Inspirational Quotes

When you find yourself questioning your lifestyle or your life choices, have a quick read through these and see if the bring some clarity. Remember guys, we only have one life – how are you gonna live yours?

Inspiration to backpack

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain

“Waste your money and you’re only out of money, but waste your time and you’ve lost a part of your life.” Michael Leboeuf

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years” Abraham Lincoln

“Most of us spend our lives as if we had another one in the bank” Ben Irwin

“We’ll never be as young as we are tonight.” Chuck Palahniuk

“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that the stuff life is made of” Benjamin Franklin

“…so many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day, to have a new and different sun. ”
Chris McCandless, ‘Into the Wild’

“Every man dies.  Not every man really lives.”  Braveheart

“When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced.  Live your life in such a manner that when you die the world cries and you rejoice.” Indian Saying

“Go for it now. The future is promised to no one” Wayne Dyer

“We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are. Sane or insane. Saints or sex addicts. Heroes or victims. Letting history tell us how good or bad we are. Letting our past decide our future. Or we can decide for ourselves. And maybe it’s our job to invent something better.” Asfixia

“Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them.” Dion Boucicault

“The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.  I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.” Jack London

“Life, if well lived, is long enough.” Ira De Seneca

“Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things–childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves–that go on slipping , like sand, through our fingers.” Salman Rushdie

“When it comes time to die, make sure all you got to do is die.” Jim Elliot

“Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out.  That is what it is for.  Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.” George Bernard Shaw

“Dream as if you’ll live forever.  Live as if you’ll die today.” James Dean

“I think I don’t regret a single ‘excess’ of my responsive youth – I only regret, in my chilled age, certain occasions and possibilities I didn’t embrace.” Henry James

“Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways.” Stephen Vincent Benét

“Why not seize the pleasure at once, how often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparations.” Jane Austen

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Thomas A. Edison

“You will never find time for anything.  If you want time you must make it.” Charles Buxton

“As you grow older, you’ll find the only things you regret are the things you didn’t do..” Zachary Scott

“A man that is young in years may be old in hours, if he has lost no time.” Francis Bacon

“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it.  I want to have lived the width of it as well.” Diane Ackerman

“It is better to travel well than to arrive.” The Buddha

“Why be saddled with this thing called life expectancy?  Of what relevance to an individual is such a statistic?  Am I to concern myself with an allotment of days I never had and was never promised?  Must I check off each day of my life as if I am subtracting from this imaginary hoard?  No, on the contrary, I will add each day of my life to my treasure of days lived.  And with each day, my treasure will grow, not diminish.” Robert Brault

“The more side roads you stop to explore, the less likely that life will pass you by.” Robert Brault

“Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways.” Stephen Vincent Benét

“This is your life and its ending one moment at a time.” Fight Club

“A man of ordinary talent will always be ordinary, whether he travels or not; but a man of superior talent (which I cannot deny myself to be without being impious) will go to pieces if he remains forever in the same place.” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” John Lennon

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

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it..” Charles R. Swindoll

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” Maya Angelou

“Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.” Alan Keightley

“I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” Mary Anne Radmacher Hershey

“One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.”
Henry Miller

“Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken.” Frank Herbert

“Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.” Anatole France

“A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles” Tim Cahill

“Happiness is only real when shared” Alexander Supertramp

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” Helen Keller

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” Miriam Beard

“We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance” Japanese Proverb

“We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.” Chuck Palahniuk

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” Jack Kerouac

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” Lao Tzu

“Enjoy yourself.  It’s later than you think” Chinese Proverb

“Do not take life too seriously.  You will never get out of it alive.” Elbert Hubbard

“As you grow older, you’ll find the only things you regret are the things you didn’t do.” Zachary Scott

“Spend the afternoon.  You can’t take it with you.” Annie Dillard

“To change one’s life:  Start immediately.  Do it flamboyantly.  No exceptions.” William James

“Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live.” Margaret Fuller

“Fear not that life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning.” John Henry Cardinal Newman

“Contemplation often makes life miserable.  We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live.:” Colas de Chamfort

“When your life flashes before your eyes, make sure you’ve got plenty to watch.” Author unknown, from a television commercial

“If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say?  And why are you waiting?” Stephen Levine

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life.  A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” Mark Twain

“I think I don’t regret a single ‘excess’ of my responsive youth – I only regret, in my chilled age, certain occasions and possibilities I didn’t embrace.” Henry James

“Those who follow the crowd are quickly lost in it”. 
Anonymous