There is something incredibly inspiring about reading a good quote you connect with. Simple words written on a computer screen or piece of paper can spark a fire in your soul, change your frame of thinking to be more positive, or motivate you to take action. This is what hiking quotes do for me, and I’ve compiled 25 of the best hiking quotes I’ve come across that may do the same for you. My hope is these quotes resonate with you too and perhaps inspire you to take your next outdoor adventure.
25 of the Best Hiking Quotes
“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.
– John Muir,
Our National Parks
“Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.”
– Ed Viesturs,
No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks
“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
“I like being near the top of a mountain. One can’t get lost here.”
– Wislawa Szymborska
“Walking: the most ancient and still the best modern exercise.”
– Carrie Latet
“Each fresh peak ascended teaches something.”
– Sir Martin Convay
“You need special shoes for hiking — and a bit of a special soul as well.”
– Terri Guillemets
“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
“Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery why we climb.”
– Greg Child
“Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So… get on your way.”
– Dr. Seuss
“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
“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.”
– Frank Lloyd Wright
“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
“After a day’s walk everything has twice its usual value.”
– George Macauley Trevelyan
“You need special shoes for hiking — and a bit of special soul as well.”
– Terri Guillemets
“It’s not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.”
– Sir Edmund Hillary
“My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing.”
– Aldous Huxley
“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that [expletive] mountain.”
– Jack Kerouac
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
– Lao-Tzu
“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.”
– John Muir
What is your favorite hiking quote?
