I soon learned that Everest wasn't a private affair. It belonged to many men.
Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.
There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.
Remember: if you take bivouac equipment along, you will bivouac.
Each climber loses one finger or toe once in a while. This is a small but important reason for Polish climbers success. Western climbers haven't lost as many fingers or toes.
Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain. The mind does not create what it perceives, anymore than the eye creates the rose.
Climbing at altitude is like hitting your head against a brick wall - it's great when you stop.
While cares will drop off like autumn leaves.
If the conquest of a great peak brings moments of exultation and bliss, which in the monotonous, materialistic existence of modern times nothing else can approach, it also presents great dangers. It is not the goal of ‘grand alpinisme’ to face peril, but it is one of the tests one must undergo to deserve the joy of rising for an instant above the state of crawling grubs.
The first question which you will ask and which I must try to answer is this; What is the use of climbing Mount Everest? and my answer must at once be, it is no use. There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever.
Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery why we climb.
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
Do nothing in haste; look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the end.
In a sense everything that is exists to climb. All evolution is a climbing towards a higher form. Climbing for life as it reaches towards the consciousness, towards the spirit. We have always honored the high places because we sense them to be the homes of gods. In the mountains there is the promise of... something unexplainable. A higher place of awareness, a spirit that soars. So we climb... and in climbing there is more than a metaphor; there is a means of discovery.
Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.
Life is brought down to the basics: if you are warm, regular, healthy, not thirsty or hungry, then you are not on a mountain... Climbing at altitude is like hitting your head against a brick wall - it's great when you stop.
There's no such thing as bad weather, just soft people.
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.
I climb upon the highest mountains, laughing at all tragedies - whether real or imaginary.
Risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.
Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out; it's the grain of sand in your shoe.
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