Climbing Mountains Inspirational Quotes:

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

topic: Hurt, Men, Climbing, Rock Climbing, Lazy Man

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

- Edmund Hillary

topic: Attitude, Science, Climbing, Inspirational Mountain Climbing, Rock Climbing

Great things are done when men and mountains meet.

- William Blake

topic: Sports, Determination, Men, Inspiring Nature, Climbing Mountain

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.

- Edmund Hillary

source: "That's Life : Wild Wit & Wisdom". Book by Bonnie Louise Kuchler, 2003.

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Graduation, Inspirational Confidence, Inspirational High School Graduation

John Wayne never wore Lycra.

- Ron Kauk

topic: Climbing, Wayne, Mountaineering, Inspirational Mountain Climbing, Rock Climbing

Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.

- John Muir

topic: Nature, I Hate You, Heart, Beautiful Nature, National Parks

Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe.

- Robert W. Service

topic: Inspirational, Success, Shoes, Grains Of Sand, Worthwhile Things

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

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

topic: Mistake, Climbing, Routine, Rock Climbing, Routine Life

If you are faced with a mountain, you have several options. You can climb it and cross to the other side. You can go around it. You can dig under it. You can fly over it. You can blow it up. You can ignore it and pretend it’s not there. You can turn around and go back the way you came. Or you can stay on the mountain and make it your home.

- Vera Nazarian

topic: Inspirational, Home, Blow, Climbing Mountains Inspirational, Climbing Up

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out to another is to risk involvement. To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self. To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss. To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure. But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

- William Arthur Ward

source: William Arthur Ward, “Risk”

topic: Dream, Pain, Taken, Life Philosophy, Rock Climbing

There have been joys too great to be described in words, and there have been griefs upon which I have not dared to dwell, and with these in mind I say, climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are naught without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste, look well to each step, and from the beginning think what may be the end.

- Edward Whymper

source: 1871 Scrambles Amongst the Alps.

topic: Grief, Thinking, Joy, Negligence, Climbing Mountain

Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer.

- John Muir

topic: Mountain, Taste, Walks, National Parks, Inspirational Mountain Climbing

In the American Southwest, I began a lifelong love affair with a pile of rock.

- Edward Abbey

topic: Rocks, Affair, Lifelong, Inspirational Mountain Climbing, Climbing Mountain

There's no such thing as bad weather - only the wrong clothes.

- Billy Connolly

topic: Being Happy, Weather, Clothes, Marathon Motivational, Marathon Runners

There's no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing

- Ranulph Fiennes

topic: Adventure, Weather, Inappropriate, Marathon Motivational, Marathon Runners

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

topic: Beautiful, Men, Mountain, Inspirational Mountain Climbing, Rock Climbing

When you ride your bike, you're working your legs, but your mind is on a treadmill. When you play chess, your mind is clicking along, but your body is stagnating. Climbing brings it together in a beautiful, magical way. The adrenaline is flowing, and it's flowing all the time.

- Pat Ament

topic: Beautiful, Play, Climbing, Inspirational Mountain Climbing, Rock Climbing

As I hammered in the last bolt and staggered over the rim, it was not at all clear to me who was the conqueror and who was the conquered. I do recall that El Cap seemed to be in much better condition than I was.

- Warren G. Harding

topic: Climbing, Lasts, Caps, Rock Climbing, Yosemite

The bizarre trend in mountaineers is not the risk they take, but the large degree to which they value life. They are not crazy because they don't dare, they're crazy because they do. These people tend to enjoy life to the fullest, laugh the hardest, travel the most, and work the least.

- Lisa Morgan

topic: Crazy, People, Laughing, Rock Climbing, Mountain Climbing

I believe that the ascent of mountains forms an essential chapter in the complete duty of man, and that it is wrong to leave any district without setting foot on its highest peak.

- Leslie Stephen

source: Leslie Stephen (2013). “The Playground of Europe”, p.220, Cambridge University Press

topic: Believe, Men, Feet, Inspirational Mountain Climbing, Rock Climbing

Good judgment comes from experience. And where does experience come from? Experience comes from bad judgment.

- Mark Twain

topic: Doe, Judgment, Good Judgment, Bad Experiences, Rock Climbing

If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all.

- Elizabeth I

source: Lines after Sir Walter Ralegh, written on a window-pane: Thomas Fuller 'Worthies of England' vol. 1, p. 419.

topic: Heart, Climbing, Hiking, Rock Climbing, Queen Of England

My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing.

- Aldous Huxley

topic: Nature, Father, Hiking, Journeys And Paths, Climbing Mountain

One thing to remember on the Eiger, never look up, or you may need a plastic surgeon.

- Don Whillans

topic: Climbing, Needs, Looks, Climbing Mountains Inspirational, Plastic Surgeons

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.

- John Muir

source: John Muir (2015). “STEEP TRAILS: California - Utah - Nevada - Washington - Oregon - The Grand Canyon: Adventure Memoirs, Travel Sketches, Nature Essays and Wilderness Studies from the author of The Yosemite, Our National Parks, A Thousand-mile Walk to the Gulf & Picturesque California”, p.67, e-artnow

topic: Nature, Adventure, Garden, Beautiful Nature, National Parks

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

- Tom Hornbein

topic: Men, Climbing, Affair, Climbing Mount Everest, Climbing Mountains Inspirational

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

- John Ruskin

topic: Climbing, Mountain, Literature, Rock Climbing, Climbing Mountain

There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

- John Ruskin

topic: Change, Weather, Different, Marathon Motivational, Marathon Runners

Remember: if you take bivouac equipment along, you will bivouac...

- Yvon Chouinard

topic: Climbing, Remember, Equipment, Mountaineering, Climbing Mountains Inspirational

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.

- Wanda Rutkiewicz

topic: Climbing, Important, Toes, Climbers, Climbing Mountains Inspirational

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.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

topic: Perseverance, Stay Strong, Eye, Strength And Determination, Strength And Perseverance

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.

- Chris Darwin

topic: Wall, Climbing, Healthy, Rock Climbing, Mountaineering

While cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

- John Muir

topic: Autumn, Environmental, Care, Beautiful Nature, National Parks

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

topic: Mountain Peaks, Climbing, Goal, Inspirational Mountain Climbing, Rock Climbing

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

topic: Climbing, Trying, Answers, Inspirational Mountain Climbing, Rock Climbing

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

- Greg Child

topic: Answers, Mystery, Summit, Inspirational Mountain Climbing, Rock Climbing

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.

- John Muir

source: Atlantic Monthly, Apr. 1898

topic: Peace, Nature, Sunshine, Beautiful Nature, Journeys And Paths

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

- Edward Whymper

source: 1871 Scrambles Amongst the Alps.

topic: Thinking, Haste, Looks, Inspirational Mountain Climbing, Negligence

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.

- Rob Parker

topic: Mean, Home, Climbing, Inspirational Mountain Climbing, Rock Climbing

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

- Ed Viesturs

source: 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

topic: Sports, Nature, Travel, Inspirational Mountain Climbing, Rock Climbing

There's no such thing as bad weather, just soft people.

- Bill Bowerman

topic: Motivational, Running, Not Giving Up, Marathon Motivational, Marathon Runners

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.

- George Leigh Mallory

topic: Happiness, Mean, Enjoy Life, Inspirational Mountain Climbing, Mountain Top

I climb upon the highest mountains, laughing at all tragedies - whether real or imaginary.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

source: "Hammer of the Gods: Selected Writings".

topic: Real, Climbing, Hiking, Climbing Mountains Inspirational, Climbing To The Top

Risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

- Leo Buscaglia

topic: Inspirational, Life, Motivational, Overwhelming Odds, Mountain Climbing

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

topic: Art, Memories, Learning, Inspirational Mountain Climbing, Rock Climbing

Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

- Richard M. Nixon

source: Farewell Remarks to White House Cabinet and Staff, delivered 9 August 1974

topic: Life, Hiking, Mountain, Highness, Climbing Mountain

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

- William Arthur Ward

topic: Inspirational, Inspiring, Leadership, Mariners, Navigate

It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out; it's the grain of sand in your shoe.

- Robert W. Service

source: "Sand: The Never-ending Story". Book by Michael Welland, p. 30, 2009.

topic: Anger, Shoes, Hiking, Grains Of Sand, Climbing Mountain