Isabelle Eberhardt Quotes

I think it is impossible for human minds to think of Death as a final, irrevocable end to life.

I will always be haunted by thoughts of a sun-drenched elsewhere.

A nomad I will remain for life, in love with distant and uncharted places.

A nomad I was even when I was very small and would stare at the road, that white spellbinding road headed straight for the unknown … a nomad I will remain for life, in love with distant and uncharted places.

For those who know the value of and exquisite taste of solitary freedom (for one is only free when alone), the act of leaving is the bravest and most beautiful of all.

The way I see it, there is no greater spiritual beauty than fanaticism, of a sort so sincere it can only end in martyrdom.

I am full of the sorrow that goes with changes in surroundings, those successive stages of annihilation that slowly lead to the great and final void.

But the vagrant owns the whole vast earth that ends only at the nonexistent horizon, and his empire is an intangible one, for his domination and enjoyment of it are things of the spirit.

The savage hatred I feel for crowds is getting worse, natural enemies that they are of imagination and of thought.

From every ruin, life springs up again and everything that dies is born again.

Life on the open road is liberty… to be alone, to have few needs, to be unknown, everywhere a foreigner and at home, and to walk grandly and solitarily in conquest of the world.

The farther behind I leave the past, the closer I am to forging my own character.

For now it seems that by advancing into unknown territories, I entered into my life

To be alone is to be free, and freedom was the only happiness accessible to my nature.

I feel alone, free, and detached from everything in the world, and I’m happy.

One must never look for happiness: one meets it by the way.

We are, all of us, poor wretches, and those who prefer not to understand this are even worse off than the rest of us.

Now more than ever do I realize that I will never be content with a sedentary life, that I will always be haunted by thoughts of a sun-drenched elsewhere.

Oh if at every moment of our lives we could know the consequences of some of the utterings, thoughts and deeds that seem so trivial and unimportant at the time! And should we not conclude from such examples that there is no such thing in life as unimportant moments devoid of meaning for the future?