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The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

— Samuel Johnson

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More quotes by Samuel Johnson

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)

Merriment is always the effect of a sudden impression. The jest which is expected is already destroyed.

The Idler (1758)

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)

A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.

The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)

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In imitating the exemplary acts of a god or of a mythic hero, or simply by recounting their adventures, the man of an archaic society detaches himself from profane time and magically re-enters the Great Time, the sacred time.

Mircea Eliade Myths, Dreams and Mysteries (1967)

In your journey, be prepared to encounter an array of obstacles – some steep, some flat – for that's the nature of the path.

Sanu Sharma

Travellers like poets are mostly an angry race.

Richard Francis Burton

All journeys end in disappointment if for no other reason than that they end.

Lucius Shepard

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Samuel Johnson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.