Walking

Strolling, Sauntering, Meandering, Hiking, Walk-Abouts

Quotations, Poems, Quips, Wisdom, Sayings

Compiled By
Michael P. Garofalo

May 25, 2006

There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country.
A fine landscape is like a piece of music; it must be taken
at the right tempo. Even a bicycle goes too fast.
- Paul Scott Mowrer

I have two doctors, my left leg and my right.
- G. M. Trevelyan

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.
- John Muir

It is not talking but walking that will bring us to heaven.
- Matthew Henry

If you want to know if your brain is flabby, feel your legs.
- Bruce Barton

Thirteen Treasures Walking Qigong

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

We must walk before we run.
- George Borrow, Lavengro

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 Hiker

Sierra Nevada, California
Rock Creek Basin, Mt. Starr (12,870')
Mike Garofalo, Hiker

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Trees
Quotes for Gardeners and Lovers of the Green Way

The longest journey begins with a single step.
- Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching

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, 1998

If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking.
Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.
- Raymond Inmon

I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards.
- Abraham Lincoln

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

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

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive at where we started
And know the place for the first time.
- T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding

Walking is also an ambulation of mind.
- Gertel Ehrlich

Meandering leads to perfection.
- Lao Tzu

Never have a path for walking on less than three feet wide.
- Martin Hoyles

Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy
of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the
fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort
which life implies.
- Eric Fromme

The Walking Staff

A garden should feel like a walk in the woods.
- Dan Kiley, American landscape designer

The Spirit of Gardening

Walking would teach people the quality that youngsters
find so hard to learn - patience.
- Edward P. Weston

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

Travelers, there is no path, paths are made by walking.
- Antonio Machado

"You may also want to bring the practice of wogging into your life.
Half slow walking (going uphill) and freely surrendered, speedy
jogging (going downhill), it may become your preferred meditation
posture or form of dance. The goal of the practice is not to condition
the body aerobically; that happens as a natural byproduct. The goal
of the practice is to open to and merge with the breath, letting your
natural, surrendered breath determine how fast or slow your body
moves, to stay as loose and relaxed as possible, to let every part of
the body move as fluidly as possible, to surrender to the sensation
and energies of the body as you keep playing with balance, to keep
emptying the mind and staying in clear perception of vision and sound.
Full-bodied breath comes easier during a wog than during any other
activity. Sensations can be felt through the entire body. Vision can
become very clear, and the mind can stay very empty."
- Will Johnson, Yoga of the Mahamudra, 2005, p. 134

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

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, p. 5.

Some people like to make a little garden out of life
and walk down a path.
- Jean Anouilh

Simplicity
Quotes for Gardeners and Lovers of the Green Way

He who limps is still walking.
- Stanislaw J. Lec

Seeing
Quotes for Gardeners and Lovers of the Green Way

It is not talking but walking that will bring us to heaven.
- Matthew Henry

Breathing: Taijiquan and Chi Kung

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

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

Walking and T'ai Chi Ch'uan

As you sit on the hillside, or lie prone under the trees of the forest,
or sprawl wet-legged by a mountain stream, the great door,
that does not look like a door, opens.
- Stephen Graham, The Gentle Art of Tramping

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

Sun Style Taijiquan

Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.
- Wallace Stevens

Index to the Cloud Hands Website

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

"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, p. 21.

The place where you lose the trail is not
necessarily the place where it ends.
- Tom Brown, Jr.

Fitness and Well Being

It is a great art to saunter.
- Henry David Thoreau, 1841

My father considered a walk among the mountains
as the equivalent of churchgoing.
- Aldous Huxley

Of all exercises walking is the best.
- Thomas Jefferson

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

   Walking around
                an early spring garden--
going nowhere.
-   Kyoshi

I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.
- Robert L. Stevenson

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

Don't think you're on the right road
just because it’s a well-beaten path.
- Author Unknown

Index to the Cloud Hands Website

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

Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move,
my thoughts begin to flow.
- Henry David Thoreau

Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you
miss by going to fast - you also miss the sense of where
you are going and why.
- Eddie Cantor

Seasons
Quotes for Gardeners and Lovers of the Green Way

To know the road ahead, ask those coming back.
Chinese Proverb

I was the world in which I walked.
- Wallace Stevens, Tea at the Palaz of Hoon

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

"When you walking along naturally,
you're walking in the harmony of the Unborn."
- Bankei (1622-1693)

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

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

Good walking leaves no track behind it.
- Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching

Some do not walk at all; others walk in the highways;
a few walk across lots.
- Henry David Thoreau, Walking

Death Valley, California
Mike Garofalo, Hiker

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

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

I like long walks, especially when
they are taken by people who annoy me.
- Chris Howell

A man's health can be judged by which he takes
two at a time - pills or stairs.
- Joan Welsh

Walks: The body advances, while the mind flutters
around it like a bird.
- Jules Renard

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

Walking on cloud nine.

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

All paths lead nowhere, so it is important
to choose a path that has heart.
- Carlos Castenda

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. LeGuin

Walking - Bibliography, Links, Resources

An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
- Henry David Thoreau

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

The sum of the whole is this: walk and be happy; walk and
be healthy. The best way to lengthen out our days is to
walk steadily and with a purpose.
- Charles Dickens

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

It is solved by walking.
- A Latin proverb

Qigong and Walking

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

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

Take a two-mile walk every morning before breakfast.
- Harry Truman (Advice on how to live to be 80.)

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

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

One thing that you find out when you have been practicing mindfulness
for a while is that nothing is quite as simple as it appears. This is as true
for walking as it is for anything else. For one thing, we carry our mind
around with us when we walk, so we are usually absorbed in our own
thoughts to one extent or another. We are hardly ever just walking, even
when we are just going out for a walk. Walking meditation involves
intentionally attending to the experience of walking itself. This brings
your attention to the actual experience of walking as you are doing it,
focusing on the sensations in your feet and legs, feeling your whole
body moving. You can also integrate awareness of your breathing
with the experience.
- John Kabat-Zinn

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

When you have worn out your shoes, the strength of the shoe leather
has passed into the fiber of your body. I measure your health by the
number of shoes and hats and clothes you have worn out.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking.
Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.
- Raymond Inmon

Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking.
- John Wain

"Part of the challenge in taking up Zen training is appreciating that formal
study is focused and dedicated, but also in a certain sense contrived. Each
step in kinhin is a wondrous linking of breath and mind and sangha and self,
and is obviously also walking in circles really slowly in a cramped room. It�s
a device, and it�s mysteriously right. It�s very ordinary, and it�s as
extraordinary as the universe itself."
- Bonnie Myotai Treace, Moonlit Window

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out
till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.
- John Muir

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

Walking: Bibliography, Links, Resources, Notes

Paths to Fitness and Well Being

Michael P. Garofalo's E-Mail

Red Bluff, Tehama County, North Sacramento Valley, California

Valley Spirit T'ai Chi Ch'uan Club

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, Corning,
Rancho Tehama, Los Molinos, Tehama, Proberta, Gerber, Manton, Cottonwood,
Anderson, Shasta Lake, Palo Cedro, and Redding, CA, California.

Valley Spirit Fitness and Well Being Practice and Studies Journal

Disclaimer

Paths to Fitness and Well Being

T'ai Chi Ch'uan - Internal Marital Art

Qigong - Energy Cultivation

Yoga

Index

Walking

Meditation

The Spirit of Gardening

� Green Way Research, Red Bluff, California, 2006

Brief Biography of Michael P. Garofalo