Wayfarer Quotes

“No man is brave that has never walked a hundred miles. If you want to know the truth of who you are, walk until not a person knows your name. Travel is the great leveler, the great teacher, bitter as medicine, crueler than mirror-glass. A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet introspection.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man’s Fear

“Because one moment in life does not define a person," Li Min said. "Without mistakes and misjudgments we would stagnate. It is no shameful thing to be beaten when outnumbered, not when you were brave enough to try. Nor is a scar or injury something to despair over, for it is a mark that you were strong enough to survive.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Wayfarer

“Obedient to no man, dependent only on weather and season, without a goal before them or a roof above them, owning nothing, open to every whim of fate, the homeless wanderers lead their childlike, brave, shabby existence. They are the sons of Adam, who was driven out of Paradise; the brothers of the animals, of innocence. Out of heaven's hand they accept what is given them from moment to moment: sun, rain, fog, snow, warmth, cold, comfort, and hardship; time does not exist for them and neither does history, or ambition, or that bizarre idol called progress and evolution, in which houseowners believe so desperately. A wayfarer may be delicate or crude, artful or awkward, brave or cowardly—he is always a child at heart, living in the first day of creation, before the beginning of the history of the world, his life always guided by a few simple instincts and needs. He may be intelligent or stupid; he may be deeply aware of the fleeting fragility of all living things, of how pettily and fearfully each living creature carries its bit of warm blood through the glaciers of cosmic space, or he may merely follow the commands of his poor stomach with childlike greed—he is always the opponent, the deadly enemy of the established proprietor, who hates him, despises him, or fears him, because he does not wish to be reminded that all existence is transitory, that life is constantly wilting, that merciless icy death fills the cosmos all around.”
― Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund

“Ô, the wine of a woman from heaven is sent,
more perfect than all that a man can invent.”
― Roman Payne, The Love of Europa: Limited Time Edition

“Hvad var iveien med Edevart? Hans hænder var store og stærke, hans sener i orden, men hans sind var splittet. Her seilte han væk tom og hjemløs, han var litt isenn blit fra intet sted, hvorhelst han flakket om drog han røtterne efter sig.”
― Knut Hamsun, Wayfarers

“Hesse, the passionate reader who could not live without books, nevertheless harbored just as large a degree of skepticism toward the written word. For everything that was written ran the risk of having no life thereafter, of being nothing but an assemblage of dead letters. It was this Franciscan sympathy for poverty, including poverty of the spirit, that led him to see books differently than the educated bourgeois elite did. Books were alive like trees or clouds in the sky, they were our companions on that journey that ended inevitably in our death. But the key question was, Do we perish in our entirety, or does something of us live on - perhaps in the written word? For Hesse, true education, of which proper reading formed an integral part, must lead to inner growth. But proper reading is the same as proper living: one can only learn this art if one does not imagine one knows what it consists of in advance. One must always be open to new discovery, like a wayfarer who cannot see his goal but instead carries it within himself.”
― Gunnar Decker, Hesse: The Wanderer and His Shadow

“The Wayfarer.

Let me be an innocent wayfarer traversing the roads of life without preconceived notions.
Without an ounce of anger toward the men I meet along the way
Without judging them for who they are
Embracing everyone as equals
Lending a helping hand to needy
Cherishing whatever little love bestowed upon me.
Carrying with me only the fragrance of the best moments
Let me walk unhindered by emotions.
My joy shall come from the walk itself rather than from the expectations in my mind.
My joy shall soar from every step taken.
Let me be the humble wanderer in nature’s abode.
Loving all, living every moment
I shall not differentiate pleasure and pain, for they are brothers entwined.
I shall not worry while I’m teary-eyed.
I shall not hurry while I’m fury-eyed.
Patience and silence—the two essentials of eternal wisdom
I shall master them or die trying while I walk the promenade of life!”
― Udayakumar D.S., FT Legacy 1: Who is Frank Twine?