It never hurts to have some inspiration or motivation to help you get outside and say HelloTrail! I scoured the internet and found 117 of the best hiking quotes to help you do just that.
So after you read through these you better leave me a comment that you are running out immediately to hit the trails and go hike!
John Muir Quotes
In case you are new to hiking, the national parks or the outdoors in general, the name John Muir might not mean much to you.
I won’t take up too much time writing his biography because you have A LOT of quotes to read through but here are some key facts to know about John Muir as presented by the Sierra Club…
- One of California’s most important historical personalities.
- Has been called “The Father of our National Parks”.
- His writings helped teach people the importance of experiencing and protecting our natural heritage.
- Was the first President of the Sierra Club
1. “And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”
2. “I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.”
3. “I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than trees.”
4. “If you think you’ve peaked, find a new mountain.”
5. “In every walk with nature, one received far more than he seeks.”
6. “Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”
7. “Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.”
John Muir would want you to experience the Golden State’s many beautiful national parks. To help you decide where to spend your time outdoors in California read about Sequoia vs Kings Canyon National Park and see for yourself what Muir’s quotes express in words.
8. “Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity.”
9. “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.”
10. “The mountains are calling and I must go.”
11. “Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature’s darlings.”
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Other Popular Quotes About Hiking
12. “If the winter is too cold and the summer is too hot, you are not a hiker.” – A Bitter Hiker
13. “Look deep into nature and you will understand everything better.” – Albert Einstein
14. “There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” – Beverly Sills
15. “Trekking means a travelling experience with a thrilling excitement.” – Amit Kalantri
These “other” people consist of famous names such as Sir Edmund Hillary and even Dr. Seuss along with renowned mountaineerers like Greg Child and Anatoli Boukreev.
16. “For hiking is one of those things that you can only do when you have the determination in you.” – Carl Sagan
17. “Walking: the most ancient exercise and still the best modern exercise.”
– Carrie Latet
18. “Returning home is the most difficult part of long-distance hiking; You have grown outside the puzzle and your piece no longer fits.” – Cindy Ross
19. “A walk in nature walks the soul back home.” – Andy Rooney
20. “When everything feels like an uphill struggle, Just think of the view from the top.” – Anonymous
21. “Anywhere is ‘within walking distance’.” – Anonymous Hiker
22. “In all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous.” – Aristotle
23. “Set loose, a child would run down the paths, scramble up the rocks, lie on the earth. Grown-ups more often let their minds do the running, scrambling, and lying, but the emotion is shared. It feels good to be here.” – David Miller
24. “Hiking and happiness go hand in hand or foot in boot.” – Diane Spicer
Speaking of boot… Check out the Best Hiking Boots for Beginners
25. “Carry as little as possible, but choose that little with care.”
– Earl Shaffer
26. “Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.” – Ed Viesturs
27. “May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”
– Edward Abbey
28. “Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread.” – Edward Abbey
29. “We don’t stop hiking because we grow old – We grow old because we stop hiking.” – Finis Mitchell
30. “If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.” – Frank A. Clark
31. “Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken.” – Frank Herbert
32. “Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.”
– Frank Lloyd Wright
33. “I have two doctors, my left leg and my right.” – G.M. Trevelyan
34. “After a day’s walk everything has twice its usual value.”
– George Macauley Trevelyan
35. “Deep down, at the molecular heart of life, the trees and we are essentially identical.” – Greg Child
36. “Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery why we climb.” – Greg Child
37. “Between every two pines there is a doorway to a new world.”
– Henry David Thoreau
38. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
– Henry David Thoreau
39. “Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.”
– Henry David Thoreau
40. “Walking is a man’s best medicine.” – Hippocrates
41. “I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”
– Robert Frost
42. “We live in a fast-paced society. Walking slows us down.” – Robert Sweetgall
43. “It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out; it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.” – Robert W. Service
44. “Jumping from boulder to boulder and never falling, with a heavy pack, is easier than it sounds; you just can’t fall when you get into the rhythm of the dance.”
– Jack Kerouac
45. “Hiking is the best workout! You can hike for three hours and not even realize you’re working out. And, hiking alone lets me have some time to myself.”
– Jamie Luner
46. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao Tzu
47. “To walk in nature is to witness a thousand miracles.” – Lao Tzu
48. “To be worn out is to be renewed.” – Lao Tzu
Learn Why Hiking is Good for Mental Health
49. “On a hike, the days pass with the wind, the sun, the stars; movement is powered by a belly full of food and water, not a noxious tankful of fossil fuels. On a hike, you’re less a job title and more a human being. A periodic hike not only stretches the limbs but also reminds us: Wow, there’s a big old world out there.” – Ken Ilgunas
50. “The long distance hiker, a breed set apart, From the likes of the usual pack. He’ll shoulder his gear, be hittin’ the trail; long gone, long ‘fore he’ll be back.”
– M.J. Eberhart
51. “Climbing is as close as we can come to flying.” – Margaret Young
52. “I found far more answers in the woods than I ever did in the city.”
– Mary Davis
53. “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
54. “If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.” – Raymond Inmon
55. “I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it.” – Rosalia de Castro
56. “There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.”
– Sir Rannulph Fiennes
57. “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.” – T.S. Eliot
58. “To travel, to experience and learn: that is to live.” – Tenzing Norgay
59. “You need special shoes for hiking — and a bit of a special soul as well.”
– Terri Guillemets
60. “Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.” – Unknown
61. “Now I see the secret of making the best person, it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.” – Walt Whitman
62. “Adventure may hurt you but monotony will kill you.”
63. “Hiking is a bit like life: The journey only requires you to put one foot in front of the other…again and again and again. And if you allow yourself the opportunity to be present throughout the entirety of the trek, you will witness beauty every step of the way, not just at the summit.”
64. “It feels good to be lost in the right direction.”
65. “It’s impossible to walk in the woods and be in a bad mood at the same time.”
66. “Remember to turn everything off once a week including your brain and walk somewhere quiet.”
67. “Distance changes utterly when you take the world on foot. A mile becomes a long way, two miles literally considerable, ten miles whopping, fifty miles at the very limits of conception. The world, you realize, is enormous in a way that only you and a small community of fellow hikers know. Planetary scale is your little secret.” – Bill Bryson from A Walk in the Woods
68. “Hiking is not escapism; it’s realism. The people who choose to spend time outdoors are not running away from anything; we are returning to where we belong.” – Jennifer Pharr Davis
69. “On the trail, all I had to do was walk. It was up to me how far I wanted to walk and where I wanted to end up. I could stop when I wanted, I could eat when I wanted, I could take naps at any point during the day. The trail allowed me to feel a strong sense of freedom.” – Jennifer Pharr Davis
70. “Cover the Earth, Before it covers you.” – Dagobert D. Runes
71. “I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
72. “We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
73. “I always wonder why birds choose to stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on the Earth, then I ask myself the same question.” – Harun Yahya
74. “Embrace the detours.” – Kevin Charbonneau
75. “I am at home among the trees.” – JRR Tolkien
76. “Not all those who wander are lost.” – JRR Tolkien
77. “If happiness is the goal – and it should be – then adventure should be a top priority.” – Richard Branson
78. “You must go on adventures to find out where you truly belong.” – Sue Fitzmaurice
79. “Real adventure is defined best as a journey from which you may not come back alive, and certainly not as the same person.” – Yvon Chouinard
80. “I slow down when hiking. The rhythm of nature is more leisurely. The sun comes up, it moves across the sky, and you begin to synchronize to that rhythm.” – John Mackey
Mountain Hiking Quotes
Hiking and quotes about mountains go hand in hand. The majestic beauty of these natural formations never ceases to amaze me.
There is something truly inspirational about hiking up a mountain getting to the top and looking down upon the wonderful landscape you just traversed.
81. “Every mountain top is within reach if you just keep climbing.” – Barry Finlay
82. “My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing.” – Aldous Huxley
83. “I’ve realized that at the top of the mountain, there’s another mountain.”
– Andrew Garfield
84. “You need mountains, long staircases don’t make good hikers.” – Amit Kalantri
85. “Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.” – Anatoli Boukreev
86. “Mountains are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.”
– Anatoli Boukreev
87. “Mountains teach that not everything in this world can be rationally explained.” – Aleksander Lowe
88. “There are two kinds of climbers, those who climb because their heart sings when they’re in the mountains, and all the rest.” – Alex Lowe
89. “Life sucks a lot less when you add mountain air, a campfire and some peace and quiet.” – Brooke Hampton
90. “Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.”
– John Ruskin
91. “Many climbers become writers because of the misconceptions about climbing.”
– Jonathan Waterman
92. “Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.” – Dag Hammarskjold
93. “When preparing to climb a mountain – pack a light heart.” – Dan May
94. “I walked slowly to enjoy this freedom, and when I came out of the mountains, I saw the sky over the prairie, and I thought that if heaven was real, I hoped it was a place I never had to go, for this earth was greater than any paradise.”
– Daniel J. Rice
95. “No matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain cannot be denied – it speaks in silence to the very core of your being.” – Ansel Adams
96. “You’re off to great places, today is your day. Your mountain is waiting, so get on your way.” – Gary Snyder
97. “Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in an office or mowing the lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.” – Jack Kerouac
98. “I love to sit on a mountain top and gaze. I don’t think of anything but the people I care about and the view.” – Julian Lennon
99. “You never climb the same mountain twice, not even in memory. Memory rebuilds the mountain, changes the weather, retells the jokes, remakes all the moves.”
– Lito Tejada-Flores
100. “Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you are climbing it.” – Dr. Seuss
101. “Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So… get on your way.” – Dr. Seuss
102. “Mountains have a way of dealing with overconfidence.” – Nemann Buhl
103. “Mountain hikes instilled in me a life-long urge to get to the top of any inviting summit or peak.” – Paul D. Boyer
104. “The higher you climb on the mountain, the harder the wind blows.”
– Sam Cummings
105. “It’s not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” – Sir Edmund Hillary
106. “Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.”
– Sir Edmund Hillary
107. “The best view comes after the hardest climb.” – Sir Edmund Hillary
108. “Each fresh peak ascended teaches something.” – Sir Martin Convay
109. “For me, a holiday is about taking a book and going to a mountain and reading.” – Sonam Kapoor
110. “It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” – Terri Guillemets
111. “Every man should pull a boat over a mountain once in his life.”
– Werner Herzog
112. “The experienced mountain climber is not intimidated by a mountain, he is inspired by it.” – William Arthur Ward
113. “Great things are done when men and mountains meet; This is not done by jostling in the street.” – William Blake
114. “I like being near the top of a mountain. One can’t get lost here.”
– Wislawa Szymborska
115. “You Can’t Climb Up A Mountain, With Downhill Thoughts.”
116. “It’s easier to go down a hill than up it but the view is much better at the top.” – Henry Ward Beecher
117. “How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top.” – Yvon Chouinard
Wrapping It Up…
I hope you enjoyed reading through our favorite trail quotes.
Are there any I missed? Which ones are your favorite?
Let me know and after you do make sure to get outside and GO HIKE!!
Visit Our Google Web Story – 10 Hiking Captions to Motivate You to Get Outside