With spring around the corner, who among us isn’t suffering a bit of cabin fever after the long winter? If you’re anything like me, you’re no doubt dying to lace up your hiking boots and hit the trails the moment the first tulip pokes a tentative head up through the snow. Sure, treadmills prove handy when the wind chill factor drops to 20 degrees below zero, but the view of the gym parking lot with its piles of gravelly grey snow leaves more than a bit to be desired.
Even if you’re still buried four feet deep under a while blanket, nothing can stop you from daydreaming about adventures yet to come. No wall of ice can keep you from escaping to the great outdoors in your mind. To whet your appetite for roaming the wild, take heart from these 20 famous hiking quotes that will spark your imagination through the remaining frigid days and inspire you to get out there the moment weather permits.
1. “A journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step.”
– Lao Tzu
2. “To walk in nature is to witness a thousand miracles.”
– Mary Davis
3. “Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.”
– John Muir
4. “May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.”
– Edward Abbey
5. “It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”
– Edmund Hillary
6. “Adventure is worthwhile in itself.”
– Amelia Earhart
7. “There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.”
– Linda Hogan
8. “Mother Earth is our first teacher. She has informed us that oneness does not equal sameness. She shows us this through the harmonious balance that is held in the rich biodiversity that exists within our world.”
– Sherri Mitchell Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset
9. “Take only what you need and leave the land as you found it.”
– Arapaho proverb
10. “If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.”
– Barack Obama
11. “Living at a river, one comes to know the nature of the fish therein; dwelling by a mountain, one learns to recognize the language of the birds thereupon.”
– Chinese proverb
12. “Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in an office or mowing the lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.”
– Jack Kerouac
13. “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
14. “I took a walk in the woods and came back taller than the trees.”
– Henry David Thoreau
15. “The wilderness holds answers to questions man has not yet learned to ask.”
– Nancy Newhall
16. “To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from.”
– Terry Tempest Williams
17. “Glee is the body of the daffodil, reaching tubed fingers through the day, feeling her own trumpeted passion choiring air with hot, colored song.”
– Camille T. Dungy
18. “Around us, life bursts with little miracles. If we live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere.”
– Thich Naht Hanh
19. “I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.”
– John Burroughs
And finally, an all-time favorite:
20. “All who wander are not lost.”
– J.R.R. Tolkien
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