Thor Heyerdahl quotes

Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian explorer and anthropologist, famed for his daring ocean expeditions. His most notable achievement was the Kon-Tiki expedition, during which he sailed across the Pacific on a balsa wood raft to prove the possibilities of ancient transoceanic contact. He inspired generations with his adventurous spirit and unconventional theories. Here are 24 of his quotes:

Borders I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people.

Thor Heyerdahl

For every minute, the future is becoming the past.

Thor Heyerdahl

Am going to cross Pacific on a wooden raft to support a theory that the South Sea islands were peopled from Peru. Will you come? I guarantee nothing but a free trip to Peru and the South Sea islands and back, but you will find good use for your technical abilities on the voyage. Reply at once.' Next day the following telegram arrived from Torstein: COMING. TORSTEIN.

Thor Heyerdahl

We must wake up to the insane reality of our time. We are all irresponsible, unless we demand from the responsible decision makers that modern armaments must no longer be made available to people whose former battle axes and swords our ancestors condemned.

Thor Heyerdahl

Circumstances cause us to act the way we do. We should always bear this in mind before judging the actions of others. I realized this from the start during World War II.

Thor Heyerdahl

I was in uniform for four years, and I know that heroism doesn't occur from taking orders, but rather from people who through their own willpower and strength are willing to sacrifice their lives for an idea.

Thor Heyerdahl

Once in a while you find yourself in an odd situation. You get into it by degrees and in the most natural way but, when you are right in the midst of it, you are suddenly astonished and ask yourself how in the world it all came about.

Thor Heyerdahl

SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE IN FATE, OTHERS DON'T. I DO, and I don't. It may seem at times as if invisible fingers move us about like puppets on strings. But for sure, we are not born to be dragged along. We can grab the strings ourselves and adjust our course at every crossroad, or take off at any little trail into the unknown.

Thor Heyerdahl

In fighting nature, man can win every battle except the last. If he should win that too, he will perish, like an embryo cutting its own umbilical cord.

Thor Heyerdahl

In my experience, it is rarer to find a really happy person in a circle of millionaires than among vagabonds.

Thor Heyerdahl

I have never been able to grasp the meaning of time. I don't believe it exists. I've felt this again and again, when alone and out in nature. On such occasions, time does not exist. Nor does the future exist.

Thor Heyerdahl

Surrounded by military airplanes and warships from the world's most civilized and developed nations, we have been denied permission by friendly governments, for reasons of security, to land anywhere, but in the tiny, and still neutral, Republic of Djibouti.

Thor Heyerdahl

We have always been taught that navigation is the result of civilization, but modern archeology has demonstrated very clearly that this is not so.

Thor Heyerdahl

A civilized nation can have no enemies, and one cannot draw a line across a map, a line that doesn't even exist in nature and say that the ugly enemy lives on the one side, and good friends live on the other.

Thor Heyerdahl

Civilization grew in the beginning from the minute that we had communication - particularly communication by sea that enabled people to get inspiration and ideas from each other and to exchange basic raw materials.

Thor Heyerdahl

I also believe that when one dies, one may wake up to the reality that proves that time does not exist.

Thor Heyerdahl

But if we begin thinking about the world being over 100 million years old, then it's absolutely by chance that you and I are sitting here alive today, while all the others are dead or have never been born.

Thor Heyerdahl

Those who have experienced the most, have suffered so much that they have ceased to hate. Hate is more for those with a slightly guilty conscience, and who by chewing on old hate in times of peace wish to demonstrate how great they were during the war.

Thor Heyerdahl

It is progress when a centuries-old oak is cut down to give space for a road sign.

Thor Heyerdahl

It is progress when weapons are improved to kill more people at a longer range.

Thor Heyerdahl

I don't believe in war as a solution to any kind of conflict, nor do I believe in heroism on the battlefield because I have never seen any.

Thor Heyerdahl