Hiker Quotes:

If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it's found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don't care, but they're massively outnumbered by the people who do.

- Andy Weir

source: "Fictional character: Mark Watney". "The Martian", www.imdb.com. 2015.

topic: Blood, Earthquakes, Cities, Martians, Giving Blood

Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.

- Ed Viesturs

source: Ed Viesturs, David Roberts (2011). “The Will to Climb: Obsession and Commitment and the Quest to Climb Annapurna--the World's Deadliest Peak”, p.87, Crown

topic: Sports, Nature, Travel, Inspirational Mountain Climbing, Rock Climbing

The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.

- Robert M. Pirsig

topic: Encouraging, Wisdom, Mountain, Meditation Mindfulness, Zen Motorcycle Maintenance

You're off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, So... get on your way!

- Dr. Seuss

source: Theodor Seuss Geisel, “Oh, The Places You'll Go”

topic: Inspirational, Life, Positive, Inspirational Adventure, Inspirational Graduation

If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere.

- Frank A. Clark

topic: Inspirational, Life, Inspiring, Hurdling Obstacles, Inspirational Adversity

The place where you lose the trail is not necessarily the place where it ends.

- Tom Brown, Jr.

topic: Ends, Trails, Hiker, Hiking Outdoors

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Watch your step.

- Thomas S. Monson

topic: Inspirational, Life, Travel, Solo Travel, Soul Life

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

source: John Muir, Linnie Marsh Wolfe (1979). “John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir”, p.427, Univ of Wisconsin Press

topic: Nature, Flower, Adventure, Journeys And Paths, Inspirational Earth

Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity...

- John Muir

source: "Nature Writings: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, My First Summer in the Sierra, the Mountains of California, Stickeen, Selected Essays".

topic: Travel, Home, Tired, Wildness, National Parks

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.

- Alton Brown

topic: Inspirational, Life, Positive, Solo Travel, Soul Life

Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

- Douglas Adams

source: Douglas Adams (2012). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Scripts Volume 2: The Tertiary, Quandary and Quintessential Phases”, p.83, Pan Macmillan

topic: Funny, Witty, Fear, Learn To Fly, Galaxy

Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery why we climb.

- Greg Child

topic: Answers, Mystery, Summit, Inspirational Mountain Climbing, Rock Climbing

After a day's walk everything has twice its usual value.

- G. M. Trevelyan

source: G.M. Trevelyan (1949). “CLIO A MUSE AND OTHER ESSAYS”

topic: Usual, Walks, Values, Feet And Walking, Hiker

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

- T. S. Eliot

source: T.S. Eliot (2015). “The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems”, p.1250, Faber & Faber

topic: Inspirational, Life, Motivational, Fear None, Courage To Change

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

source: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1883). “Emerson's complete works [ed. by J.E. Cabot]. Riverside ed”

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Patience, Natural Gifts, Keep Patience

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.

- Edmund Hillary

source: "That's Life : Wild Wit & Wisdom". Book by Bonnie Louise Kuchler, 2003.

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Graduation, Inspirational Confidence, Inspirational High School Graduation

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

- Aldous Huxley

topic: Nature, Father, Hiking, Journeys And Paths, Climbing Mountain

Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time.

- Steven Wright

topic: Fun, Work, Distance, Inspirational Long Distance Relationship, Walking Home

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

- John Muir

source: John Muir (2015). “STEEP TRAILS: California - Utah - Nevada - Washington - Oregon - The Grand Canyon: Adventure Memoirs, Travel Sketches, Nature Essays and Wilderness Studies from the author of The Yosemite, Our National Parks, A Thousand-mile Walk to the Gulf & Picturesque California”, p.67, e-artnow

topic: Nature, Adventure, Garden, Beautiful Nature, National Parks

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

- John Muir

source: John Muir, Edwin Way Teale, Henry Bugbee Kane (2001). “The Wilderness World of John Muir”, p.312, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

topic: Nature, Adventure, Garden, Wildness, National Parks

I like being near the top of a mountain. One can't get lost here.

- Wislawa Szymborska

topic: Hiking, Mountain, Lost, Hiker

I see my path, but I don't know where it leads. Not knowing where I'm going is what inspires me to travel it.

- Rosalia de Castro

topic: Travel, Adventure, Hiking, Solo Travel, Journeys And Paths

Distance changes utterly when you take the world on foot. A mile becomes a long way, two miles literally considerable, ten miles whopping, fifty miles at the very limits of conception. The world, you realize, is enormous in a way that only you and a small community of fellow hikers know. Planetary scale is your little secret.

- Bill Bryson

topic: Distance, Two, Feet, Walks In The Woods, Walk In The Woods

Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.

- Walt Whitman

topic: Nature, Sleep, Air, Outdoor Adventure, Good Night Sleep

Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

- Douglas Adams

source: Douglas Adams (2012). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five”, p.47, Pan Macmillan

topic: Puff, Hitchhiking, Logic, Galaxy, Existence Of God

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.

- Henry David Thoreau

source: Walden ch. 2 (1854)

topic: Life, Cutting, Wish, Marrow, Discovering Yourself

Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.

- Frank Lloyd Wright

source: "The Wright Style". Book by Carla Lind, p. 3, 1992.

topic: Inspirational, Life, Stay Strong, Beautiful Nature, Mechanization

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

- Douglas Adams

topic: Distance, Lying, Science, Galaxy, Uncharted

Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer.

- John Muir

topic: Mountain, Taste, Walks, National Parks, Inspirational Mountain Climbing

Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.

- John Muir

topic: Dirt, Path, Outdoor Life, Hiker

Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.

- Anatoli Boukreev

topic: Ambition, Practice, Mountain, Inspirational Mountain Climbing, Rock Climbing

And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.

- Douglas Adams

source: Douglas Adams (2009). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”, p.8, Pan Macmillan

topic: Girl, Nice, Men, Thousand Years, Happy Place

It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent.

- Dave Barry

topic: Travel, Rain, Opportunity, Rainstorms, Raining Day

Take only memories, leave only footprints.

- Chief Seattle

topic: Travel, Memories, Footprint, Inspirational Adventure, Travel And Tourism

The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.

- Douglas Adams

source: Douglas Adams (2012). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five”, p.47, Pan Macmillan

topic: Atheist, Faith Religion, Atheism, Galaxy, Religious Faith

This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

- Douglas Adams

topic: Inspirational, Happiness, Money, Always Happy, Money And Happiness

This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time.

- Douglas Adams

source: Douglas Adams (2009). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”, p.8, Pan Macmillan

topic: You Make Me Happy, People, Unhappy, Always Happy, Money And Happiness

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy also mentions alcohol. It says that the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, the effect of which is like having your brains smashed out with a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick.

- Douglas Adams

topic: Alcohol, Brain, Gold, Lemons, Hiker

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy offers this definition of the word "Infinite". Infinite: Bigger than the biggest thing ever and then some. Much bigger than that in fact, really amazingly immense, a totally stunning size, "wow, that's big", time. Infinity is just so big that by comparison, bigness itself looks really titchy. Gigantic multiplied by colossal multiplied by staggeringly huge is the sort of concept we're trying to get across here.

- Douglas Adams

source: Douglas Adams (2008). “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”, p.142, Del Rey

topic: Trying, Facts, Infinity, Hiker, Immense

Not unnaturally, many elevators imbued with intelligence and precognition became terribly frustrated with the mindless business of going up and down, up and down, experimented briefly with the notion of going sideways, as a sort of existential protest, demanded participation in the decision-making process and finally took to squatting in basements sulking. An impoverished hitch-hiker visiting any planets in the Sirius star system these days can pick up easy money working as a counsellor for neurotic elevators.

- Douglas Adams

source: "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe". Book by Douglas Adams, Chapter 6, 1980.

topic: Stars, Decision, Frustrated, Decision Making Process, Sulking

A significant fraction of thru-hikers reach Katahdin, then turn around and start back to Georgia. They just can't stop walking, which kind of makes you wonder.

- Bill Bryson

source: Bill Bryson (2010). “A Walk In The Woods: The World's Funniest Travel Writer Takes a Hike”, p.145, Random House

topic: Georgia, Kind, Wonder, Hiker

The Hitch Hiker's Guide has not been an opera. It has however been a tapestry, if you count a woven bath towel as a tapestry.

- Douglas Adams

topic: Woven, Opera, Towels, Hiker

I picked up a hitch hiker. You've got to when you hit them.

- Emo Philips

topic: Hiker

Always avoid picking up hitch-hikers who are wearing a mask.

- Jack Adams

topic: Wearing A Mask, Mask, Hiker

Ban walking sticks in wilderness. Hikers that use walking sticks are more likely to chase animals.

- Dave Barry

topic: God, Animal, Stupidity, Walking Sticks, Hiker

For every hiker, climber or canoeist who gets into trouble, there are thousands more who don't. Peter Bronski's compelling account of misadventures in the Adirondacks is a necessary corrective for those who go into the mountains unwary of the dangers.

- Jim Wickwire

topic: Mountain, Trouble, Danger, Misadventure, Hiker