverb that states:
"To practice boxing without training the legs is a foolish and hazardous
venture." It is very important to develop the power and energy of the legs; only then can true
martial
power be cultivated."
- Jerry Alan Johnson, The
Essence of Internal Martial Arts
"A French author has advanced this seeming
paradox, that very few men know how to take a walk; and, indeed, it is
true, that few know how to take a walk with a prospect of any other pleasure,
than the same company would have afforded them at home.
There are animals that borrow their colour from the
neighbouring body; and, consequently, vary their hue as they happen to change
their place. In like manner it ought to be the endeavour of every man to
derive his reflections from the objects about him; for it is to no purpose that
he alters his position, if his attention continues fixed to the same point."
- Samuel Johnson, The Rambler
"The place where you lose the trail is
not necessarily the place where it ends."
- Tom Brown, Jr.
"Golf is a good walk
spoiled."
- Mark Twain
"It is a great
art to saunter."
- Henry David Thoreau,
1841
"How can you explain that you need to know
that the trees are still there, and the hills and the sky? Anyone knows they
are. How can you say it is time your pulse responded to another rhythm, the
rhythm of the day and the season instead of the hour and the minute? No, you
cannot explain. So you walk."
- Source Unknown
"My father considered a walk among the
mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing."
- Aldous Huxley
"Of all exercises walking is the
best."
- Thomas Jefferson
Walking Quotations 1 Walking Quotations 2 Walking Quotations 3 Walking Quotations 4 Walking Quotations 5
Walking Quotations 6 Walking Meditation Ways of Walking Website Cloud Hands Blog
"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
- William Shakespeare, MacBeth
“For [Jane Austen and the readers of
Pride and Prejudice], as for Mr. Darcy, [Elizabeth Bennett's]
solitary walks express the independence that literally takes the
heroine out of the social sphere of the houses and their
inhabitants, into a larger, lonelier world where she is free to
think: walking articulates both physical and mental freedom.”
- Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking
"Walking around
an
early spring garden--
going nowhere."
- Kyoshi
"The beginning is in the end and the end is
in the beginning."
- Kabbalah
“Simplicity in all things
is the secret of the wilderness and one of its most valuable lessons. It is what
we leave behind that is important. I think the matter of simplicity goes further
than just food, equipment, and unnecessary gadgets; it goes into the matter of
thoughts and objectives as well. When in the wilds, we must not carry our
problems with us or the joy is lost.”
- Sigurd F. Olson
"The fight for free space–for wilderness
and for public space–must be accompanied by a fight for free time to spend
wandering in that space. Otherwise the individual imagination will be bulldozed
over for the chain-store outlets of consumer appetite, true-crime titillations,
and celebrity crises."
- Rebecca Solnit
"It has been said that there are
landscapes one can
walk through, landscapes which can be gazed upon,
landscapes in which one may dwell ... Those fit for
walking through or being gazed upon are not equal
to those in which one may dwell or ramble."
- Kuo Hsi
"Nature, and the original system that created us,
must always remain somehow with us, the bedrock of our
movements and actions. What is our duty? To live a life."
- Rick Bass
"Walkers turn to the Bibbulmun Track for
all manner of reasons: enjoyment, the joy of the outdoors,
the companionship of others or solitude. But I wonder whether the Track, and
time spent on the Track,
has the power to heal too. I can’t pretend that walking the Bibbulmun
healed my cancer – that had more to do with a surgeon’s skill and a family’s
love. I can’t pretend that the Bibbulmun helped in overcoming the wounds –
mental and physical - of the fire. Tons of mulch, a revegetation program
and time took care of that. But the Bibbulmun has helped to put otherwise
dispiriting events into some kind of perspective, reinforcing the notion that
life has to go on, come what may. And that is a kind of healing.
There’s a neatness, a sense of order about walking the Track. You set off
in the morning for a known destination, fully aware that there’s a good chance
of a safe arrival by mid-afternoon, in good time for a lie-down and a nice cup
of tea before dinner. There’s a beginning and an end to each day. You know
where you’re headed, which is quite the opposite of life itself. Maybe
that’s why I like the Track. Maybe it’s simply an escape route from an
increasingly silly world. Visitors to Broome often talk of “Broome Time”
which I suppose means the suspension of the daily ritual. I suspect that
“Track Time” operates in much the same way."
- Peter Lund, A Walker's Philosophy
"To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; to be
thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird’s nest or a
wildflower in spring — these are some of the rewards of the simple life."
– John
Burroughs
"The contented person enjoys the
scenery of a detour."
– Author Unknown
"Everywhere is walking distance if you
have the time."
- Steven Wright
"It's a well known fact that all spiritual people and
places are very calm, serene and down to earth. When these qualities get
associated with walking it makes the bond between the two stronger... how?When a
person does walking at any time of the day his body is under circulation which
in turn makes him healthy and if he is healthy he will be successful and success
will make him spiritual to help him to remain successful. Walking keeps
the mind at rest which in turn helps one to think better and hence work better.
Walking and spirituality are related very closely because both require regular
time-table, both require effort, both both help you to be successful."
- Anuradha Mishra
A pedestrian is someone who thought there were a couple of gallons left in the tank.
"Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow."
- Henry David Thoreau
"If you don't know where you are, you don't know
who you are."
- Wendell Berry
"To know the road ahead, ask those
coming back."
- Chinese Proverb
"Farewell we call to hearth and hall!
Though wind may blow and rain may fall.
We must away ere the break of day.
Far over wood and mountain tall."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings
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Months and Seasons Quotes, Poems, Sayings, Verses, Lore, Myths, Holidays Celebrations, Folklore, Reading, Links, Quotations Information, Weather, Gardening Chores Compiled by Mike Garofalo |
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"The lessons
we learn from the wild become the etiquette of freedom."
- Gary Snyder
"If a daily fitness walk could be put in a
pill, it would be one of the most popular prescriptions in the world. It has so
many health benefits. Walking can reduce the risk of many diseases — from heart
attack and stroke to hip fracture and glaucoma. These may sound like claims on a
bottle of snake oil, but they're backed by major research. Walking requires no
prescription, the risk of side effects is very low, and the benefits are
numerous: managing your weight, controlling your blood pressure, decreasing your
risk of heart attack, boosting "good" cholesterol, lowering your risk of stroke
..."
- AARP, Numerous Benefits of Walking
"It's amazing how much time one can
spend in a garden doing nothing at all. I sometimes think, in fact, that the nicest part of gardening is walking around in a daze, idly deadheading the odd dahlia, wondering where on earth to squeeze in yet another impulse buy, debating whether to move the recalcitrant artemisia one more time, or daydreaming about where to put the pergola."
- Jane Garmey, A Writer in the Garden
"You need special shoes for hiking - and a
bit of a special soul as well."
- Emme Woodhull-Bäche
"A fact bobbed up from my memory, that
the ancient Egyptians
prescribed walking through a garden as a cure for the mad.
It was a mind-altering drug we took daily."
- Paul Fleischman, Seedfolks
Caloric Expenditures for Different Bodyweights for One Hour of Walking at Various Speeds
Caloric Expenditures Per Mile for Different Bodyweights by Walking at Various Speeds
"Paradise is the here and now, the actual,
tangible, dogmatically real Earth on which we stand. Yes, God bless
America, the Earth upon which we stand."
- Edward Abbey
"Some do not walk at all; others walk in the
highways; a few walk across lots."
- Henry David Thoreau, Walking
"Walking is the great
adventure, the first meditation, a practice of heartiness and soul primary to humankind.
Walking is the exact balance between spirit and humility."
- Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild
"In God's
wildness lies the hope of the world -- the great fresh, unblighted,
unredeemed wilderness."
- John Muir
"People usually consider walking on water
or in thin air a miracle.
But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes.
All is a miracle."
- Thich Nhat Hanh
"What is there that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man's breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery! To know that you are walking where none others have walked."
- Mark Twain
"Now shall I walk
or shall I ride?
"Ride," Pleasure said:
"Walk," Joy replied.
- W.H. Davies
"I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.
- Chris Howell
"Sentiment without action is the ruin of the
soul."
- Edward Abbey
"The Road goes every on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And wither then? I cannot say."
- J. R. R. Tolkein, Lord of the Rings
"Keep close to Nature's heart, yourself; and
break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a
week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean ..."
- John Muir
"Our true home is in the present
moment. To live in the present moment is a miracle. The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green Earth in the present moment…"
- Thich Nhat Hanh
"The more zigzag the way, the deeper
the scenery.
The winding path approaches the secluded and peaceful place."
- Huang Binhong
The Complete Guide to Walking, New and Revised: For Health, Weight Loss, and Fitness
Wanderlust: A History of Walking
by Casey Meyers
The Spirited Walker: Fitness Walking For Clarity, Balance, and Spiritual Connection
"Do not feed children on a maudlin
sentimentalism or dogmatic religion; give them nature. Let their
souls drink in all that is pure and sweet. Rear them, if possible,
amid pleasant surroundings ... Let nature teach them the lessons of
good and proper living, combined with an abundance of well-balanced
nourishment. Those children will grow to be the best men and women.
Put the best in them by contact with the best outside. They will
absorb it as a plant absorbs the sunshine and the dew."
- Luther Burbank
"Let no one be deluded that a
knowledge of the path can substitute for putting one foot in front of the other."
- M. C. Richards
"It was a pleasure and a privilege to walk
with him [H.D. Thoreau]. He knew the country like a fox or a bird, and
passed through it as freely by paths of his own."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Finally,
Veblen gives us a leg up, perhaps, on Kant's "purposiveness without purpose" in
the poet's walking. In his fourth chapter, Veblen writes
that ". . . along with the make-believe of purposeful employment, and woven
inextricably into its texture, there is commonly, if not invariably, a more or
less appreciable element of purposeful effort directed to some serious end," the
serious end being, in Wordsworth's case, his poetry.
Wordsworth walked a lot. He pretended that walking was work,
just like that of real men. It was really a form of
conspicuous consumption in its excess. He had to revel in
that excess and produce something others in his leisure class could appreciate.
That was his poetry."
- Malcolm Hayward
"Wilderness has been characterized as
barren and unproductive; little can be grown in its sand and rock. But the crops
of wilderness have always been its spiritual values -- silence and solitude, a
sense of awe and gratitude -- able to be harvested by any traveler who visits."
- David Douglas
“There comes . . . a longing never to travel again
except on foot.”
- Wendell Berry, Remembering
"... in the distant woods or fields, in unpretending sprout-lands or pastures tracked by rabbits, even in a bleak and, to most, cheerless day, like this, when a villager would be thinking of his inn, I come to myself, I once more feel myself grandly related, and that cold and solitude are friends of mine. I suppose that this value, in my case, is equivalent to what others get by churchgoing and prayer. I come home to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home. I thus dispose of the superfluous and see things as they are, grand and beautiful. I have told many that I walk every day about half the daylight, but I think they do not believe it. I wish to get the Concord, the Massachusetts, the America, out of my head and be sane a part of every day."
"In one respect, at least, said I, after quitting the
public road, in order to pursue a path, faintly tracked through the luxuriant
herbage of the fields, and which left me at liberty to indulge the solitary
reveries of a mind, to which the volume of nature is ever open at some page of
instruction and delight; - in one respect, at least, I may boast of a
resemblance to the simplicity of the ancient sages; I pursue my meditations on
foot, and can find occasion for philosophic reflections, wherever yon fretted
vault (the philosopher's best canopy) extends its glorious covering."
- John Thelwall, The Peripatetic
"All walking is discovery. On
foot we take the time to see things whole."
- Hal Borland
"It is good to collect things; it
is better to take walks."
- Anatole France
Spirituality
Quotes for Gardeners
and Lovers of the Green Way
"Before supper take a little
walk, after supper do the same.
- Erasmus
"It is good to have an end to journey
towards; but it is the journey that matters in the end."
- Ursula K. LeGui
"Study Nature, not books"
- Lous Agassiz
Here is my walking path. It is a .35 mile, asphalt paved, cul-de-sac, Kilkenny Lane, in Red Bluff, California. Kilkenny Lane moves in an east-west direction from the front of my home to Highway 99 West. I practice Tai Chi Chuan and Qigong in the circular area in front of my house shown the foreground of this picture. I rarely encounter a car on Kilkenny Lane.
"A vigorous five-mile walk will do
more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world.
- Paul Dudley White
“But the beauty is in the walking -- we are
betrayed by destinations.”
- Gwyn Thomas
"Always in big woods, when you leave
familiar ground and step off alone to a new place, there will be, along with
feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the
ancient fear of the unknown, and it is your bond with the wilderness you are
going into. What you are doing is exploring. You are understanding the first
experience, not of the place, but of yourself in that place. It is the
experience of our essential loneliness, for nobody can discover the world for
anybody else. It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves that it
becomes common ground, and a common bond, and we cease to be alone."
- Wendell Berry, The Unknown Wilderness
"When one walks, one is
brought into touch first of all with the essential
relations between one's physical powers and the character of the country; one is compelled
to see it as its natives do. Then every man one meets is an individual."
- Aleister Crowley
"The influence of fine scenery, the
presence of mountains, appeases our irritations and elevates our friendships."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life
"It takes days
of practice to learn the art of sauntering. Commonly we stride through the out-of-doors too swiftly to see more than the most obvious and prominent things.
For observing nature, the best pace is a snail’s pace."
- Edwin Way
Teale, Circle of the Seasons
"We must walk
consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our
success."
- Henry David Thoreau
"Nothing like a nighttime stroll to give
you ideas."
- J.K. Rowling
"The man with the knapsack is never lost.
No matter whither he may stray, his food and shelter are right with him, and
home is wherever he may choose to stop."
- Horace Kephart, 1917
"The world
belongs to the energetic."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I can remember walking as a child. It was not customary to say you were fatigued. It was customary to complete the goal of the expedition."
- Katherine Hepburn
"We live with our heels as well as head and
most of our pleasure comes in that way."
- John Muir
"It is an old custom of these people to
pick up a stone and toss it on the pile. Perhaps it is a symbolical
lightening of the load they carry, perhaps a small offering to the gods of the
trails."
- Lousi L'Amour, The Lonesome Gods
"The thrill of tramping alone and unafraid
through a wilderness of lakes, creeks, alpine meadows, and glaciers is not known
to many. A civilization can be built around the machine but it is doubtful that
a meaningful life can be produced by it.… When man worships at the feet of
avalas creations. When he feels the wind blowing through him on a
high peak or sleeps under a closely matted white bark pine in an exposed basin,
he is apt to find his relationship to the universe."
- William O. Douglas
"You have
to stay in shape. My grandmother, she started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's ninety-seven today and we don't know where the hell she is."
- Ellen Degeneres
“As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York island
From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.”
- Woody Guthrie
"Make the
commitment to gradually improve both your exercise performance and your eating habits. Take your time, what's the
hurry? View it as a journey to improve yourself. Although this
is difficult, focus on the journey, not the end result."
- Bob Greene
“Away, away, from men and towns,
"Trails have multiple values and their
benefits reach far beyond recreation. Trails can enrich the quality of life for
individuals, make communities more livable, and protect, nurture, and showcase
America’s grandeur by traversing areas of natural beauty, distinctive geography,
historic significance, and ecological diversity. Trails are important for the
nation’s health, economy, resource protection and education."
- American Trails, Trails for All Americans
"A man is rich in proportion to the number of
things which he can afford to let alone."
- Henry David Thoreau
"To move the world we must first move
ourselves."
- Seneca
"When I walk with you I
feel as if I had a flower in my buttonhole."
- William Makepeace Thackeray
"The chorus-ending from Aristophanes,
raised every night from every ditch that drains into the Mediterranean, hoarse
and primeval as the raven's croak, is one of the grandest tunes to walk by.
Or on a night in May, one can walk through the too rare Italian forests for an
hour on end and never be out of hearing of the nightingale's song."
- George Macaulay Trevelyan, Walking
"The true charm of pedestrianism does not lie in the walking, or in the scenery, but in the talking. The walking is good to time the movement of the tongue by, and to keep the blood and the brain stirred up and active; the scenery and the woodsy smells are good to bear in upon a man an unconscious and unobtrusive charm and solace to eye and soul and sense; but the supreme pleasure comes from the talk.
- Mark Twain
"For there are some people who can live
without wild things about them and the earth beneath their feet, and
some who cannot. To those of us who, in a city, are always aware of
the abused and abased earth below the pavement, walking on the
grass, watching the flight of birds, or finding the first spring
dandelion are the rights as old and unalienable as the rights of
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We belong to no cult. We
are not Nature Lovers. We don't love nature any more than we love
breathing. Nature is simply something indispensable, like air and
light and water, that we accept as necessary to living, and the
nearer we can get to it the happier we are."
- Louise Dickenson Rich
"Do your work, then step back. This is the
only path to serenity."
- Lao Tzu
"The mere thought of walking outdoors on a
brilliant golden-blue day causes fire-works of delight to go off in most people’s psyche. It
gives one an instant feeling of happiness and that is meditation! We are
not
only in touch, at that moment, with the physical splendour of nature, but also with the beauty of merging our own spiritual nature with it."
- Karen
Zebroff
" ..... to be whole and harmonious, man must
also know the music of the beaches and the woods. He must find the
thing of which he is only an infinitesimal part and nurture it and
love it, if he is to live."
William O. Douglas
"Not to have known -- as most men have not --
either the mountain or the desert is not to have known one’s self.
Not to have known one’s self is to have known no one."
- Joseph Wood Krutch
“Of course it is of no use to direct our
steps to the woods, if they do not carry us thither. I am alarmed when it
happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there
in spirit.... What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of
something out of the woods?”
- Henry David Thoreau
"I never imagined that existence could be
so simple, so uncluttered, so Spartan, so free of baggage, so sublimely
gratifying. I have reduced the weight of my pack to 35 pounds and yet I can’t
think of a single thing I really need that I can’t find, either within myself,
or within my pack."
- David Brill, As Far as the Eye Can See
“If you seek creative ideas go walking. Angels whisper to
a man when he goes for a walk.”
- Raymond I. Myers
"A week of sweeping fogs
has passed over and given me a strange sense of exile and desolation. I walk
round the island nearly every day, yet I can see nothing anywhere but a mass of
wet rock, a strip of surf, and then a tumult of waves."
- John Millington Synge
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Months and Seasons Quotes, Poems, Sayings, Verses, Lore, Myths, Holidays Celebrations, Folklore, Reading, Links, Quotations Information, Weather, Gardening Chores Compiled by Mike Garofalo |
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"When we are distressed, going outside for some fresh air,
taking a walk in the park, or wandering deep into the woods quickens our
attention, bringing us instantly into the present. Being outdoors provides
mental space and clarity, allowing our bodies to relax and our hearts to feel
more at ease. Putting ourselves in the midst of something greater than our
personal dramas, difficulties and pain - as we do when we walk in the open
plains, hike in rarefied mountain air, or ramble on an empty beach - can give us
a sense of space and openness, lifting us out of our narrow selves. Similarly,
gazing up at the vast night sky helps us see our problems and concerns with
greater context and perspective. The natural world communicates its profound
message: things are okay as they are; you are okay just as you are; simply relax
and be present."
- Mark Coleman, Awake in the Wild, p. xv
"Continually.… I think back on the
pleasures that I’ve had on the trail and the teachings that it has imparted to
me, and how those pleasures and those teachings have given me happiness and a
greater understanding of how to bring fullness and richness into my life."
- Ann Sutton, The Appalachian Trail
"Remember when life’s path is steep, keep
your mind even."
- Horace
"The longest journey begins with a single step, not with a turn
of the ignition key. That's the best thing about a walking, the journey
itself. It doesn't much matter whether you get where your going or not.
You'll get there anyway. Every good hike brings you eventually back home.
Right were you started."
- Edward Abbey, Walking
"A pessimist only sees the dark side of the clouds, and mopes;
a philosopher sees both sides and shrugs;
an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all -
he's walking on them."
- Leonard L. Levinson
"I don’t climb mountains. Mountains climb me.
The mountain is myself. I climb on myself."
- Nanao Sasaki
"Never a day passes but that I do myself the
honor to commune with some of natures varied forms."
- George Washington Carver
"People need immediate places to refresh,
reinvent themselves. Our surroundings built and natural alike, have an immediate
and a continuing effect on the way we feel and act, and on our health and
intelligence. These places have an impact on our sense of self, our sense of
safety, the kind of work we get done, the ways we interact with other people,
even our ability to function as citizens in a democracy. In short, the places
where we spend our time affect the people we are and can become."
- Tony Hiss, The Experience of Place
"Think what a great world revolution will
take place when there are millions of guys all over the world with rucksacks
on their backs tramping around the back country…."
- Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
Walking Quotations 1 Walking Quotations 2 Walking Quotations 3 Walking Quotations 4 Walking Quotations 5
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"At first I threw my
weight upon my heels, as one does naturally in a boot, and was a good deal
bruised, but after a few hours I learned the natural walk of man, and could
follow my guide in any portion of the island."
- John Millington Synge
“For me and for thousands with similar
inclinations, the most important passion of life is the overpowering desire to
escape periodically from the clutches of a mechanistic civilization. To us the
enjoyment of solitude, complete independence, and the beauty of undefiled
panoramas is absolutely essential to happiness.”
- Bob Marshall
“For I have learned
To look on the nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense of sublime
Of something far more deeply infused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the minds of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All living things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods
And mountains, and of all that we behold
From this green earth, of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear - both what they half create,
And what they perceive, will be pleased to recognize
In nature and the Language of the sense
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart and soul
Of all my moral being.”
- William Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey, 1798
"the walk liberating, I was released from forms,
from the perpendiculars,
straight lines, blocks, boxes, binds
of thought
into the hues, shadings, rises, flowing bends and blends
of sight ..."
- A. R. Ammons, Corsons Inlet
A Brief Biography of Michael P. Garofalo
Red Bluff, Tehama County, North Sacramento Valley, California
Red Bluff, Tehama County,
North Sacramento Valley, Northern Central California, U.S.A.
Cities in the area: Oroville, Paradise, Durham, Chico, Hamilton City, Orland,
Willows,
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Many of the quotes on this webpage were first distributed on the Internet WWW in 2000.
This webpage was last modified or updated on August 4, 2012.
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