Distance quotes
2.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside distance — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Swimming is probably the ultimate of burnout sports. It's ironic because millions of people who swim as their regular exercise love the meditation aspect of it; you don't wind up with any orthopedic injuries. But when you swim at a world class level for hours and hours - the loneness of the long distance runner."
"It’s always more intriguing to imagine what’s happening, as opposed to seeing everything, because then you can use your imagination. I always wanted to be at a distance."
"Although the road is never ending take a step and keep walking, do not look fearfully into the distance... On this path let the heart be your guide for the body is hesitant and full of fear."
"My soul is impatient with itself, as with a bothersome child; its restlessness keeps growing and is forever the same. Everything interests me, but nothing holds me. I attend to everything, dreaming all the while."
"The divisions of Perspective are 3, as used in drawing; of these, the first includes the diminution in size of opaque objects; the second treats of the diminution and loss of outline in such opaque objects; the third, of the diminution and loss of colour at long distances."
"Universities won't survive. The future is outside the traditional campus, outside the traditional classroom. Distance learning is coming on fast."
"Distance is a great promoter of admiration."
"I don't think the philosophy really changes between men and women. I think golf courses need to become more distance-friendly overall. I think golf courses almost need to develop a more generic set of tees instead of calling them black, blue, red or whatever."
"It is not possible to be regarded with tenderness, except by a few. That merit which gives greatness and renown diffuses its influence to a wide compass, but acts weakly on every single breast; it is placed at a distance from common spectators, and shines like one of the remote stars, of which the light reaches us, but not the heat."
"The minimum necessary structuring ingredient of every ideology is to distance itself from another ideology, to denounce its other as ideology."
"For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor. Running day after day, piling up the races, bit by bit I raise the bar, and by clearing each level I elevate myself. At least that’s why I’ve put in the effort day after day: to raise my own level. I’m no great runner, by any means. I’m at an ordinary – or perhaps more like mediocre – level. But that’s not the point. The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday. In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be."
"Obviously, a long-distance relationship is hard. But, like anything worth having, you make it work."
"Distance... is like futurity. A dim vastness is spread before our souls; the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as those of our vision... But alas! when we have attained our object, when the distant 'there' becomes the present 'here,' all is changed; we are as poor and circumscribed as ever, and our souls still languish for unattainable happiness."
"There is a progression of understanding vis-a-vis pro football that varies drastically with the factor of distance -- physical, emotional, intellectual and every other way. Which is exactly the way it should be, in the eyes of the amazingly small number of people who own and control the game, because it is this finely managed distance factor that accounts for the high-profit mystique that blew the sacred institution of baseball off its ''national pastime'' pedestal in less than fifteen years."
"Long distance relationships are living proof that love is not just physical. I can feel you next to me even when you're thousands of miles away. Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering."
"I believe firmly in plodding. Productivity is more a matter of diligent, long-distance hiking than it is one-hundred-yard dashing. Doing a little bit now is far better than hoping to do a lot on the morrow. So redeem the fifteen minute spaces. Chip away at it."
"No daughter and mother ever live apart, no matter what the distance between them."
"What looks large from a distance, close up ain’t never that big."
"To contemplate a thing implies maintaining oneself OUTSIDE it, resolved to keep a distance between it and ourselves."
"Distance doesn't exist, in fact, and neither does time. Vibrations from love or music can be felt everywhere, at all times."
