Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. Patton

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. Gospel of St. Thomas

He that would make his travels delightful must first make himself delightful. Seneca

I cannot help looking with partial eyes on my native land. That partiality was certainly given us by nature, to prevent rambling, the effect of an ambitious thirst after knowledge, which we are not formed to enjoy. All we get by it, is a fruitless desire of mixing the different pleasures and conveniences which are given to the different parts of the world, and cannot meet in any of them. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Is there anything as horrible as starting on a trip? Once you’re off, that’s all right, but the last moments are earthquake and convulsion, and the feeling that you are a snail being pulled off your rock. Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Generally speaking, the length and grandness of a hotel’s name are an exact opposite reflection of its quality. Thus the hotel Central will prove to be a clean, pleasant place in a good part of town, and the Hotel Royal Majestic-Fantastic will be a fleabag next to a topless bowling alley. Miss Piggy

Never trust anything you read in a travel article. Travel articles appear in publications that sell large, expensive advertisements to tourism-related industries, and these industries do not wish to see articles with headlines like: URUGUAY: DON’T BOTHER. Dave Barry

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train. Oscar Wilde

Women have always yearned for faraway places. It was no accident that a woman financed the first package tour of the New World, and you can bet Isabella would have taken the trip herself, only Ferdinand wouldn’t let her go. Roslyn Friedman

Somewhere between Calabria and Corfu the blue really begins… Other countries may offer you discoveries in manners or lore or landscape; Greece offers you something harder–the discovery of yourself. Lawrence Durrell

Maimena [1934] – I wish I was rich enough to endow a prize for the sensible traveller: L 10,000 for the first man to cover Marco Polo’s outward route reading three fresh books a week, and another L 10,000 if he drinks a bottle of wine a day as well… What I mean is, that if I had some more detective stories instead of Thucydides and some bottle of claret instead of tepid whiskey, I should probably settle here for good. Robert Byron

Travel is the most private of pleasures. There is no greater bore than the travel bore. We do not want to hear what he has seen in Hong Kong. Vita Sackville-West

Ah, what is more blessed than to put cares away, when the mind lays by its burden, and tired with labor of far travel we have come to our own home and rest on the couch we have longed for? This it is which alone is worth all these toils. Catullu

When you start on the way to Ithaca

Wish that the way be long

Full of adventure, full of knowledge.

Laistrygonians and the Cyclops

And angry Poseidon, do not fear:

Such on your way, you shall never meet

If your thoughts are lofty if a noble

Emotion touch your mind, your  body.

The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops

And angry Poseidon you shall not meet

If you carry them not in your soul,

If your soul sets them not before you.

Wish that the way be long,

That on many summer mornings,

With great pleasure, great delight,

You enter harbors for the first time seen;

That you stop at Phoenician marts,

And procure the goodly merchandise,

Mother-of-pearl and corals, amber and ebony,

And sensual perfumes of all kinds,

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

To wend your way through many Egyptian cities

To learn and yet to learn from the wise.

Keep Ithaka ever in your mind,

Your return thither is your goal.

But do not hasten at all your voyage,

Better that it last for many years;

And full of years at length you anchor at your isle

Rich with al that you gained on the way;

Do not expect Ithaca to give you riches.

Ithaca gave you your fair voyage

Without her you would not have ventured on the way,

but she has no more to give you.

And if you find Ithaca a poor place,

She has not mocked you.

You have become so wise, so full of experience

that you should understand already what

Ithaca means                                             Constantine Cavafy, Trans. George Valassopoulo

My childhood is a long way off

My old age is a long way off

My country, my exile, a long way off.

Tourist!

Give me your binoculars

Perhaps I might glimpse a hand or a handkerchief

In this world

Waving at me

Take my photographs as I weep

Crouching in my tatters on the steps of the hotel

Write on the back of the picture

“This is a poet from the East.”

Spread your handkerchief on the pavement

And sit beside me under this tender rain

Let me disclose to you a great secret:

“Go dismiss all your guides

Throw to the mud…to the fire

All the notes and impressions you’ve written

Any old peasant in this land

Can tell you with two verse from our sad ‘Ataba songs

All the history of the East

As he rolls his cigarette in front of his tent.”                      Muhammad Al-Maghut

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.

You can steer yourself

any direction you choose.                                                       Dr. Seuss

Every man’s religion is good. There is none of it bad. We are all trying to arrive at the same place according to our own conscience and teachings. It don’t matter which road you take. Will Rodgers

Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects. Herodotus

Wisdom from Truman and his incomparable Tiffany’s

It’s February – you need Persuasion

Traveling Home or Who Are These Familiar/ Unfamiliar People

How to Travel Well