Quotes from 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.

Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity.

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

One learns more from listening than speaking.And both the wind and the people who continue to live close to nature still have much to tell us which we cannot hear within university walls.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It is also rarer to find happiness in a man surrounded by the miracles of technology than among people living in the desert of the jungle and who by the standards set by our society would be considered destitute and out of touch.

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.

Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity.

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.

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.

Pearls rarely turn up in oysters served to you on a plate; you have to dive for them.

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.

Otherwise he was glad we had missed our landing, for he still had three books to read.

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

The Kon-Tiki expedition opened my eyes to what the ocean really is. It is a conveyor and not an isolator.

Agreement and acceptance rarely stimulate experiments and progress.

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

The task of science is investigation pure and simple," he said quietly. "Not to try to prove this or that." He

dissidence and controversy are what bring science forward. Agreement and acceptance rarely stimulate experiments and progress.

It was a great moment on board when two large boobies were spotted above the horizon to westward

But you can't navigate a raft," he added. "It goes sideways and backward and round as the wind takes it.