Cycling is one of those pursuits that cut across all demographics to speak us each in its own way. And we usually have something to say about it!
This morning while looking through my bookshelves on cycling and the outdoors, it struck me how many contain quotations related to our love of the bicycle, cycling, and the outdoors. In fact, one of the books on my shelf is _The Quotable Cyclist_, by Bill Strickland.
Do you have a favorite "quotable" statement in this area? Has someone said something you wish you'd said yourself? Did someone take the words right out of your mouth as a cyclist, tourist, and outdoors enthusiast? Do you have one of your own? If so, let's see it!
I'll seed this thread with a few cycling and outdoors-motivation-appropriate quotations that tend toward cycle-touring, and look forward to reading yours.
Best,
Dan.
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- When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought about anything but the ride you are taking. - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in an 1896 article for
Scientific American.
- Cycling is the celebration of a thousand decisions properly made. -- Danneaux, freely adapted from unknown source.
- You've never had the wind with you -- either it is against you or you're having a good day. - Daniel Behrman,
The Man Who Loved Bicycles.
- On the shiny black road that mounted through the pines as he left the hotel he felt the pull in his arms and shoulders and the rounding thrust of his feet against the pedals as he climbed in the hot sun with the smell of the pines and the light breeze that came from the seat. He bent his back forward and pulled lightly against his hands and he felt the cadence that had been ragged at first as he mounted begin to smooth out. - Ernest Hemingway, "The Garden of Eden".
- Don't buy upgrades, ride up grades. - Anonymous.
- It's me who is pedaling. -- Bernard Hinault, replying to fans telling him he can go faster.
- Easy for you to say; you're at home, while I'm on the saddle. - Danneaux.
- Ride as much or as little, or as long or as short, as you feel. But ride. - Eddy Merckx.
- When I'm on my bike I forget about things like age. I just have fun. -- Kathy Sessler, MTB racer.
- I get embarrassed when I see how slim I was. - Eddy Merckx.
- No one knows what he can do till he tries. - Pubilius Syrus.
- Never discourage anyone who continuously makes progress, no matter how slow. - Plato.
- I hear the 'Call of the Wild' and it's starting to sound personal. - Frank Poole
- We find after years of struggle, that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. - John Steinbeck.
- If I had it to do all over, I'd start again next week. - Walkin' Jim Stoltz (
http://www.walkinjim.com/ )
- Now and then it pays to have brought something with you after all. - Hape Kerkkeling,
I'm Off Then.
- I'd rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth. - Steve McQueen.
- 'I hope you're a good hand at pinning and tying strings?' Tweedledee remarked. 'Every one of these things has got to go on, somehow or other.' - Lewis Carroll,
Through the Looking Glass (applies equally to packing and loading a touring bike at the start of a trip)
- Out of their saddles, into the dirt, and thereby hangs a tale. - William Shakespeare,
The Taming of the Shrew.
- I only know one way of finding out how far one can go, and that is by setting out and getting there. - Henri Bergson.
- If I had a dog that would lie where my bed is tonight, I would kill him and burn his collar and swear I never owned him. - George Bradley.
- The frame thereof seemed partly circular and part triangular -- O work divine. - Edmund Spenser,
The Fairie Queene.
- A bike is a very personal thing and the only person who can judge it is the rider. -
The Bicycle Buyer's Bible, 1985/86.
- 'The miles are long', I complained. 'But narrow', he replied. - Danneaux, freely adapted from Philip Thicknesse,
A Year's Long Journey Through France and Spain, 1789.
- The longing to be primitive is a disease of culture. - George Santayana.
- For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. - Robert Louis Stevenson
Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes.
- He travels the fastest who travels alone. - Kipling. "Sometimes", adds Danneaux.
- Point: Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome to the character. - James Russell Lowell.
- Counterpoint: O Solitude! where are the charms that sages have seen in thy face?. - Cowper,
Verses Supposed to be Written, by Alexander Selkirk.
- Polish comes from the cities, wisdom from the desert. - Frank Herbert,
Dune.
- Early and provident fear is the mother of safety. - Edmund Burke.
- Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius. - William Blake.
- And as I turn me home, my shadow (rides) before. - Robert Bridges, adapted by Danneaux.
- Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. - Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken".
- The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep. - Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening".
