Sauntering Quotes

I would walk along the quais when I had finished work or when I was trying to think something out. It was easier to think if I was walking and doing something or seeing people doing something that they understood. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

I know the joy of fishes in the river through my own joy, as I go walking along the same river. ~ Zhuangzi

Some men love only to talk where they are masters. They like to go to school-girls, or to boys, or into the shops where the sauntering people gladly lend an ear. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Like a dingy London bird among the birds at roost in these pleasant fields, where the sheep are all made into parchment, the goats into wigs, and the pasture into chaff, the lawyer, smoke-dried and faded, dwelling among mankind but not consorting with them, aged without experience of genial youth, and so long used to make his cramped nest in holes and corners of human nature that he has forgotten its broader and better range, comes sauntering home. In the oven made by the hot pavements and hot buildings, he has baked himself dryer than usual; and he has in his thirsty mind his mellowed port-wine half a century old. ~ Charles Dickens

It is one of the blessings of wilderness life that it shows us how few things we need in order to be perfectly happy. ~ Horace Kephart

I stared back at her, my eyes leveled with hers in inscrutable certainty. For a moment, our eyes remained engaged, unflinching and impenetrable, as the shrill, steady call of a siren ran across the street outside, mixing with the effervescent glow of traffic lights and a steady pitter-patter of pedestrian feet sauntering across the street in wakeful gait. ~ Gina Marinello-Sweeney

It's always fun to walk down the street with or behind a really beautiful woman, for no reason other than to see how the world reacts to them. ~ Jonathan Carroll

Of course it is of no use to direct our steps to the woods, if they do not carry us thither. I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit ... What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods? ~ Henry David Thoreau

In the inhalation and exhalation there is an energy and a lively divine spirit, since He, through his spirit supports the breath of life, giving courage to the people who are in the earth and spirit to those who walk on it. ~ Michael Servetus

Complexity excites the mind, and order rewards it. In the garden, one finds both, including vanishingly small orders too complex to spot, and orders so vast the mind struggles to embrace them. ~ Diane Ackerman

Walking is also an ambulation of mind. ~ Gretel Ehrlich

A path is a prior interpretation of the best way to traverse a landscape. ~ Rebecca Solnit

The doctors of antiquity have affirmed that love is a passion that resembles a melancholy disease. The physician Rasis prescribed, therefore, in order to recover, coitus, fasting, drunkenness, and walking. ~ Marsilio Ficino

SAUNTERING, which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre," to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte-Terrer," a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. ~ Henry David Thoreau

There's some end at last for the man who follows a path; mere rambling is interminable. ~ Seneca The Elder

There are some things you don't expect to see, and Beau Vincent sauntering into church on a Sunday morning is one of them. ~ Abbi Glines

Mostly, two miles an hour is good going. ~ Colin Fletcher

Travelers, there is no path, paths are made by walking. ~ Antonio Machado

Got a pair just like those. Never seen 'em lookin' like that though." "Like what?" Sauntering away from her, I smirked. "Sexy as fuck. ~ Lola Stark

The lessons we learn from the wild become the etiquette of freedom. ~ Gary Snyder

And who do you
think you are sauntering along
five feet up in the air, the ocean a blue fire
around your ankles, the sun
on your face on your shoulders its golden mouth whispering
(so it seems) you! you! you! ~ Mary Oliver

It is not talking but walking that will bring us to heaven. ~ Matthew Henry

When I walk with you I feel as if I had a flower in my buttonhole. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

The wilderness is a place of rest - not in the sense of being motionless, for the lure, after all, is to move, to round the next bend. The rest comes in the isolation from distractions, in the slowing of the daily centrifugal forces that keep us off balance. ~ David Douglas

Fare well we call to hearth and hall
Though wind may blow and rain may fall
We must away ere break of day
Over the wood and mountain tall
To Rivendell where Elves yet dwell
In glades beneath the misty fell
Through moor and waste we ride in haste
And wither then we cannot tell
With foes ahead behind us dread
Beneath the sky shall be our bed
Until at last our toil be sped
Our journey done, our errand sped
We must away! We must away!
We ride before the break of day! ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Four times I was honked at for having the temerity to proceed through town without the benefit of metal. ~ Bill Bryson

There is a life-force within your soul, seek that life. ~ Rumi

I was the world in which I walked. ~ Wallace Stevens

The Parisan, sauntering the streets idly, is as often a man in despair as a lounger. ~ Honore De Balzac

I'm the walkingest girl around. I like to work at it - really get my heart pounding. ~ Amy Yasbeck

The man with the knapsack is never lost. No matter whither he may stray, his food and shelter are right with him, and home is wherever he may choose to stop. ~ Horace Kephart

Inspiration was a temperamental guest. It dropped in unannounced, then left without so much as a goodbye, slipping out a window in the dead of night or sauntering out the front door, leaving the house empty, drafty, and cold. ~ Eric Wilson

Everyone can identify with a fragrant garden, with beauty of sunset, with the quiet of nature, with a warm and cozy cottage. ~ Thomas Kincade

I looked at the people playing, walking, loafing, hurrying, or sauntering across the little park in front of us. How many terrible stories were there, just there in front of me, never to be spoken? ~ John Barnes

All paths lead nowhere, so it is important to choose a path that has heart. ~ Carlos Castaneda

If a walker is indeed an individualist there is nowhere he can't go at dawn and not many places he can't go at noon. But just as it demeans life to live alongside a great river you can no longer swim in or drink from, to be crowded into safer areas and hours takes much of the gloss off walking - one sport you shouldn't have to reserve a time and a court for. ~ Edward Hoagland

The supreme contemporary example of such an inability to feel evil is of course Walt Whitman. "His favorite occupation," writes his disciple, Dr. Bucke "seemed to be strolling or sauntering about outdoors by himself, looking at the grass, the trees, the flowers, the vistas of light, the varying aspects of the sky, and listening to the birds, the crickets, the tree frogs, and all the hundreds of natural sounds. ~ William James

She didn't get this pish from you, did she? Because I'm still looking for a reason to lop off one of your appendages after what you did to her, and this looks like the perfect excuse."

"For god's sake," I mutter.

Gavin backs up with his hands raised. "Don't blame me. I might have presented the idea, but she's the one who sauntered off with it."

Derrick narrows his eyes. "Aileana, is that true?"

"Yes," I snap. "Well, not the sauntering. I don't saunter."

"Does . . . this mean I get to keep my appendages?" Gavin asks.

"For now," Derrick says, holding up the needle in a clear threat. ~ Elizabeth May

There is something else I must confess about Tata Boanda: he's a sinner. Right in the plain sight of God he has two wives, a young and an old one. Why, they all come to church! Father says we're to pray for all three of them, but when you get down to the particulars it's hard to know exactly what outcome to pray for. He should drop one wife, I guess, but for sure he'd drop the older one, and she already looks sad enough as it is. The younger one has all the kids, and you can't just pray for a daddy to flat-out dump his babies, can you? I always believed any sin was easily rectified if only you let Jesus Christ into your heart, but here it gets complicated.

Mama Boanda Number Two doesn't seem fazed by her situation. In fact, she looks like she's fixing to explode with satisfaction. She and her little girls all wear their hair in short spikes bursting out all over their heads, giving an effect similar to a pincushion (Rachel calls it the "haywire hairdo.") And Mama Boanda always wraps her pagne just so, with a huge pink starburst radiating across her wide rump. The women's long cloth skirts are printed so gaily with the oddest things: there is no telling when a raft of yellow umbrellas, or the calico cat and gingham dog, or an upside-down image of the Catholic Pope might just go sauntering across our yard. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Good walking leaves no track behind it. ~ Laozi

Walking is Zen, sitting is Zen. Then what will be the quality? Watchfully alert, joyously unmotivated, centered, loving, flowing, one walks. And the walking is sauntering. Loving, alert, watchful, one sits, unmotivated - not sitting for anything in particular, just enjoying how beautiful just sitting doing nothing is, how relaxing, how restful. ~ Rajneesh

Society as we know it is almost a conspiracy against human health. One of the main forces working to counteract that is the trailsman. ~ Stewart Udall

The idea of going back to basketball drills made her stomach tighten, but she stood up on her tiptoes and leaned into Jay, whispering against his cheek. "I got your note last night. Would've been better if I'd have found you in my bed instead."
Jay groaned and grabbed her by the shoulders. There was the hint of accusation buried behind his breathy chuckle as he set her away from him. "You're playing with fire, Vi. You shouldn't tease me at school. Besides, I think if I hid in your room, your father - check that, your mother - would skin me alive."
Violet heard the coach shouting her name, and she knew she'd be getting a demerit for slacking off. But she didn't care.
She flashed him her most wolfish smile. "Next time, you should totally take that chance. It could've been fun," she promised before sauntering away. ~ Kimberly Derting

I haven't got any special religion this morning. My God is the God of Walkers. If you walk hard enough, you probably don't need any other god. ~ Bruce Chatwin

A garden should feel like a walk in the woods. ~ Dan Kiley

A loose board on the boat's deck creaked under Hadrian's weight and Royce glared at him. Twelve years they had worked together, and still Royce did not seem capable of understanding that Hadrian could not float. The problem was that Royce apparently could. He made it look so easy. Hadrian walked like the caricature of a thief - on his toes, his arms out for balance, wavering up and down as if he were on a tightrope. Royce walked as casually as if he were sauntering down a city street. They communicated as they always did on the job, with facial expressions and hand gestures. Royce had learned sign language as part of his guild training but had never bothered teaching Hadrian more than a few signals. Royce was always able to communicate what he needed by pointing, counting with his fingers, or making simple obvious signs like scissoring his fingers across his level palm, imitating legs walking on a floor. He expressed most of his silent dialogue the way he was now: through rolled eyes, glares, and the pitiable shaking of his head. Given how irritated he so often looked, it was a mystery why he put up with Hadrian. ~ Michael J. Sullivan

Oh, shut up. He is not saying that he's too good-looking to be friends with girls. But then again, yesterday at the beach, there were a high percentage of beach beauties sitting very close to us and/or sauntering repeatedly past. And he never looked up once. I snort. You poor handsome thing. If only you were ugly, then girls wouldn't have to throw themselves at you all the time. I could break your perfect nose for you, if it'd make your life easier. ~ Kiersten White

Details of the many walks I made along the crest have blurred, now, into a pleasing tapestry of grass and space and sunlight. ~ Colin Fletcher

If you don't know where you are, you don't know who you are. ~ Wendell Berry

Reading and sauntering and lounging and dosing, which I call thinking, is my supreme Happiness. ~ David Hume

Just remember: If you make unfounded assumptions before choosing a path, you're blindly sauntering along. ~ Auliq Ice

And I walked, I walked through the light air; I moved with the morning. ~ Theodore Roethke

When man ventures into the wilderness, climbs the ridges, and sleeps in the forest, he comes in close communion with his Creator. When man pits himself against the mountain, he taps inner springs of his strength. He comes to know himself. ~ William O. Douglas

It was a pleasure and a privilege to walk with him [H.D. Thoreau]. He knew the country like a fox or a bird, and passed through it as freely by paths of his own. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

That constant pacing to and fro, that never-ending restlessness, that incessant tread of feet wearing the rough stones smooth and glossy - is it not a wonder how the dwellers in narrows ways can bear to hear it! Think of a sick man in such a place as Saint Martin's Court, listening to the footsteps, and in the midst of pain and weariness obliged, despite himself (as though it were a task he must perform) to detect the child's step from the man's, the slipshod beggar from the booted exquisite, the lounging from the busy, the dull heel of the sauntering outcast from the quick tread of an expectant pleasure-seeker - think of the hum and noise always being present to his sense, and of the stream of life that will not stop, pouring on, on, on, through all his restless dreams, as if he were condemned to lie, dead but conscious, in a noisy churchyard, and had no hope of rest for centuries to come. ~ Charles Dickens

Everyone has the right to walk from one end of the city to the other in secure and beautiful spaces. Everybody has the right to go by public transport. Everybody has the right to an unhampered view down their street, not full of railings, signs and rubbish. ~ Richard Rogers

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering; which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the middle ages, and asked charity, under pretence of going à la sainte terre" - to the holy land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a sainte-terrer", a saunterer - a holy-lander. They who never go to the holy land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds, but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all, but the Saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which indeed is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit (1) in us, to go forth and reconquer this holy land from the hands of the Infidels. ~ Henry David Thoreau

You are sauntering along the back streets of Avallon; you step into a tavern for a cup of wine. A great lummox claims that you have molested his wife; he takes up his cutlass and comes at you. So now! With your knife! Draw and throw! All in a single movement! You advance, pull your knife from the villain's neck, wipe it on his sleeve. If in fact you have molested the dead churl's wife, bid her begone! The episode has quite dampened your spirit. But you are attacked from another side by another husband. Quick! ~ Jack Vance

Not to have known - as most men have not - either the mountain or the desert is not to have known one's self. Not to have known one's self is to have known no one. ~ Joseph Wood Krutch

I don't climb mountains. Mountains climb me. The mountain is myself. I climb on myself. ~ Nanao Sakaki

It is a great art to saunter. ~ Henry David Thoreau

On the land adjoining La Grenouillère strollers were sauntering under the gigantic trees which help to make this part of the island one of the most delightful parks imaginable. Busty women with peroxided hair and nipped-in waists could be seen, made up to the nines with blood red lips and black-kohled eyes. Tightly laced into their garish dresses they trailed in all their vulgar glory over the fresh green grass. They were accompanied by men whose fashion-plate accessories, light gloves, patent-leather boots, canes as slender as threads and absurd monocles made them look like complete idiots. ~ Guy De Maupassant

Master Bates sauntering along with his hands in his pockets ... ~ Charles Dickens

From thought to thought, from mountain peak to mountain. Love leads me on; for I can never still My trouble on the world's well beaten ways. ~ Petrarch

If you would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life. ~ Henry David Thoreau

wasn't there. No matter, I smiled to myself, as I imagined him sauntering back into the bedroom with a laden breakfast tray and wearing little more than his most seductive smile. Just what, I couldn't help wondering, had he got planned for my birthday, which coincidentally was the same day as our anniversary? Two blissful years ~ Heidi Swain

It is an old custom of these people to pick up a stone and toss it on the pile. Perhaps it is a symbolical lightening of the load they carry, perhaps a small offering to the gods of the trails. ~ Louis L'Amour

Nature, and the original system that created us, must always remain somehow with us, the bedrock of our movements and actions. What is our duty? To live a life. ~ Rick Bass

The worst is that the very hardest thinking will not bring thoughts. They must come like good children of God and cry, "Here we are." You expend effort and energy thinking hard. Then, after you have given up, they come sauntering in with their hands in their pockets. If the effort had not been made to open the door, however, who knows when they could have come. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Been a pleasure, Don Gato. Have a sexy evening."
The cat looked dryly at him before hopping down to the floor and sauntering out of the house.
Ken's face showed genuine surprise as the cat left. He looked curiously at Jin.
Guessing that Ken was wondering if he'd just used his telepathy on the cat, Jin beamed. "Oh, yeah," he lied. "Not just human minds I'm the master of. I get cows to dance in musicals. ~ Claire Cray

She would not risk to grow so fond of her home that it was a pain to leave it; she preferred to remain a wayfarer, sauntering through life with a heart keen to detect beauty, and a mind, open and unbiased, ready to laugh at the absurd. ~ W. Somerset Maugham