There’s a desert quote to fit every occasion. They can be inspiring, funny, and uplifting and we’ve compiled a list of our favourite desert quotes just for you.
We have seen some amazing deserts in countries like Mexico, Morocco and Mongolia and have added our favorite quotes on deserts to our favorite desert pics.
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So whether you are checking out your first desert, climbing a sand dune, or reveling in the stillness of a desert, you will find the perfect quotes for deserts here.
Jump ahead to your favorite category or just start scrolling to find your favorite quote.
Our Favorite Desert Quotes
Here are some of the most inspiring desert quotes.
“For all the toll the desert takes of a man it gives compensations, deep breaths, deep sleep, and the communion of the stars.” ― Mary Hunter Austin
“This was the desert, everything all at once, whether it was needed or not. What survived had learned to save, live carefully, and keep a low profile, even appear to be dead for long periods. Perseverance and patience.” ― James Anderson
“In the desert you become a discoverer. You discover your soul, which had been submerged in vain pursuits, which had been lost in the coils and toils of modern.” ― Ameen Rihani
“Time has a way of burying things, shifting like the desert and swallowing entire civilizations, erasing them from map and memory. Always, in the end, everything returns to dust.” ― Jessica Khoury
“I saw the desert, it grew upon me. There are times, when I have sorrows, that I hunger and thirst for it.” ― Isabel Burton
“In the desert, in the pure clean atmosphere, in the silence – there you can find yourself. And unless you begin to know yourself, how can you even begin to search for God?” ― Father Dioscuros
“True understanding lies beyond the desert” ― Bangambiki Habyarimana
“Polish comes from the cities; wisdom from the desert.” ― Frank Herbert
“The desert’s an old dream of the sea.” ― Holly Ringland
“The desert is a natural extension of the inner silence of the body.” ― Jean Baudrillard
“Magic of the shadows can best be seen in the deserts.” ― Mehmet Murat Ildan
“The desert, when the sun comes up… I couldn’t tell where heaven stopped and the Earth began.” ― Tom Hanks
“Anything less than the desert was a dream.” ― Kameron Hurley
“In the desert, the only god is a well.” ― Vera Nazarian
“Books are … oases in the deserts of time.” ― Lawrence Clark Powell
“The desert is a capricious lady, and sometimes she drives men crazy.” ― Paulo Coelho
“Even in the most barren desert one would still feel one’s heart beating.” ― Marty Rubin
“The desert lay in wait, more infinite than God, no less remote.” ― Debora Greger
“The desert sky is encircling, majestic, terrible.” ― Paul Shepard
“This creed of the desert seemed inexpressible in words, and indeed in thought.” ― T. E. Lawrence
“New York is the great stone desert.” ― Israel Zangwill
“Even in the most barren desert one would still feel one’s heart beating.” ― Marty Rubin
“A desert is a place without expectation.” ― Nadine Gordimer
“Water is a desert’s gold.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo
RELATED POST: Water Quotes
“A night spent in the desert means a night spent in the space!” ― Mehmet Murat Ildan
“The desert lay in wait, more infinite than God, no less remote.” ― Debora Greger
“A desert blessing, an ocean curse.” ― John Green
“The desert surrounds your every step and you walk forever a thirsty man.” ― Christopher Pike
“True understanding lies beyond the desert” ― Bangambiki Habyarimana
“The desert mocked the map-makers.” ― Dean F. Wilson
“Like water in the desert is wisdom to the soul.” ― Edward Counsel
Quotes About the Desert Beauty
Find some of the best quotes about desert beauty in this collection.
“The true call of the desert, of the mountains, or the sea, is their silence – free of the networks of dead speech.” ― Freya Stark
“Everything that ever happened to me that was important happened in the desert.” ― Michael Ondaatje
“If you sing of beauty though alone in the heart of the desert you will have an audience.” ― Khalil Gibran
“What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“A rose in a desert can only survive on its strength, not its beauty.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo
“In the desert of the heart, tears do not touch the ground.” ― Charles de Leusse
“I was like a desert and she came into my life as the storm” ― Avijeet Das
“As a remedy to life in society I would suggest the big city. Nowadays, it is the only desert within our means.” ― Albert Camus
“That was her magic – she could still see the sunset, even on the darkest days.” ― Atticus
“Sunsets are my escape into the reality I want to continuously live.” ― Rachel Roy
“I knew I was a grain of sand in the vast desert that never ended and he was a sparkling star in the sky.” ― Aleena Yasin
“All I ever wanted was to dream another sunset with you.” — Mayday Parade
“So it always is: when you escape to a desert the silence shouts in your ear.” ― Graham Greene
“I left a piece of my soul that will always rightfully belong in the desert.” ― M.B. Dallocchio
“The field of the soul must be watered by the rain with tears of love; otherwise it will become a desert.” ― Sorin Cerin
“A desert is a place without expectation.” ― Nadine Gordimer
“The desert tells a different story every time one ventures on it.” ― Robert Edison Fulton Jr
“The dunes are changed by the wind, but the desert never changes. That’s the way it will be with our love for each other” ― Paulo Coelho
“You can’t fight the desert… you have to ride with it.” ― Louis L’Amour
“In the empire of desert, water is the king and shadow is the queen.” ― Mehmet Murat Ildan
“Life is a desert of shifting sand dunes. Unpredictable. Erratic. Harmony changes into dissonance, the immediate outlives the profound, esoteric becomes cliched. And vice versa.” ― Ella Leya
“Without music, life is a journey through a desert.” ― Pat Conroy
“We all have our own deserts. That may not be the same as my desert, but we all have to cross them to find a purpose in life and be free.” ― Yeonmi Park
“In the desert, the line between life and death is sharp and quick.” ― Brian Herbert
“A forest is mystery but the desert is truth. Life pared to the bone.” ― Keith Miller
“Nobody ever takes from the desert anything but aridity and monsters.” ― John Geddes
“This is the sense of the desert hills, that there is room enough and time enough” ― Mary Hunter Austin
“I shivered in those solitudes when I heard the voice of the salt in the desert.” ― Pablo Neruda
“Is it possible to write a poem or are these words just screams of outlaws exiled to the desert?” ― Dejan Stojanovic
“To picture the desert as a place where trees are capable of growing is an act of faith.” ― Michael Bassey Johnson
“And the desert shall reclaim, it’s wealth!” ― Danikelii
“Deserts are full of sand and winds are full of air, both are full of something but both look quite empty and when they get to pair it’s easy to see they are almighty.” ― Alain Bremond-Torrent
“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air.” ― Paul Hoffman
“If you tend to a flower, it will bloom, no matter how many weeds surround it.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo
“The desert sharpened the sweet ache of his longing, amplified it, gave shape to it in sere geology and clean slant of light.” ― Jon Krakauer
“I asked him if it were a mirage, and he said yes. I said it was a dream, and he agreed, But said it was the desert’s dream not his.” ― Neil Gaiman
“Let those desert places in our hearts bloom.” ― Pope Francis
“Madness plants mirrors in the desert.” ― Floriano Martins
“To see the desert is like peeling the skin off a landscape.” ― Fred Williams
“Maybe that is the one real division between men: wood men and desert men.” ― Kurban Said
“Nothing the desert produces expresses it better than the unhappy growth of the tree yuccas” ― Mary Hunter Austin
“Desert is simply that: an ecstatic critique of culture, an ecstatic form of disappearance.” ― Jean Baudrillard
Desert Sand Quotes
You’ll love these desert sand quotes. Find your favorite quotes about desert sand in this collection.
“Keep your hands open, and all the sands of the desert can pass through them. Close them, and all you can feel is a bit of grit.” ― Taisen Deshimaru
“The sand doesn’t care if you’re made of flesh or stone.” ― Joaquin Lowe
“The sand has rules. F***ed up rules, but rules nonetheless.” ― Kameron Hurley
“I can speak to my soul only when the two of us are off exploring deserts or cities or mountains or roads.” ― Paulo Coelho
“Let the desert wind cool your aching head. Let the weight of the world drift away instead” ― Beck
“The most beautiful place where reality seems completely unreal is a desert oasis!” ― Mehmet Murat Ildan
“No matter how real an oasis is, it is still a dream in reality!” ― Mehmet Murat ildan
“Being in the desert was brilliant and it was hard.” ― Toni Collette
“The desert sings of loss, always loss, and if you stand quiet with your eyes closed, it will grieve you too.” ― Nafiza Azad
“The breeze across the desert as the light died was so sweet she could almost drink it.” ― Mike Bond
Funny Quotes on the Desert
You’ll enjoy these Funny Desert Quotes. You might also want to check out our list of Funny Short Quotes and Funny Inspirational Quotes.
“What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“Night comes to the desert all at once, as if someone turned off the light.” ― Joyce Carol Oates
“Someone asked me, if I were stranded on a desert island what book would I bring… ‘How to Build a Boat.’” ― Steven Wright
“When you are young, there is so much ahead of you, it’s like the Saharan desert. You can’t even see across it.” ― Henry Rollins
“And all around is the desert; a corner of the mournful kingdom of sand.” ― Pierre Loti
“I always thought the desert was the antithesis of peace – something that attacks you. So you don’t go to the desert for peace.” ― Sam Shepard
“Never thank anybody for anything, except a drink of water in the desert – and then make it brief.” ― Gene Fowler
“Out in the desert what doesn’t kill you just pisses you off and will probably kill you the next time.” ― James Anderson
“Are you in a desert? Then be a camel! Be compatible with the reality!” ― Mehmet Murat Ildan
“The mere sight of her is water in an endless desert.” ― Amie Kaufman
“Magic of the shadows can best be seen in the deserts.” ― Mehmet Murat ildan
“I feel I stand in a desert with my hands outstretched, and you are raining down upon me.” ― Patricia Highsmith
“The house, the stars, the desert — what gives them their beauty is something that is invisible!” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“Men had always been the reciters of poetry in the desert.” ― Michael Ondaatje
“I like the desert for short periods of time, from inside a car, with the windows rolled up, and the doors locked. I prefer beach resorts with room service.” ― Anne Lamott
Desert Sayings
Here are some of the best desert sayings that no one knows who said first.
- “I love like I’m thirsty. Can I offer you a tall glass of Sahara sand?”
- “The desert works constantly to forbid it, and still the cactus blooms.“
- “It is not necessary to fall into a well to know its depth.”
- “The man who builds his own throne rules over a desert.”
- “Footprints on the sands of time are not made by sitting down.”
- “Pearls are worthless in the desert.”
- “All sunshine makes a desert.”
- “You’re as cute as my new cactus.”
- “When you are thirsty, it’s too late to think of digging the well.”
- “Talent without skill is like a desert without an oasis.”
- “If you seek well, you will find.”
- “They make a desert and they call it peace.”
- “Sunshine without rain makes a desert.”
- “Footprints on the sands of time are not made by sitting down.”
- “The well that is most often used gives the purest water.”
- “We’ll never know the worth of water till the well go dry.”
- “Any water in the desert will do.”
And there you have it, our list of perfect desert quotes. We hope you found the perfect quote about deserts here.
Let us know in the comments below if we missed a quote about the desert that should be added.
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About the Author
Laynni Locke
Laynni has been sharing her travel adventures and day-to-day life on Routinely Nomadic social media for over 15 years and appreciates the importance of finding the perfect quote or caption to showcase those experiences. Putting her extensive writing and education background to good use, Laynni has become passionate about researching and curating comprehensive lists of all the best quotes and captions for every occasion.
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