Ernest Shackleton Quotes & Sayings

From the sentimental point of view, it is the last great Polar journey that can be made. — Ernest Shackleton

If you're a leader, a fellow that other fellows look to, you've got to keep going. — Ernest Shackleton

If I had not some strength of will I would make a first class drunkard. — Ernest Shackleton

Superhuman effort isn't worth a damn unless it achieves results. — Ernest Shackleton

I thought you'd rather have a live donkey than a dead lion. — Ernest Shackleton

I had a dream when i was 22 that someday i would go to the region of ice and snow and go on and on till i came to one of the poles of the earth — Ernest Shackleton

Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all. — Ernest Shackleton

Optimism is true moral courage. — Ernest Shackleton

Optimism is the true moral courage — Ernest Shackleton

Men Wanted: For hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success. — Ernest Shackleton

My good friend the Governor said I could settle down at Port Stanley and take things quietly for a few weeks. The street of that port is about a mile and a half long. It has the slaughterhouse at one end and the graveyard at the other. The chief distraction is to walk from the slaughterhouse to the graveyard. For a change one may walk from the graveyard to the slaughterhouse. — Ernest Shackleton

One feels 'the dearth of human words, the roughness of mortal speech' in trying to describe things intangible. — Ernest Shackleton

Teachers should be very careful not to spoil their pupils' taste for poetry for all time by making it a task and an imposition. — Ernest Shackleton

Men Wanted for Dangerous Expedition: Low Wages for Long Hours of Arduous Labour under Brutal Conditions; Months of Continual Darkness and Extreme Cold; Great Risk to Life and Limb from Disease, Accidents and Other Hazards; Small Chance of Fame in Case of Success. — Ernest Shackleton

I do not know what 'moss' stands for in the proverb , but if it stood for useful knowledge ... I gathered more moss by rolling than I ever did at school. — Ernest Shackleton

When things are easy, I hate it. — Ernest Shackleton

I have often marveled at the thin line which separates success from failure. — Ernest Shackleton

Through endurance we conquer. — Ernest Shackleton

When I look back at those days I have no doubt that Providence guided us, not only across those snowfields, but across the storm-white sea that separated Elephant Island from our landing-place on South Georgia. I know that during that long and racking march of thirty-six hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia it seemed to me often that we were four, not three. I said nothing to my companions on the point, but afterwards Worsley said to me, 'Boss, I had a curious feeling on the march that there was another person with us.' Crean confessed to the same idea. One feels 'the dearth of human words, the roughness of mortal speech' in trying to describe things intangible, but a record of our journeys would be incomplete without a reference to a subject very near to our hearts. — Ernest Shackleton

By endurance we conquer. — Ernest Shackleton

The noise resembles the roar of heavy, distant surf. Standing on the stirring ice one can imagine it is disturbed by the breathing and tossing of a mighty giant below. — Ernest Shackleton

No person who has not spent a period of his life in those 'stark and sullen solitudes that sentinel the Pole' will understand fully what trees and flowers, sun-flecked turf and running streams mean to the soul of a man — Ernest Shackleton

Loneliness is the penalty of leadership, but the man who has to make the decisions is assisted greatly if he feels that there is no uncertainty in the minds of those who follow him, and that his orders will be carried out confidently and in expectation of success. — Ernest Shackleton

I called to the other men that the sky was clearing, and then a moment later I realized that what I had seen was not a rift in the clouds but the white crest of an enormous wave. — Ernest Shackleton

Huge blocks of ice, weighing many tons, were lifted into the air and tossed aside as other masses rose beneath them. We were helpless intruders in a strange world, our lives dependent upon the play of grim elementary forces that made a mock of our puny efforts. — Ernest Shackleton

A man must shape himself to a new mark directly the old one goes to ground. — Ernest Shackleton

I chose life over death for myself and my friends ... I believe it is in our nature to explore, to reach out into the unknown. The only true failure would be not to explore at all. — Ernest Shackleton

After the conquest of the South Pole by Amundsen who, by a narrow margin of days only, was in advance of the British Expedition under Scott, there remained but one great main object of Antarctic journeying - the crossing of the South Polar continent from sea to sea — Ernest Shackleton

Now my eyes are turned from the South to the North, and I want to lead one more Expedition. This will be the last ... to the North Pole. — Ernest Shackleton

After months of want and hunger, we suddenly found ourselves able to have meals fit for the gods, and with appetites the gods might have envied. — Ernest Shackleton

We had seen God in His splendors, heard the text that Nature renders. We had reached the naked soul of man. — Ernest Shackleton

I seemed to vow to myself that some day I would go to the region of ice and snow and go on and on till I came to one of the poles of the earth, the end of the axis upon which this great round ball turns. — Ernest Shackleton