--- title: "3 Paths Quotes By Robert Macfarlane" description: "3 Paths quotes by Robert Macfarlane. Plus more from Robert Macfarlane and more Paths sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/915/robert-macfarlane-11240_journey_humans-are-animals-and-like-all-animals_2138604.png" --- > [“Humans are animals and like all animals we leave tracks as we walk: signs of passage made in snow, sand, mud, grass,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-macfarlane/humans-are-animals-and-like-all-animals-we-leave-tracks-as-we-walk/) [Robert Macfarlane](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-macfarlane/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/915/robert-macfarlane-11240_journey_humans-are-animals-and-like-all-animals_2138604.png) > [“Paths are the habits of a landscape. They are acts of consensual making. It's hard to create a footpath on your own...Paths…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-macfarlane/paths-are-the-habits-of-a-landscape-they-are-acts-of-consensual/) [Robert MacFarlane](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-macfarlane/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f7a/robert-macfarlane-11240_footpath_paths-are-the-habits-of-a-landscape-they_2349525.png) > [“Wherever my grandfather had gone in his remarkable life, he had walked. He had been a diplomat and a mountaineer who spent…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-macfarlane/wherever-my-grandfather-had-gone-in-his-remarkable-life-he-had-walked/) [Robert Macfarlane](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-macfarlane/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4ce/robert-macfarlane-11240_grandfather_wherever-my-grandfather-had-gone-in-his_2859913.png) ## Other authors on Paths ## More by Robert Macfarlane > [“The association of the wild and the wood also run deep in etymology. The two words are thought to have grown out of the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-macfarlane/the-association-of-the-wild-and-the-wood-also-run-deep-in-etymology/) [Robert Macfarlane](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-macfarlane/) > [“We are adept, if occasionally embarrassed, at saying what we make of places - but we are far less good at saying what places…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-macfarlane/we-are-adept-if-occasionally-embarrassed-at-saying-what-we-make-of/) [Robert Macfarlane](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-macfarlane/) > [Anyone who lives in a city will know the feeling of having been there too long. The gorge-vision that the streets imprint on us,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-macfarlane/anyone-who-lives-in-a-city-will-know-the-feeling-of-having-been-there/) [Robert Macfarlane](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-macfarlane/) > [“I had started climbing trees about three years earlier, or rather, re-started; for I had been at a school that had a wood for…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-macfarlane/i-had-started-climbing-trees-about-three-years-earlier-or-rather-re/) [Robert Macfarlane](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-macfarlane/) > [“The whole foot is a document of motion, inscribed by repeated action. Babies - from those first foetal footfalls, the kneading of sole against…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-macfarlane/the-whole-foot-is-a-document-of-motion-inscribed-by-repeated-action/) [Robert Macfarlane](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-macfarlane/) > [“My grandparents... planted their land up with trees, both those native... and exotics which stood in memory of the countries where they had lived.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-macfarlane/my-grandparents-planted-their-land-up-with-trees-both-those-native/) [Robert Macfarlane](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-macfarlane/) > [“Touch is a reciprocal action, a gesture of exchange with the world. To make an impression is also to receive one, and the soles…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-macfarlane/touch-is-a-reciprocal-action-a-gesture-of-exchange-with-the-world-to/) [Robert Macfarlane](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-macfarlane/) > [Knowing another is endless,' Shepherd had written; 'The thing to be known grows with the knowing.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-macfarlane/knowing-another-is-endless-shepherd-had-written-the-thing-to-be-known/) [Robert Macfarlane](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-macfarlane/) > [By speaking of greater forces than we can possibly invoke, and by confronting us with greater spans of time than we can possibly envisage,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-macfarlane/by-speaking-of-greater-forces-than-we-can-possibly-invoke-and-by/) [Robert Macfarlane](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-macfarlane/) > [I remembered what Thoreau had written in his journal about thinking nothing of walking eight miles to greet a tree.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-macfarlane/i-remembered-what-thoreau-had-written-in-his-journal-about-thinking/) [Robert Macfarlane](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-macfarlane/) > [“...the instinct and the body (the felt smoothness of pebbles, the seen grain of light) must know in ways that the conscious mind cannot.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-macfarlane/the-instinct-and-the-body-the-felt-smoothness-of-pebbles-the-seen/) [Robert Macfarlane](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-macfarlane/) > [“meaning indifferent to the distinction between things. It is not, on the whole, that natural phenomena and entities themselves are disappearing; rather that there…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-macfarlane/meaning-indifferent-to-the-distinction-between-things-it-is-not-on/) [Robert Macfarlane](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-macfarlane/) > [“When the lark sing he feels invulnerable.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-macfarlane/when-the-lark-sing-he-feels-invulnerable/) [Robert Macfarlane](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-macfarlane/) > [“...he suggested that paths were imprinted with the 'dreams' of each traveler who had walked it and that his own experiences would in course…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-macfarlane/he-suggested-that-paths-were-imprinted-with-the-dreams-of-each/) [Robert Macfarlane](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-macfarlane/) > [ “Although the disappearance of the true wildwood \[in the British Isles\] occurred in the Neolithic period, before humanity began to record its own history,… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-macfarlane/although-the-disappearance-of-the-true-wildwood-in-the-british-isles/) [Robert Macfarlane](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-macfarlane/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/paths/robert-macfarlane/#itemlist", "name": "3 Paths Quotes By Robert Macfarlane", "numberOfItems": 3, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Humans are animals and like all animals we leave tracks as we walk: signs of passage made in snow, sand, mud, grass, dew, earth or moss. The language of hunting has a luminous word for such mark-making: 'foil'. A creature's 'foil' is its track. We easily forget that we are track-makers, though, because most of our journeys now occur on asphalt and concrete - and these are substances not easily impressed. 'Always, everywhere, people have walked, veining the earth with paths visible and invisible, symmetrical or meandering,' writes Thomas Clark in his enduring prose-poem 'In Praise of Walking'. It's true that, once you begin to notice them, you see that the landscape is still webbed with paths and footways - shadowing the modern-day road network, or meeting it at a slant or perpendicular. 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