84 Inspiring Journey Quotes

Embarking on a journey, whether physical or metaphorical, often comes with its own set of challenges and triumphs. It's through these experiences that we find growth, wisdom, and often, a renewed sense of purpose. To inspire and motivate you along your path, we've thoughtfully curated a collection of the top 84 inspiring journey quotes. These words of wisdom from thinkers, adventurers, and visionaries serve as a reminder that every step you take, no matter how small, contributes to the bigger picture of your life's adventure. Ready to get inspired? Let's dive into the transformative power of journey quotes.

1. “The only journey is the one within.” - Rainer Maria Rilke

2. “I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not. They are strangers in their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage. They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known. Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves. Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history.” - W. Somerset Maugham

3. “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

4. “Though the road's been rocky it sure feels good to me.” - Bob Marley

5. “The best teachers have showed me that things have to be done bit by bit. Nothing that means anything happens quickly--we only think it does. The motion of drawing back a bow and sending an arrow straight into a target takes only a split second, but it is a skill many years in the making. So it is with a life, anyone's life. I may list things that might be described as my accomplishments in these few pages, but they are only shadows of the larger truth, fragments separated from the whole cycle of becoming. And if I can tell an old-time story now about a man who is walking about, waudjoset ndatlokugan, a forest lodge man, alesakamigwi udlagwedewugan, it is because I spent many years walking about myself, listening to voices that came not just from the people but from animals and trees and stones.” - Joseph Bruchac

6. “One of the secrets of life is to find joy in the journey." But Grandma, you weren't on *this* journey. It was just crazy--"Grandma held up her hand. "You have six brothers. You got to spend a whole day in the car with them. You're all healthy, well fed, happy... Someday, when you're a little older, I'll bet you'd give anything to be back in that van of yours with all of your brothers, smelly diapers and all."I mulled that over.Well what about Dad?" I pointed out. "He didn't find any joy in the journey. He was yelling at trees."Grandma sat back, "Your father and mother are masters at finding joy in the journey."I didn't understand.Grandma continued, "Do you really think your parents would have had seven kids if they couldn't find joy in the journey?... I would be willing to wager that he'll be laughing about this trip on Monday morning with his friends at work."Grandma took my hands into hers. "There are a lot of people in this life that will try to convince you that they're selling something that will bring you joy. The simple fact of the matter is that *things* don't bring you joy. You have to find joy in life experience. And if you take along somebody you love, then that journey is going to be all the more enjoyable.I can promise you right now that both good and bad things are going to happen to you in your life. Good and bad things happen to everybody. Some people are good at finding the miserable things in life, and some are good at finding the joy. No matter what happens to you, what you remember is up to you.” - Matthew Buckley

7. “A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think youcontrol it.” - John Steinbeck

8. “Not all those who wander are lost.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

9. “You take people, you put them on a journey, you give them peril, you find out who they really are.” - Joss Whedon

10. “The journey is part of the experience - an expression of the seriousness of one's intent. One doesn't take the A train to Mecca.” - Anthony Bourdain

11. “Sluggish and sedentary peoples, such as the Ancient Egyptians-- with their concept of an afterlife journey through the Field of Reeds-- project on to the next world the journeys they failed to make in this one.” - Bruce Chatwin

12. “What's supposed to happen, at the end of a quest? Cheers and accolades, Josh knew; people throw their hats in the air, and you glow with pride as they lift you to their shoulders. What else? Medals, speeches and a great feast, and then a ballad about your exploits, and finally, as the fireworks go off overhead, a soft, clean, fresh bed.” - Isabel Hoving

13. “When you reach for the stars, you are reaching for the farthest thing out there. When you reach deep into yourself, it is the same thing, but in the opposite direction. If you reach in both directions, you will have spanned the universe.” - Vera Nazarian

14. “There comes . . . a longing never to travel again except on foot.” - Wendell Berry

15. “I made up my mind not to care so much about the destination, and simply enjoy the journey.” - David Archuleta

16. “The beautiful journey of today can only begin when we learn to let go of yesterday.” - Steve Maraboli

17. “At every given moment we are absolutely perfect for what is required for our journey.” - Steve Maraboli

18. “Perfectly ImperfectWe have all heard that no two snowflakes are alike. Each snowflake takes the perfect form for the maximum efficiency and effectiveness for its journey. And while the universal force of gravity gives them a shared destination, the expansive space in the air gives each snowflake the opportunity to take their own path. They are on the same journey, but each takes a different path.Along this gravity-driven journey, some snowflakes collide and damage each other, some collide and join together, some are influenced by wind... there are so many transitions and changes that take place along the journey of the snowflake. But, no matter what the transition, the snowflake always finds itself perfectly shaped for its journey. I find parallels in nature to be a beautiful reflection of grand orchestration. One of these parallels is of snowflakes and us. We, too, are all headed in the same direction. We are being driven by a universal force to the same destination. We are all individuals taking different journeys and along our journey, we sometimes bump into each other, we cross paths, we become altered... we take different physical forms. But at all times we too are 100% perfectly imperfect. At every given moment we are absolutely perfect for what is required for our journey. I’m not perfect for your journey and you’re not perfect for my journey, but I’m perfect for my journey and you’re perfect for your journey. We’re heading to the same place, we’re taking different routes, but we’re both exactly perfect the way we are. Think of what understanding this great orchestration could mean for relationships. Imagine interacting with others knowing that they too each share this parallel with the snowflake. Like you, they are headed to the same place and no matter what they may appear like to you, they have taken the perfect form for their journey. How strong our relationships would be if we could see and respect that we are all perfectly imperfect for our journey.” - Steve Maraboli

19. “End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.” - Peter Jackson

20. “One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” - Andre Gide

21. “No wonder we cannot appreciate the really central Kafka joke: that the horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from the horrific struggle. That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home.” - David Foster Wallace

22. “We may run, walk, stumble. drive, or fly, but let us never lose sight of the reason for the journey, or miss a chance to see a rainbow on the way.” - Gloria Gaither

23. “Whither will my path yet lead me? This path is stupid, it goes in spirals, perhaps in circles, but whichever way it goes, I will follow it.” - Hermann Hesse

24. “Until modern times, we focused a great deal of the best of our thought upon rituals of return to the human condition. Seeking enlightenment or the Promised Land or the way home, a man would go or be forced to go into the wilderness, measure himself against the Creation, recognize finally his true place within it, and thus be saved both from pride and from despair. Seeing himself as a tiny member of a world he cannot comprehend or master or in any final sense possess, he cannot possibly think of himself as a god. And by the same token, since he shares in, depends upon, and is graced by all of which he is a part, neither can he become a fiend; he cannot descend into the final despair of destructiveness. Returning from the wilderness, he becomes a restorer of order, a preserver. He sees the truth, recognizes his true heir, honors his forebears and his heritage, and gives his blessing to his successors. He embodies the passing of human time, living and dying within the human limits of grief and joy.(pg.95, "The Body and the Earth")” - Wendell Berry

25. “Not too long ago thousands spent their lives as recluses to find spiritual vision in the solitude of nature. Modern man need not become a hermit to achieve this goal, for it is neither ecstasy nor world-estranged mysticism his era demands, but a balance between quantitative and qualitative reality. Modern man, with his reduced capacity for intuitive perception, is unlikely to benefit from the contemplative life of a hermit in the wilderness. But what he can do is to give undivided attention, at times, to a natural phenomenon, observing it in detail, and recalling all the scientific facts about it he may remember. Gradually, however, he must silence his thoughts and, for moments at least, forget all his personal cares and desires, until nothing remains in his soul but awe for the miracle before him. Such efforts are like journeys beyond the boundaries of narrow self-love and, although the process of intuitive awakening is laborious and slow, its rewards are noticeable from the very first. If pursued through the course of years, something will begin to stir in the human soul, a sense of kinship with the forces of life consciousness which rule the world of plants and animals, and with the powers which determine the laws of matter. While analytical intellect may well be called the most precious fruit of the Modern Age, it must not be allowed to rule supreme in matters of cognition. If science is to bring happiness and real progress to the world, it needs the warmth of man's heart just as much as the cold inquisitiveness of his brain.” - Franz Winkler

26. “The creative act is a letting down of the net of human imagination into the ocean of chaos on which we are suspended, and the attempt to bring out of it ideas.It is the night sea journey, the lone fisherman on a tropical sea with his nets, and you let these nets down - sometimes, something tears through them that leaves them in shreds and you just row for shore, and put your head under your bed and pray. At other times what slips through are the minutiae, the minnows of this ichthyological metaphor of idea chasing.But, sometimes, you can actually bring home something that is food, food for the human community that we can sustain ourselves on and go forward.” - Terence McKenna

27. “So I learned two things that night, and the next day, from him: the perfection of a moment, and the fleeting nature of it.” - Margaret George

28. “The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn't matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark.” - Barbara Hall

29. “A journey indeed, in an emotional roller-coaster.” - Ana Monnar

30. “The sea is only the embodiment of asupernatural and wonderful existence.It is nothing but love and emotion;it is the ‘Living Infinite...” - Jules Verne

31. “I keep going backas if Im looking for something I have lostback to the motherland, sisterland, fatherlandback to the beacon, the breastthe smell and taste of the breeze,and the singing of the rain.” - Heather Nova

32. “IthakaAs you set out for Ithakahope the voyage is a long one,full of adventure, full of discovery.Laistrygonians and Cyclops,angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:you’ll never find things like that on your wayas long as you keep your thoughts raised high,as long as a rare excitementstirs your spirit and your body.Laistrygonians and Cyclops,wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter themunless you bring them along inside your soul,unless your soul sets them up in front of you. Hope the voyage is a long one.May there be many a summer morning when,with what pleasure, what joy,you come into harbors seen for the first time;may you stop at Phoenician trading stationsto buy fine things,mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,sensual perfume of every kind—as many sensual perfumes as you can;and may you visit many Egyptian citiesto gather stores of knowledge from their scholars. Keep Ithaka always in your mind.Arriving there is what you are destined for.But do not hurry the journey at all.Better if it lasts for years,so you are old by the time you reach the island,wealthy with all you have gained on the way,not expecting Ithaka to make you rich. Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.Without her you would not have set out.She has nothing left to give you now. And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.” - C.P. Cavafy

33. “Everything was going according to plan. What caught me off guard, however, was the fact that this eagerly awaited phase brought a sense of loss to me that triggered a whole new wave of soul searching I had not anticipated.” - Carolyn Custis James

34. “He found himself remembering how on one summer morning they two had started from New York in search of happiness. They had never expected to find it, perhaps, yet in itself that quest had been happier than anything he expected forevermore. Life, it seemed, must be a setting up of props around one - otherwise it was disaster. There was no rest, no quiet. He had been futile in longing to drift and dream, no one drifted except to maelstroms, no one dreamed, without his dreams becoming fantastic nightmares of indecision and regret.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

35. “It’s not so much the journey that’s important; as is the way that we treat those we encounter and those around us, along the way” - Jeremy Aldana

36. “To envision the future; you must forget the past and make the present a memory” - Jeremy Aldana

37. “The seeker embarks on a journey to find what he wants and discovers, along the way, what he needs.” - Wally Lamb

38. “If you could do it, I suppose, it would be a good idea to live your life in a straight line - starting, say, in the Dark Wood of Error, and proceeding by logical steps through Hell and Purgatory and into Heaven. Or you could take the King's Highway past the appropriately named dangers, toils, and snares, and finally cross the River of Death and enter the Celestial City. But that is not the way I have done it, so far. I am a pilgrim, but my pilgrimage has been wandering and unmarked. Often what has looked like a straight line to me has been a circling or a doubling back. I have been in the Dark Wood of Error any number of times. I have known something of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, but not always in that order. The names of many snares and dangers have been made known to me, but I have seen them only in looking back. Often I have not known where I was going until I was already there. I have had my share of desires and goals, but my life has come to me or I have gone to it mainly by way of mistakes and surprises. Often I have received better than I deserved. Often my fairest hopes have rested on bad mistakes. I am an ignorant pilgrim, crossing a dark valley. And yet for a long time, looking back, I have been unable to shake off the feeling that I have been led - make of that what you will.” - Wendell Berry

39. “Love, as life, is a journey. Finding true love for the ever after is an amazing achievement.” - Fadi Hattendorf

40. “Let's not grow with our roots in the ground.” - Criss Jami

41. “Whether we like it or not, we all come from someplace. And at some point in our lives, we have to make peace with that place.” - Jeffrey Stepakoff

42. “A journey of observation must leave as much as possible to chance. Random movement is the best plan for maximum observation” - Tahir Shah

43. “For me, a journey to Damascus is an amazing hunt from beginning to end, a slice through layers of history in search of treasure.” - Tahir Shah

44. “One bulb at a time. There was no other way to do it. No shortcuts--simply loving the slow process of planting. Loving the work as it unfolded. Loving an achievement that grew slowly and bloomed for only three weeks each year.” - Jaroldeen Asplund Edwards

45. “May your journey through life be vibrant and full of colorful rainbows.” - Harley King

46. “I believe that Marrakech ought to be earned as a destination. The journey is the preparation for the experience. Reaching it too fast derides it, makes it a little less easy to understand.” - Tahir Shah

47. “Every journey conceals another journey within its lines: the path not taken and the forgotten angle.” - Jeanette Winterson

48. “I knew then that I wanted to go home, but I had no home to go to--and that is what adventures are all about.” - Trina Schart Hyman

49. “Previous journeys had taught me the danger of taking too much stuff.” - Tahir Shah

50. “The ability to tell a good route from a terrible one is a valuable skill when leading an expedition. Unfortunately for us all, it was a skill I did not possess.” - Tahir Shah

51. “A man who embarks on a journey must know when to end it.” - Tahir Shah

52. “It was exciting to be off on a journey she had looked forward to for months. Oddly, the billowing diesel fumes of the airport did not smell like suffocating effluence, it assumed a peculiar pungent scent that morning, like the beginning of a new adventure, if an adventure could exude a fragrance.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

53. “There's nothing quite like a good quest for getting your blood pumping.” - Tahir Shah

54. “The first rule of an expedition is that everyone should stick together.” - Tahir Shah

55. “There's nothing like a pack of mules to give one a sense of entourage.” - Tahir Shah

56. “I love going out of my way, beyond what I know, and finding my way back a few extra miles, by another trail, with a compass that argues with the map…nights alone in motels in remote western towns where I know no one and no one I know knows where I am, nights with strange paintings and floral spreads and cable television that furnish a reprieve from my own biography, when in Benjamin’s terms, I have lost myself though I know where I am. Moments when I say to myself as feet or car clear a crest or round a bend, I have never seen this place before. Times when some architectural detail on vista that has escaped me these many years says to me that I never did know where I was, even when I was home.” - Rebecca Solnit

57. “If you fuel your journey on the opinions of others, you are going to run out of gas.” - Steve Maraboli

58. “Cherish every moment with those you love at every stage of your journey.” - Jack Layton

59. “When you walk on the face of a world, then forgiveness comes.” - Orson Scott Card

60. “You are not on a journey to God; you are on a journey WITH God.” - Steve Maraboli

61. “We’ve been focusing so much on getting there that we haven’t been enjoying the ride” - Elizabeth Eulberg

62. “In any age, there is no shortage of people willing to embark on a hazardous adventure. Columbus and Magellan filled eight ships between them for voyages into the void. One hundred and fifty years ago, the possibilities offered by missionary service were limitless and first-rate. Later, Scott and Shackleton turned away droves after filling their crews for their desperate Antarctic voyages. In 1959 ... sailor H.W. Tilman, looking for a crew for a voyage in an old wooden yacht to the Southern Ocean, ran this ad in the London Times: "Hand [man] wanted for long voyage in small boat. No pay, no prospects, not much pleasure." Tilman received more replies than he could investigate, one from as far away as Saigon.” - Peter Nichols

63. “We are still on our journey, still suffering and still laughing together. But I feel like the tide has turned, and I think we will have our happy ending yet. Even if it doesn’t look like what we were expecting.” - Meg Keene

64. “The explorer who will not come back or send back his ships to tell his tale is not an explorer, only an adventurer; and his sons are born in exile.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

65. “Being negative only makes a difficult journey more difficult. You may be given a cactus, but you don't have to sit on it.” - Joyce Meyer

66. “It seemed like all the way to tomorrow and over it to the days beyond.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

67. “I am a butterfly poetbirthed from painflying with the freedomof my verses.” - Susie Clevenger

68. “End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path. One that we all must take.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

69. “There is little faith involved in setting out on a journey where the destination is certain and every step in between has been mapped in detail. Bravery, trust, is about leaving camp in the dark, when we do not know the route ahead and cannot be certain we will ever return.” - Bear Grylls

70. “I used to believe that the world is a journey that takes you on a mystical ride across time. I don't anymore.” - Lisa Cander

71. “You have not traveled enough," she said. "Or you'd know that every journeymakes its own map across your heart.” - Sharon Shinn

72. “He also learned to regard each port of call as part of the journey and not as destination. Every voyage begins when you do.” - E.L. Konigsburg

73. “The Initial Mystery that attends any journey is: how did the traveler reach his starting point in the first place?” - Louise Bogan

74. “Sometimes it's worth lingering on the journey for a while before getting to the destination.” - Richelle Mead

75. “It is only path bending. Don't let it be mind bending.” - T. Scott McLeod

76. “The journey of success requires a map for effective navigation. Establish a destination by defining what you want. Once you have a destination, take physical action by making choices that move you towards that destination.” - Steve Maraboli

77. “It is an unnecessary burden to make negative judgmental assumptions about others. We are all on a journey.” - Steve Maraboli

78. “Whereas the health of an individual depends on the ego's regular descent and return to and from the unconscious, a society's longevity depends on actual people journeying into the unknown and returning with ideas.” - Dan Harmon

79. “Every journey begins with the first step of articulating the intention, and then becoming the intention.” - Bryant McGill

80. “Life is a journey that gives you the liberty to draw your own map, and choose your own route.” - Dennis E. Adonis

81. “All I wanted was to live a life where I could be me, and be okay with that. I had no need for material possessions, money or even close friends with me on my journey. I never understood people very well anyway, and they never seemed to understand me very well either. All I wanted was my art and the chance to be the creator of my own world, my own reality. I wanted the open road and new beginnings every day.” - Charlotte Eriksson

82. “You read and write and sing and experience, thinking that one day these things will build the character you admire to live as. You love and lose and bleed best you can, to the extreme, hoping that one day the world will read you like the poem you want to be.” - Charlotte Eriksson

83. “That thing, that tiny part of The Land of Elyon, is gone but not entirely forgotten. Elyon had his reason for sending you and me on this journey. Sometimes we see something as plain as a dying leaf and our hearts grow sad, but we must always hold true and fight on, Alexa. Whatever happens to us, we will not be forgotten in the end. He will remember us.” - Patrick Carman

84. “Fine art refers to an accomplished or advanced skill being used to testify and reveal the knowledge, ability, and wisdom of the creator. There is no art more exquisite than the work of the Master Artist Himself. Even those who choose to deny Him credit for His own creation are often engaged as an admirer of His work. Refusing to acknowledge the Source will never minimize His glory or extinguish the truth.With God’s loving guidance our life can be a great masterpiece filled with beauty, adventure, hope and purpose.” - Traci Lea LaRussa