Travel Writer

🇺🇸Mark Twain

Literature

1835–1910

"There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practised in the tricks and delusions of oratory."

Charles Darwin

Science

1758–1778

"It is mere rubbish thinking, at present, of origin of life; one might as well think of origin of matter. —"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Literature

Age of Enlightenment

1749–1832

"Only mankind Can do the impossible: He can distinguish, He chooses and judges, He can give permanence To the moment."

🇧🇷Victor Hugo

Literature

French Romanticism

1802–1885

"What Is Love? I have met in the streets a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul"

🇺🇸Amelia Earhart

Journalism

first-wave feminism

1897–1939

"Amelia Earhart interview following the 1932 transatlantic flight"

🇺🇸Bill Bryson

Literature

b. 1951

"Absolute brain size does not tell you everything — or possibly sometimes even much. Elephants and whales both have brains larger than ours, but you wouldn't have much trouble outwitting them in contract negotiations."

Mary Wollstonecraft

Philosophy

feminism

1759–1797

"You know I am not born to tread in the beaten track — the peculiar bent of my nature pushes me on."

🇬🇧Freya Stark

Art

1893–1993

"To awaken quite alone in a strange town, is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world."

🇬🇧Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Literature

British Romanticism

1797–1851

"Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it."

🇫🇷André Gide

Literature

1869–1951

"Most often people seek in life occasions for persisting in their opinions rather than for educating themselves."

🇩🇪Alexander von Humboldt

Philosophy

1767–1835

"Our imagination is struck only by what is great; but the lover of natural philosophy should reflect equally on little things."

🇺🇸Paul Theroux

Literature

b. 1941

"Death is an endless night so awful to contemplate that it can make us love life and value it with such passion that it may be the ultimate cause of all joy and all art."

Jack London

Literature

1905–1966

"The loneliness of the man is slowly being borne in upon me. There is not a man aboard but hates or fears him, nor is there a man whom he does not despise."

🇬🇧George Sandys

Literature

1578–1644

"Men ignorant of letters, studious for their bellies, and ignominiously lazy."

🇺🇸Emily Hahn

Literature

1905–1997

"The mind of a traveler has only one spotlight, and it is always trained on the present scene."

🇬🇧Michael Palin

Entertainment

b. 1943

"The use of the word "just" by an Australian means that whatever it is you have to do, it will not be easy, as in "Just pull that sword out of the stone" or "Just split that atom."

🇬🇷Nikos Kazantzakis

Literature

1883–1957

"The highest point a man can obtain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!"

🇬🇧Mary Shelley

Literature

British Romanticism

1797–1884

"My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed — my dearest pleasure when free."