Climbing quotes

Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long.

There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.

No one remembers who climbed Mount Everest the second time.

While on top of Everest, I looked across the valley towards the great peak Makalu and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed. It showed me that even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn’t the end of everything. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges.

Despite all I have seen and experienced, I still get the same simple thrill out of glimpsing a tiny patch of snow in a high mountain gully and feel the same urge to climb towards it.

Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.

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.

Ever since the morning of May 29, 1953, when Tenzing Norgay and I became the first climbers to step onto the summit of Mount Everest, I’ve been called a great adventurer.

I think I mainly climb mountains because I get a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I never attempt to analyze these things too thoroughly, but I think that all mountaineers do get a great deal of satisfaction out of overcoming some challenge which they think is very difficult for them, or which perhaps may be a little dangerous.

When I was climbing, I built up a close relationship with the Sherpa people.

I’ve always hated the danger part of climbing, and it’s great to come down again because it’s safe.

I enjoyed climbing with other people, good friends, but I did quite a lot of solo climbing, too.

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.

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.

When you’re climbing at high altitudes, life can get pretty miserable.

I don’t regard myself as a cracking good climber. I’m just strong in the back. I have a lot of enthusiasm, and I’m good on ice.

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‚Ego‘.

If it had been possible to build the Tower of Babel without climbing it, it would have been permitted.

Climbing to the top demands strength, whether it is to the top of Mount Everest or to the top of your career.