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"When I am about to embark on a difficult journey, I comfort myself by reading the accounts of the great nineteenth-century travellers, men like Stanley, Burton, Speke, Burckhardt and Barth."
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"Robots are important also. If I don my pure-scientist hat, I would say just send robots; I'll stay down here and get the data. But nobody's ever given a parade for a robot. Nobody's ever named a high school after a robot. So when I don my public-educator hat, I have to recognize the elements of exploration that excite people. It's not only the discoveries and the beautiful photos that come down from the heavens; it's the vicarious participation in discovery itself."
"Travelling, whether in the mental or the physical world, is a joy, and it is good to know that, in the mental world at least, there are vast countries still very imperfectly explored."
"I like paths that lead nowhere, that leave you wondering where you are."
"Sailed this day nineteen leagues, and determined to count less than the true number, that the crew might not be dismayed if the voyage should prove long."
"Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World."
"There were mountains; there were valleys; there were streams. She climbed the mountains; roamed the valleys; sat on the banks of streams.....when, from the mountain-top, she beheld, far off, across the Sea of Marmara the plains of Greece, and made out (her eyes were admirable) the Acropolis with a white streak or two which must, she thought, be the Parthenon, her soul expanded with her eyeballs, and she prayed she might share the majesty of the hills, know the serenity of the plains, etc. etc., as all such believers do."
"Life is an experiment in which you may fail or succeed. Explore more, expect least."
"You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore."
"When I read something by someone... I like to dive in his world as much as possible."
"Wars fought over a face like this, he murmured like he was talking to himself, my heart stopped beating and his thumbs moved lightly across my cheeks. 'A man would work himself into the ground for it, go down to his knees to beg to keep it, endure torture to protect it, take a bullet for it, his eyes came to mine, 'poison his brother to possess a face like this."
Explore more quotes by Tahir Shah
"A journey of observation must leave as much as possible to chance. Random movement is the best plan for maximum observation."
"I had learned years ago never to give original documents to anyone if I could help it."
"Osman and Prideep had been in my employment for some weeks. Every Friday I would take the to lunch. It was the high point of their calender. During the meal I would harangue them as a reminder of what they had been hired for: but my orations never seemed to increase their output. I realised later that, in the East, a commitment to produce does not automatically accompany employment."
"Running an expedition can bring out the worst in a man. It can make you a power-crazed monster."
"In some peculiar way, indeed, the rules were now beginning to seem quite logical. It was then I knew that I had been in India long enough."
"A journey, I reflected, is of no merit unless it has tested you."
"As the man was bundled into an armoured police van, he turned and shouted: 'Don't waste your life following others! Be individual! Live your dreams!'I stood there thinking. He was right. Ours is a society of followers, trapped by an island mentality."
"Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives."
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