Quotes: Travel. Triage. True Believer.

Travel
Thoreau stayed at home, but traveled in his mind.
Travel 241 Thoreau was a stay-at-home who traveled much in his mind…. Eiseley, The Star Thrower

In traveling on a cruise ship you are both prince and prisoner.
Travel 273 [On being aboard pleasure ship]: You’re a prince but a prisoner, too: But this new absence of ability or need to decide is liberating...you give in to the deliciousness of being taken care of...spend hours in a deck chair, blanket tucked around you by a deck steward, your smile of thanks almost that of an invalid. Finney, From Time to Time.

Nazareth: a town precisely as it was when Jesus was there.
Travel 427 Nazareth is wonderfully interesting because the town has an air about it of being precisely as Jesus left it…. Twain, Innocents Abroad.

Travel produces many annoyances and wonderful memories when the annoyances are forgotten.
Travel 467 Our experiences in Europe have taught us that in time this fatigue will be forgotten; the heat will be forgotten; the thirst, the tiresome volubility of the guide, the persecutions of the beggars—and then, all that will be left will be pleasant memories of Jerusalem, memories we shall call up with always increasing interest as the years go by, memories which some day will become all beautiful when the last annoyance that encumbers them shall have faded out of our minds never again to return. Twain, Innocents Abroad.

Impressions of a train pulling away from the stations.
Travel 580 A moment afterwards, the train—with all the life of its interior…was gliding away in the distance, and rapidly lessening to a point, which, in another moment, vanished. Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables.

To fly is not travel; it’s a translation from one place to another.
Travel 74 To go by airplane, of course, is not to travel at all—it is merely to be translated from one condition in space to another. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

Triage
Does anyone have the right to decide who lives and who dies?
Triage 132 Brother, let me ask one thing more: has any man a right to look at other men and decide which is worthy to live? Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

True Believer
The true believer believes in complete and total solutions to problems.
True believer xxi The true believer is the believer in total solutions. Sidney Hook. Hoffer, The True Believer

The true believer feels exalted because he has been relieved of the burden of an autonomous existence.
True believer 131 The exaltation of the true believer does not flow from reserves of strength and wisdom but from a sense of deliverance: he has been delivered from the meaningless burdens of an autonomous existence. Hoffer, The True Believer

True believers are relieved to be rid of personal responsibility by losing their individuality and independence to become one with a whole group.
True believers 104 When we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are also rid of personal responsibility. Hoffer, The True Believer