Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
For years I was a rock climber and nothing else. I went to school, yes, and university, yes, but in my heart I was a rock climber.
Take care of each other. Share your energies with the group. No one must feel alone, cut off, for that is when you do not make it.
I don't actually care what I climb, only how it affects me. Which means the summit doesn't matter as much as the emotional process.
As with the acquisition, so with the use of money; they way in which a man spends it is often one of the surest tests of character.
My aim is not just to help preserve what is left of mountain life, but to create a centre where people can study and learn about it.
Mountaineering is over. Alpinism is dead. Maybe its spirit is still alive a little in Britain and America, but it will soon die out.
By climbing mountains we were not learning how big we were. We were finding out how breakable, how weak and how full of fear we are.
I did have my moments of despair. It was certainly not - it's not an experience I would like to have again. And then June came along.
Sometimes you must sacrifice yourself on the altar of effort to be reminded of what and who you could become if you applied yourself.
So go ahead, break stuff. Break yourself on the once-hard edges of yourself. And recycle the debris into the foundation of your future.
How could the adventure seeker of today find satisfaction with the level of performance that was a standard set more than 40 years ago ?
Half the charm of climbing mountains is born in visions preceding this experience - visions of what is mysterious, remote, inaccessible.
In overstepping our limitations, in touching the extreme boundaries of man's world, we have come to know something of its true splendor.
I am not so proud to climb all the 8,000-meter peaks, but I was proud to climb Nanga Parbat solo. That was the most elegant thing I did.
We have a saying in Tibet: If a problem can be solved there is no use worrying about it. If it can't be solved, worrying will do no good.
Whenever a climber leaves the known paths, he enters an area without rules or routines... The only advice comes from deep inside the self.
We don't live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means, and that is what life is for.
Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.
The Sherpas play a very important role in most mountaineering expeditions, and in fact many of them lead along the ridges and up to the summit.
Climbing is unadulterated hard labor. The only real pleasure is the satisfaction of going where no man has been before and where few can follow.
Becoming a 'Sir' is slightly uncomfortable at first, although it is a considerable honor. It is amazing how quickly you become accustomed to it.
Every move is a creation, Maintaining the delicate balance is a creation, The line is a creation, Survival is a creation, Freedom is a creation.
Once I have a vision of something I want to accomplish, I tend to slog doggedly toward my goal until I achieve it; this is a skill from my youth.
The most significant dimension of freedom is the freedom from one's own ego - in other words, from the feeling that I am the center of everything
Mount Everest, you beat me the first time, but I'll beat you the next time because you've grown all you are going to grow... but I'm still growing!
I have a number of heroes I still have warm feelings about. [Derek] Shackleton, for instance, was definitely, and still is, one of my great heroes.
You don't really conquer a mountain, you conquer yourself. You overcome sickness & everything else - your pains, aches, fears - to reach the summit.
At its finest moments climbing allows me to step out of ordinary existence into something extraordinary, stripping me of my sense of self-importance.
I think Himalayan climbers tend to mature fairly late. I think most of the successful Himalayan climbers have ranged from 28 to just over 40, really.
I don't know if I particularly want to be remembered for anything. I personally do not think I'm a great gift to the world. I've been very fortunate.
An account of an expedition is not a novel. Therefore an authentic account can never be given, let alone written down by someone who was not present.
Climbing is more of an art than a sport. It's the aesthetics of a mountain that compels me. The line of a route, the style of ascent. It is creative.
I found fear stimulating. Particularly after you've done something that you'd been frightened of at the time, but you carried through and did the job.
I was the first man to climb the world's 14 tallest peaks without supplementary oxygen, but I never asked how high I would go, just how I would do it.
How well does your experience of the sacred in nature enable you to cope more effectively with the problems of mankind when you come back to the city?
I'm past carrying out some of the wishes that I would have wanted to do before, but I still dream about what I would like to do if I was able to do so.
I was in continual agony; I have never in my life been so tired as on the summit of Everest that day. I just sat and sat there, oblivious to everything.
Climbing is all about freedom, the freedom to go beyond all the rules and take a chance, to experience something new, to gain insight into human nature.
Concerning all acts of iniative and creation, there is one elementary truth- that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too.
You don't have to be a hero to accomplish great things---to compete. You can just be an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals.
Waihi Beach. It's a lovely beach, and we're right on the shore and I get a lot of pleasure out of waking up in the morning and hearing the waves roll in.
If there is such a thing as spiritual materialism, it is displayed in the urge to possess the mountains rather than to unravel and accept their mysteries.
We shared a philosophy together [with June Hillary]. We believed very strongly in the welfare of helping other people, particularly the Third World people.
Together we knew toil, joy and pain. My fervent wish is that the nine of us who were united in face of death should remain fraternally united through life.
In mountaineering, there is not only the activity, but the philosophy behind it. Some say a moral, but I am against that because all morality is dangerous.
Mountaineers have often observed a lack of clarity in their mental state at high altitudes; it is difficult for the stupid mind to observe how stupid it is.
I think my cultural work is more important than the adventures I did. The adventures are not important for human beings. It's the conquering of the useless.
I have a very different fear if I'm all alone in the summit area of Mount Everest and if I know that there is nothing below me, no Sherpa, no tent, no rope.
You've climbed the highest mountain in the world. What's left ? It's all downhill from there. You've got to set your sights on something higher than Everest.
When you go to the mountains, you see them and you admire them. In a sense, they give you a challenge, and you try to express that challenge by climbing them.