Torbjørn Ekelund > Quotes

“The Norwegian word for “cairn,” varde, comes from the Old Norse word varði, which means “attentiveness” or “vigilance.” The English word “cairn” means “heap of rocks.”
― Torbjørn Ekelund, In Praise of Paths: Walking through Time and Nature

“IT’S NEVER BEEN my experience that things get more complicated when I walk. On the contrary, everything becomes simpler and clearer.”
― Torbjørn Ekelund, In Praise of Paths: Walking through Time and Nature

“philosophy of friluftsliv: free time, freedom, stillness, contemplation, a state of being that is close to the original state from which we came.”
― Torbjørn Ekelund, A Year in the Woods: Twelve Small Journeys into Nature

“(...) predodžba o prirodi kao areni za velika saznanja najobičnija je romantična izmišljotina. Možda uopće nije istina da ti se glava čim odeš sam u šumu ispuni velikim mislima. Možda je upravo suprotno? Možda se glava tada samo isprazni od velikih misli i upravo je to ono što nam se učini tako oslobađajućim. Jer misli koje se u šumi javljaju uvijek su vrlo primitivne. Toplo, hladno. Lako, teško. Mokar, suh. Sretan, tužan. Gladan, sit. Umoran, budan.”
― Torbjørn Ekelund, A Year in the Woods: Twelve Small Journeys into Nature

“If the natural path is the most expedient way between two points, hiking trails are the most beautiful.”
― Torbjørn Ekelund, In Praise of Paths: Walking through Time and Nature

“To maintain a path is to walk it.”
― Torbjørn Ekelund, In Praise of Paths: Walking through Time and Nature

“sometimes you have to be big enough to realize how very small you are.”
― Torbjørn Ekelund, A Year in the Woods: Twelve Small Journeys into Nature

“People are, when all is said and done, often very different.”
― Torbjørn Ekelund, A Year in the Woods: Twelve Small Journeys into Nature

“The brain of a trout is about the size of a pea, and as such it isn’t likely that trout have particularly well-developed memory archives from previous years. On the contrary, it almost seems as if they’ve forgotten everything, or else that for the sake of capacity, they stuff any remembrance of useful experiences down into the darkest corners of their minds.”
― Torbjørn Ekelund, A Year in the Woods: Twelve Small Journeys into Nature

“A person who is running as quickly as possible has their attention focused on their own body. Whereas the attention of a person walking slowly is aimed away from themselves, toward the world and everything outside.”
― Torbjørn Ekelund, In Praise of Paths: Walking through Time and Nature

“maybe the difference between memories and recollections is that memories mean something for the person who has them; they represent moments in the past that have had a particularly formative impact. We like to think—at least, I like to think—that such memories tell us something about who we are deep down and who we wish to be.”
― Torbjørn Ekelund, A Year in the Woods: Twelve Small Journeys into Nature

“when I went out to get the newspaper from the mailbox in the morning. This trivial task is, in my opinion, completely underrated as a natural experience. You have just risen, and in this untarnished state you walk outside. The air wakes you up. Or nature does.”
― Torbjørn Ekelund, A Year in the Woods: Twelve Small Journeys into Nature

“Nostalgia has to do with reason. And reason is humankind’s foremost advantage in the struggle for existence.”
― Torbjørn Ekelund, A Year in the Woods: Twelve Small Journeys into Nature

“Perhaps our heads don’t, in fact, fill up with great thoughts when we are walking alone in the woods. What if it’s precisely the opposite? What if our heads are rather emptied of any big thoughts and this is what we experience as liberating?”
― Torbjørn Ekelund, A Year in the Woods: Twelve Small Journeys into Nature

“I am the happy wanderer, as free from cares I go, along the endless country path, I like to walk so slow.”
― Torbjørn Ekelund, In Praise of Paths: Walking through Time and Nature