Ella Maillart quotes

Born
20 February 1903, Geneva.

Died
27 March 1997.

Occupation
Writer, photographer.

Ella Maillart was a Swiss travel writer and photographer.

Only when one is able to grasp wideness can one possess it.
– Ella Maillart

Certain travellers give the impression that they keep moving because only then do they feel fully alive.
– Ella Maillart

The state of minds vary according to the angle under which one examines them.
– Ella Maillart

I wanted to learn a few foreign languages, and therefore I had to go abroad.
– Ella Maillart

I did not want to be depressed by the gap existing between my weakness and my ambition.
– Ella Maillart

When I look at something, it is certain that for an instant I am one with what I see.
– Ella Maillart

It is always our own self that we find at the end of the journey. The sooner we face that self, the better.
– Ella Maillart

When I look at something, it is certain that for an instant I am one with what I see.
– Ella Maillart

One of the main points about travelling is to develop in us a feeling of solidarity, of that oneness without which no better world is possible.
– Ella Maillart

That idea of escapism… these words could sum up my life.
– Ella Maillart

One travels to run away from routine, that dreadful routine that kills all imagination and all our capacity for enthusiasm.
– Ella Maillart

I am convinced that to live is to travel towards the world’s end.
– Ella Maillart

When the heart speaks, its language is the same under all latitudes.
– Ella Maillart

Humanity is made up of an infinity of different individuals. Each of us travels for motives exclusively his own.
– Ella Maillart

I had to live in the desert before I could understand the full value of grass in a green ditch.
– Ella Maillart

The wideness of the horizon has to be inside us, cannot be anywhere but inside us, otherwise what we speak about is geographic distances.
– Ella Maillart

There is only one valid species of voyage, which is walk towards the men.
– Ella Maillart

Words are impotent to describe certain emotions.
– Ella Maillart

From the beginning, I wanted to live my own life, and patiently I shored up that desire against wind and tide.
– Ella Maillart

The true traveller is the one urged to move about for physical, aesthetic, intellectual as well as spiritual reasons.
– Ella Maillart

I refuse to imprison our acts in the rigid mould of sentences.
– Ella Maillart

Travel can also be the spirit of adventure somewhat tamed, for those who desire to do something they are a bit afraid of.
– Ella Maillart

The sooner we learn to be jointly responsible, the easier the sailing will be.
– Ella Maillart

We want to feel that this earth is all ours, like our parents’ house when we were children.
– Ella Maillart

You do not travel if you are afraid of the unknown, you travel for the unknown, that reveals you with yourself.
– Ella Maillart

One travels to escape from it all, but that is the great illusion: It cannot be done, since one travels with one’s mind.
– Ella Maillart