Everest Climbing Quotes & Sayings

For a climber, saying that you are stopping by Everest is like saying that you are stopping by to see God. — Roland Smith

Climbing your personal Everest, do your best to make sure it won't end up being your Calvary. — Sahara Sanders

I think the whole attitude towards climbing Mount Everest has become rather horrifying. The people just want to get to the top. They don't give a damn for anybody else who may be in distress and it doesn't impress me at all that they leave someone lying under a rock to die. — Edmund Hillary

People have become less discriminating listeners, which is tragic, really. There's a lot of emperor's new clothes out there, whether they're female or male solo acts. That bothers me. It's hard to break through, and it's like climbing Mount Everest if you actually do. — Paula Cole

The special forces gave me the self-confidence to do some extraordinary things in my life. Climbing Everest then cemented my belief in myself. — Bear Grylls

How to get the best of it all? One must conquer, achieve, get to the top; one must know the end to be convinced that one can win the end - to know there's no dream that mustn't be dared ... Is this the summit, crowning the day? How cool and quiet! We're not exultant; but delighted, joyful; soberly astonished ... Have we vanquished an enemy? None but ourselves. Have we gained success? That word means nothing here. Have we won a kingdom? No ... and yes. We have achieved an ultimate satisfaction ... fulfilled a destiny ... To struggle and to understand - never this last without the other; such is the law ... — George Mallory

We were like the Mount Everest climbers stepping over frozen corpses from prior climbing disasters in our quest for the summit. Like those climbers, we were motivated by a fear far greater than death - the fear of not reaching the top. — Mike Mullane

I soon learned that Everest wasn't a private affair. It belonged to many men. — Tom Hornbein

If the reason for climbing Mt. Everest is that it's hard to do, why does everyone go up the easy side? — George Carlin

Trying to get with Six is like deciding to take up mountain climbing and choosing Everest as your first mountain — Pittacus Lore

She was climbing Mount Everest and the air was invigorating and wonderful. Even if every second verged on crisis, this was part of living - not just watching from the sidelines. — Jacqueline Susann

I wanted something different; I wanted something that challenged me and that pushed me further. Then this idea of climbing Mount Everest came to my mind. It stuck in my head for days. Someone told me I couldn't do it, and that really annoyed me. — Raha Moharrak

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

- Why do you want to climb Mt. Everest, Sir? - Because it is there. — George Leigh Mallory

Climbing to the top demands strength, whether it is to the top of Mount Everest or to the top of your career. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

It's all bullshit on Everest these days. — Edmund Hillary

There's no magic to running far or climbing Everest. Endurance is mental strength. It's all about heart. — Bear Grylls

The pursuit of science has often been compared to the scaling of mountains, high and not so high. But who amongst us can hope, even in imagination, to scale the Everest and reach its summit when the sky is blue and the air is still, and in the stillness of the air survey the entire Himalayan range in the dazzling white of the snow stretching to infinity? None of us can hope for a comparable vision of nature and of the universe around us. But there is nothing mean or lowly in standing in the valley below and awaiting the sun to rise over Kinchinjunga. — Subrahmanijan Chandrasekhar

People ask me, 'What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?' and my answer must at once be, 'It is of no use.'There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behaviour of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron ... If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to live. That is what life means and what life is for. — George Mallory

Climbing Mount Everest is more satisfying than standing at the top; flirting and foreplay are more exciting than having an orgasm; and conducting groundbreaking lab experiments is more interesting than receiving praise and prizes. — Yuval Noah Harari

The whole purpose of climbing something like Everest is to effect some sort of spiritual and physical gain. But if you compromise the process you're an asshole when you start out and an asshole when you get back. — Yvon Chouinard

The main thing is to be honest with yourself, know and recognize your limits and attain maximum achievement within them. I would for example get more satisfaction from climbing Snowdon, which I know I could, than from attempting Everest, which I couldn't. — Stirling Moss

You don't play triathlon. You play soccer; it's fun. You play baseball. Triathlon is work that you can leave you crumpled in a heap, puking on the roadside. It's the physical brutality of climbing Mount Everest without the great view from the top of the world. What kind of person keeps coming back for more of that? — Chris McCormack

For the stone from the top for geologists, the knowledge of the limits of endurance for the doctors, but above all for the spirit of adventure to keep alive the soul of man. — George Mallory

Start with short stories. After all, if you were taking up rock climbing, you wouldn't start with Mount Everest. So if you're starting fantasy, don't start with a nine-book series. — George R R Martin

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. — Willi Unsoeld

The trip from Portland to New York City was like climbing Mount Everest without oxygen. It went on and on, and by the time you reached your destination, there was no sensation left in your extremities. — Kristin Hannah

I was never comfortable with the risk of climbing in the Himalayas, or the amount of time in idleness that is involved in the Everest expedition. — Steve Fossett

Because it's there. — George Mallory

Dreams, in their essence, include risk. This risk could be physical danger (often true in climbing big mountains like Everest), or it could be financial (leaving a comfortable job and pouring your life savings into a business venture), or it could be emotional (like the feelings of loss and questioning that comes with losing friends and coworkers to climbing accidents). — Adrian Ballinger

For nearly 11 years, now, we have been on this mission; we call it, "climbing Mt. Sustainability", a mountain higher than Everest, to meet at that point at the top that symbolizes zero footprint-zero environmental impact. Sustainable: taking nothing, doing no harm. — Ray Anderson

It's kind of too movie-like to say, "When I started climbing, I knew I wanted to climb Everest some day." Instead, I just started rock climbing as a kid, when I was 16, and then I started teaching and a buddy of mine started taking me out. — Erik Weihenmayer

Above the comforts of Base Camp, the expedition in fact became an almost Calvinistic undertaking. The ratio of misery to pleasure was greater by an order of magnitude than any mountain I'd been on; I quickly came to understand that climbing Everest was primarily about enduring pain. And in subjecting ourselves to week after week of toil, tedium and suffering, it struck me that most of us were probably seeking above all else, something like a state of grace. — Jon Krakauer

I have climbed my mountain, but I must still live my life. — Tenzing Norgay

Think about climbing a mountain. If you decide you're going up Everest, you don't start with a sprint. You'll never make it out of base camp if you do that. The secret is two fold: make sure your approach is consistent and steady so that you can maintain the progress you're making as your journey continues. — Georges St-Pierre

Many people have been getting too casual about climbing Everest. I forecast a disaster many times. — Edmund Hillary

Everest is regarded as one of, if not the most challenging of human conquests. I was passionate about climbing and a great believer that one should always challenge their own perception of where their boundaries lie. Everest seemed like an irrational challenge for an Egyptian, so I embraced it wholeheartedly. This feeling grew stronger when I realized that no Egyptian had attempted, let alone stood, on the roof of the world. The desire and pride of representing my country and raising the Egyptian flag on the highest points on earth has been with me ever since. — Omar Samra

When you're climbing Mount Everest, nothing is easy. You just take one step at a time, never look back and always keep your eyes glued to the top. — Jacqueline Susann

Sure, climbing Mount Everest would be cool, but that's something I would now like to do as a family. Big experiences like that I don't want to have on my own anymore. I want to share them. — Heidi Klum

I loved climbing because of the freedom, and having time and space. I remember coming off Everest for the last time, thinking of Dad and wishing that he could have seen what I saw. He would have loved it. — Bear Grylls

It wasn't a gun wound. I just fell. (Zarek) No offense, but you'd have to fall of Mount Everest to have those kinds of wounds. (Astrid) Yeah, maybe next time I'll remember to take my climbing gear with me. (Zarek) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I like to think of Everest as a great mountaineering challenge, and when you've got people just streaming up the mountain - well, many of them are just climbing it to get their name in the paper, really. — Edmund Hillary

I didn't doubt the potential value of paying attention to subconscious cues ... problem was, my inner voice resembled Chicken Little: it was screaming that I was about to die, but it did that almost every time I laced up my climbing boots. — Jon Krakauer

Looking out of a tent door into a world of snow and vanishing hopes. ~George Mallory — Conrad Anker

When I meet people who say - which they do all of the time - 'I must just tell you, my great aunt had cancer of the elbow and the doctors gave her 10 seconds to live, but last I heard she was climbing Mount Everest,' and so forth, I switch off quite early. — Christopher Hitchens

My Everest is not your Everest. Your Everest is not mine. We all have an Everest. Each of us. Sometimes the peak is literally Mount Everest but most times it lies deep within us, figuratively occupying a mountainous inner space. It calls us to rise up, to do what we formerly labeled as impossible, and to be who we deeply and desperately want to be. I know that I have found an Everest when my soul furiously pokes me repeatedly until I listen. Heeding this call to passionate adventure of any sort initiates a journey of intense immense proportion that changes every molecule of my being. — T.A. Loeffler

There was joy in getting his blood pressure down ... joy in climbing Mount Everest ... joy in reaching the summits of six more of the world's highest mountains ... joy in building a profitable company providing houses that people could turn into homes ... joy in learning to fly. But he will also tell you there has been no joy as great as giving from what God has blessed him with so that he might bless and serve others. That's the true and ultimate purpose of setting and reaching goals. — Zig Ziglar