This article contains twenty-five map quotes about navigating life.

When the New Year arrives, I find myself looking for visual symbols. I’m a vision boarder, so I like images that express my biggest dreams. A flight wing (seen from the window seat) becomes a symbol for new adventures. City skylines and scenic views depict places I want to visit. And maps? Maps are all about finding bearings and gaining direction. The bright lines and wishbone branches on maps remind me that there are so many paths to explore and just as many ways to get back on track.

Here are twenty-five map quotes and sayings. Ten of these map quotes are excerpts from past travel book club picks (Wild by Cheryl Strayed, The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente), and the rest are short, inspirational sayings about navigating life.

25 Map Quotes And Sayings

• “Anytime I feel lost, I pull out a map and stare. I stare until I have reminded myself that life is a giant adventure, so much to do, to see.” – Angelina Jolie
• “I studied my map and walked on, down one rough logging road and then another, feeling a flutter of hope each time that I’d found my way back on track.” – Cheryl Strayed, Wild
• “A map does not just chart, it unlocks and formulates meaning; it forms bridges between here and there, between disparate ideas that we did not know were previously connected.” – Reif Larsen
• “When I need to think through some daunting problem, personal or professional, I often find myself flipping open an atlas and meditating on some random page. And after a few moments of blank contemplation, I no longer seem to be looking at the map so much as listening to it.” – Miles Harvey, The Island Of Lost Maps

• “Maps spoke to me. They still do.” – Miles Harvey, The Island Of Lost Maps
• “A map is the greatest of all epic poems. Its lines and colors show the realization of great dreams.” – Gilbert H. Grosvenor
• “A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at.” – Oscar Wilde, Epigrams & Aphorisms
• “When you have a map you know where to go.” – Shakira

• “Own your words. Your words are the maps to your intentions.” – Chris Brogan
• “If you wish to fly to new heights, begin by setting your sights on a destination you can reach and then create a flight plan, a map that will be your guide.” – Debbie Ford
• “It’s impossible to map out a route to your destination if you don’t know where you’re starting from.” – Suze Orman
• “That is the virtue of maps, they show what can be done with limited space, they forsee that everything can happen therein. And it does.” – José Saramago, The Stone Raft

• “A map provides no answers. It only suggests where to look: discover this, reexamine that, put one thing in relation to another, orient yourself, begin here.” – Miles Harvey, The Island Of Lost Maps
• “The map would illuminate all the places I ran to, but not all the ways I tried to stay.” – Cheryl Strayed, Wild
• “That’s what a map is, you know. Just a memory. Just a wish to go back home – someday, somehow.” – Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making
• “When I get lonely these days, I think: So be lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love
• “I explained that deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in a forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love

Read Next: 36 Eat Pray Love Quotes That Will Speak To Your Heart

• “I pulled out my map and compass and got my bearings.” – Cheryl Strayed, Wild
• “Something bloomed inside me as I traced its jagged line with my finger on a map.” – Cheryl Strayed, Wild
• “Abstract thoughts suddenly flipped into thoughts about reality. Following the path of the map had become something that could happen.” – Alex Garland, The Beach
• “What is a map, but a thing that gets you where you’re going?” – Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making

• “There is only one map to the journey of life, and it lives within your heart.” – Willie Nelson
• “It didn’t matter that he had not planned his route, or brought a road map. He had a different map, and that was the one in his mind, made up of all the people and places he passed.” – Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry
• “Regular maps have few surprises: their contour lines reveal where the Andes are and are reasonably clear. On the location of Australia, and the Outer Hebrides, such maps abound. More precious, though, are the unpublished maps we make ourselves, of our city, our place, our daily world, our life; those maps of our private world we use every day.” – Alexander McCall Smith, Love Over Scotland
• “The planet is our canoe, and we are the voyagers. True navigation begins in the human heart. It’s the most important map of all. Together, may we journey well.” – Elizabeth Kapu’uwailani Lindsey

Did you enjoy these map quotes? What are your favorite map quotes and sayings? Let me know in the comments below! I love hearing from you.