Rock Climbing Quotes

• I find that rock climbing is the finest, most healthiest sport in the whole world. It is much healthier than most; look at baseball, where 10 000 sit on their ass to watch a handful of players

  John Salathe

  Funny, Sports, Baseball

  20 Copy quote

• Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.

  Ed Viesturs

  Sports, Nature, Travel

  Ed Viesturs, David Roberts (2011). “The Will to Climb: Obsession and Commitment and the Quest to Climb Annapurna--the World's Deadliest Peak”, p.87, Crown

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• There is no difference between religion and politics. Both involve lies and fanatical beliefs that generaly defy logic... Just like rock climbing.

  David Schuller

  Funny, Lying, Rocks

  39 Copy quote

• Some mountaineers are proud of having done all their climbs without bivouac. How much they have missed ! And the same applies to those who enjoy only rock climbing, or only the ice climbs, onyl the ridges or faces. We should refuse none of the thousands and one joys that the mountains offer us at every turn. We should brush nothing aside, set no restrictions. We should experience hunger and thirst, be able to go fast, but also to go slowly and to contemplate.

  Gaston Rebuffat

  Journey, Hiking, Rocks

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• Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery why we climb.

  Greg Child

  Climbing, Hiking, Mountain

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• Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  Love, Life, Relationship

  "Markings". Book by Dag Hammarskjold, 1982.

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• I've done archery for about six weeks, and rock climbing, tree climbing - and combat, running and vaulting. But also yoga and things like that, to stay catlike!

  Jennifer Lawrence

  Running, Yoga, Rocks

  "Ennifer Lawrence On 'Hunger Games,' 'Transformers' Announces World Premiere In Today's Dailies" by Josh Wigler, www.mtv.com. May 23, 2011.

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• Bouldering is like masturbation: not as good as the real thing but you don't need to worry about your protection.

  Scott Grimes

  Real, Climbing, Worry

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• In climbing you are always faced with new problems in which you must perform using intuitive movements, and then later analyze them to figure out why they work, and then learn from them.

  Wolfgang Gullich

  Climbing, Movement, Problem

  25 Copy quote

• The strongest climbers aren’t always the happiest or nicest to be around; neither are some of them coming from the purest motivation. Climbing another V17 is not going to save the world! This activity of 'rock climbing' is merely one of many ways to exist, pass the time, and evolve and grow from one moment to the next. That’s all.

  Chris Sharma

  Motivation, Rocks, Climbing

  35 Copy quote

• Climbing is the lazy man's way to enlightenment. It forces you to pay attention, because if you don't, you won't succeed, which is minor - or you may get hurt, which is major. Instead of years of meditation, you have this activity that forces you to relax and monitor your breathing and tread that line between living and dying. When you climb, you always are confronted with the edge. Hey, if it was just like climbing a ladder, we all would have quit a long time ago.

  Duncan Ferguson

  Hurt, Men, Hiking

  11 Copy quote

• The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he cannot learn, feel change, grow or live.

  William Arthur Ward

  Climbing, Risk, Suffering

  William Arthur Ward, “Risk”

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• On this proud and beautiful mountain we have lived hours of fraternal, warm and exalting nobility. Here for a few days we have ceased to be slaves and have really been men. It is hard to return to servitude.

  Lionel Terray

  Beautiful, Men, Climbing

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• You guys going up? Yes, yes, we go up. You may be going a lot higher than you think!

  Don Whillans

  Thinking, Climbing, Guy

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• Do nothing in haste; look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the end.

  Edward Whymper

  Thinking, Climbing, Hiking

  1871 Scrambles Amongst the Alps.

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• Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.

  John Ruskin

  Climbing, Hiking, Mountain

  Modern Painters vol. 4, pt. 5, ch. 20 (1856)

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• Mountains are not fair or unfair, they are just dangerous.

  Reinhold Messner

  Nature, Travel, Climbing

  "All Fourteen 8,000ers". Book by Reinhold Messner, 1987.

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• While cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

  John Muir

  Peace, Nature, Fall

  Atlantic Monthly, Apr. 1898

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• If adventure has a final and all-embracing motive, it is surely this: we go out because it is our nature to go out, to climb mountains, and to paddle rivers, to fly to the planets and plunge into the depths of the oceans... When man ceases to do these things, he is no longer man.

  Wilfrid Noyce

  Ocean, Adventure, Men

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• To put yourself into a situation where a mistake cannot necessarily be recouped, where the life you lose may be your own, clears the head wonderfully. It puts domestic problems back into proportion and adds an element of seriousness to your drab, routine life. Perhaps this is one reason why climbing has become increasingly hard as society has become increasingly, disproportionately, coddling.

  Al Alvarez

  Mistake, Climbing, Routine Life

  "Our enduring desire to court deadly risk" by Peter Beaumont, www.theguardian.com. July 14, 2012.

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• I do recall that El Cap seemed to be in much better condition than I was.

  Warren G. Harding

  Climbing, Yosemite, Caps

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• 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.

  Lionel Terray

  Mountain Peaks, Climbing, Goal

  14 Copy quote

• 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.

  George Leigh Mallory

  Climbing, Perspective, Trying

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• 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.

  Rene Daumal

  Art, Memories, Learning

  50 Copy quote

• - Why do you want to climb Mt. Everest, Sir? - Because it is there.

  George Leigh Mallory

  Climbing, Want, Trekking

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