Ella Maillart
Ella Maillart
Ella Maillartwas a French-speaking Swiss adventurer, travel writer and photographer, as well as a sportswoman...
NationalitySwiss
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth20 February 1903
CountrySwitzerland
confidence dream usual
The usual channels of university studies or secretarial work did not appeal to me. I cherished difficult dreams through confidence in myself.
self giving judging
Not only does travel give us a new system of reckoning, it also brings to the fore unknown aspects of our own self. Our consciousness being broadened and enriched, we shall judge ourselves more correctly.
children parent house
We want to feel that this earth is all ours, like our parents' house when we were children.
wind desire tides
From the beginning, I wanted to live my own life, and patiently I shored up that desire against wind and tide.
mind states angle
The state of minds vary according to the angle under which one examines them.
ideas escapism
That idea of escapism... these words could sum up my life.
spiritual moving intellectual
The true traveller is the one urged to move about for physical, aesthetic, intellectual as well as spiritual reasons.
humanity infinity different
Humanity is made up of an infinity of different individuals. Each of us travels for motives exclusively his own.
mind done illusion
One travels to escape from it all, but that is the great illusion: It cannot be done, since one travels with one's mind.
mould sentences refuse
I refuse to imprison our acts in the rigid mould of sentences.
feelings substance i-can
I can see now that a concept or even a feeling makes no sense unless out of our substance we spin around it a web of references, of relationships, of values.
language foreign-language wanted
I wanted to learn a few foreign languages, and therefore I had to go abroad.
asia covered crossed exactly peter spoke
When I crossed Asia with my friend Peter Fleming, we spoke to no one but each other during many months, and we covered exactly the same ground. Nevertheless my journey differed completely from his.
certain fully impression travel travellers
Certain travellers give the impression that they keep moving because only then do they feel fully alive.