“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.”

– St. Augustine, in Select Proverbs of All Nations (1824) p. 216, and later as, “The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page”, as quoted in 20,000 Quips & Quotes (1995) by Evan Esar, p. 822.

This quote has not been located in Augustine’s writings, and may be a variant translation of an expression found in Le Cosmopolite (1753) by Fougeret de Monbron: “The universe is a sort of book, whose first page one has read when one has seen only one’s own country.”

This quote is suspect for additional two reasons:
(1.) St. Augustine was not terribly well-travelled himself.
(2.) It doesn’t sound like him. He didn’t use metaphors much.

This strange but interesting investigation was triggered by Larry Durrell’s use of the quote and attributing it to Saint Augustine in a letter. Larry Durrell was in Paris in Season 4, Episode 3 of the television series, “The Durrells in Corfu.” I transcribed the quote, then began my research into its authenticity.

A long explanation for such a short quote, huh?