The Great Explorers always seemed to have a way with words, and when it comes to inspirational quotes about exploring, they are pretty hard to beat. The likes of Ernest Shackleton, Scott of the Antarctic, David Livingstone and James Cook had adventures that we can hardly comprehend, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t lots of ways we can still explore today.
The fact that these quotes still resonate today is testament to the fact the human spirit will always seek to cherish exploration, no matter what scale it’s on.
There are lots of modern day quotes we love too, from writers, naturalists and documentary makers so you’ll find those in the second part of the post.
No matter why you’re here, whether you want a killer caption for Instagram, an inspirational picture or just a quote from one of the legends from the early days of exploration, you’ll find it here!
Here are our favourite quotes about exploring from explorers, writers and people who love adventure.
Quotes about exploration
The first selection will be from the explorers themselves. Those who challenged themselves to do what had not been done before, and explore places unknown.
“My greatest fear is not living my life.”
- Ed Stafford
“I will go anywhere, as long as it is forward.”
- David Livingstone
“The gladdest moment in human life is a departure into unknown lands.”
– Sir Richard Burton
“It is in our nature to explore, to reach out into the unknown. The only true failure would be not to explore at all.”
- Ernest Shackleton
“We don’t live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means, and that is what life is for.”
- George Mallory
”Exploration is really the essence of the human spirit.”
- Frank Borman
“Great things have small beginnings.”
- Francis Drake
“People ask me, ‘What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?’ and my answer is ‘because it’s there.’”
- George Mallory
“Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all'.”
- Ernest Shackleton
“The key is to learn from failures, and then to keep going”
- Sir Ranulph Fiennes
“I will come again and conquer you because as a mountain you can’t grow… but as a human, I can.”
- Edmund Hillary
“There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory.”
- Francis Drake
“Do just once what others say you can’t do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again.”
- James Cook
“I have often marveled at the thin line which separates success from failure.”
- Ernest Shackleton
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
- Charles Darwin
“My only fear is that I might awaken in my bed, destined to live a common life once again.”
- Marco Polo
“I did not write half of what I saw, for I knew I would not be believed.”
- Marco Polo
“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.”
- Charles Darwin
“Don’t be afraid to take risks. If you’ve got dreams that you’ve buried inside yourself, dig them back up again.”
- Ed Stafford
“I had ambition not only to go farther than any man had ever been before, but as far as it was possible for a man to go.”
- James Cook
“Human effort is not futile, but man fights against the giant forces of nature in a spirit of humility. One has a sense of dependence on a higher power.”
- Ernest Shackleton
“Struggle is the father of all things.
It is not by the principles of humanity that man lives or is able to preserve himself above the animal world, but solely by means of the most brutal struggle.”
- Charles Darwin
Quotes about exploring from writers, dreamers and modern day explorers
Here are some more quotes from people who weren’t known for exploring new frontiers, but nonetheless had great ways to summarise why we love exploring and pushing the boundaries of what you can achieve.
“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.”
- Susan Sontag
“Until you cross the bridge of your insecurities, you can’t begin to explore your possibilities.”
- Tim Fargo
“Exploration is a wonderful way to open our eyes to the world, and to truly see that impossible is just a word.”
- Richard Branson
“Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.”
- Jennifer Lee
“Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled.”
- Robert Frost
“We only know a tiny proportion about the complexity of the natural world.
Wherever you look, there are still things we don’t know about and don’t understand. [...] There are always new things to find out if you go looking for them.”
- David Attenborough
“Life is a fight. Don’t let it overwhelm you. Adapt, and combat every situation it throws at you.”
- Tim McIlrath
“Live your life by a compass, not a clock.”
-Stephen Covey
“Exploration is curiosity put into action.”
- Don Walsh
“What is a Wanderess? Bound by no boundaries, contained by no countries, tamed by no time, she is the force of nature’s course.”
- Roman Payne
“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler who is foreign.'“
- Robert Louis Stevenson
“In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.”
- Ansel Adams
“Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.”
- Anatole France
“Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
- T.S. Eliot
“An adventure is never an adventure when it happens. An adventure is simply physical and emotional discomfort recollected in tranquility.”
- Tim Cahill
“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”
- Martin Buber
“Few men during their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling within them. There are deep wells of strength that are never used.”
- Richard E Byrd
“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
“Sometimes the most scenic roads in life are the detours you didn’t mean to take.”
– Angela N Blount
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
– T. S. Eliot
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
- Andre Gide
“A journey is best measured in friends rather than miles.”
- Tim Cahill
“I travel because I’d rather look back at my life, saying ‘I can’t believe I did that’ instead of ‘if only I had’.”
– Florine Bos
“There are people who travel because they want to push themselves to physical limits, people who walk across deserts or cycle across the Antarctic - like Ranulph Fiennes, who just does it because it’s there.
And then there are people like me, who are genuinely curious about the world.”
- Michael Palin
“Life is an experiment in which you may fail or succeed.
Explore more, expect least.”
– Santosh Kalvar
“You must go on adventures to find out where you truly belong”
– Sue Fitzmaurice
“The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for a newer and richer experience.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
“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
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
– J.R.R Tolkien
“Adventure is allowing the unexpected to happen to you. Exploration is experiencing what you have not experienced before.”
– Richard Aldington
“If we were meant to stay in one place we’d have roots instead of feet.”
– Rachel Wolchin
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that 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
“Adventure is allowing the unexpected to happen to you. Exploration is experiencing what you have not experienced before.
How can there be any adventure, any exploration, if you let somebody else – above all, a travel bureau – arrange everything before-hand?”
– Richard Aldington
“The ship is safest when it is in port, but that is not what ships were built for.”
– Paulo Coelho
“A person does not grow from the ground like a vine or a tree, one is not part of a plot of land. Mankind has legs so it can wander.”
– Roman Payne
“ Exploring the world is one the best ways of exploring the mind, and walking travels both terrains.”
– Rebecca Solnit
“Exploring is an innate part of being human. We’re all explorers when we’re born. Unfortunately, it seems to get drummed out of many of us as we get older, but it’s there, I think, in all of us.
And for me that moment of discovery is just so thrilling, on any level, that I think anybody that’s experienced it is pretty quickly addicted to it.”
– Edith Widder
“Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.”
– Dalai Lama
“You cannot explore the universe if you think that you are the center of it.”
- Joshua Suya Pelicano
More inspirational travel quotes
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What are your favourite quotes about exploring? Do you have any inspirational quotes that you love that we missed? Let us know in the comments below!
