Mount Everest Quotes

“You need mountains, long staircases don't make good hikers.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“So, 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 enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for.”
― George Mallory

“Never let failure discourage you. Every time you get to the base of a mountain (literal or metaphorical), you're presented with a new opportunity to challenge yourself, to push your limits beyond what you thought possible, to learn from climbers on the trail ahead of you, and to take in some amazing views. Your performance on the mountain you climbed last week or last month or last year doesn't matter - because it's all about what you are doing right now.”
― Alison Levine, On the Edge: The Art of High-Impact Leadership

“Seeing the name Hillary in a headline last week—a headline about a life that had involved real achievement—I felt a mouse stirring in the attic of my memory. Eventually, I was able to recall how the two Hillarys had once been mentionable in the same breath. On a first-lady goodwill tour of Asia in April 1995—the kind of banal trip that she now claims as part of her foreign-policy 'experience'—Mrs. Clinton had been in Nepal and been briefly introduced to the late Sir Edmund Hillary, conqueror of Mount Everest. Ever ready to milk the moment, she announced that her mother had actually named her for this famous and intrepid explorer. The claim 'worked' well enough to be repeated at other stops and even showed up in Bill Clinton's memoirs almost a decade later, as one more instance of the gutsy tradition that undergirds the junior senator from New York.

Sen. Clinton was born in 1947, and Sir Edmund Hillary and his partner Tenzing Norgay did not ascend Mount Everest until 1953, so the story was self-evidently untrue and eventually yielded to fact-checking. Indeed, a spokeswoman for Sen. Clinton named Jennifer Hanley phrased it like this in a statement in October 2006, conceding that the tale was untrue but nonetheless charming: 'It was a sweet family story her mother shared to inspire greatness in her daughter, to great results I might add.'

Perfect. It worked, in other words, having been coined long after Sir Edmund became a bankable celebrity, but now its usefulness is exhausted and its untruth can safely be blamed on Mummy.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“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, Truth and Beauty: Aesthetics and Motivations in Science

“Food for thought: Every dead body on Mount Everest was once a highly motivated person. Stay lazy my friends. It may save your life one day.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, How to Defeat the Trump Cult: Want to Save Democracy? Share This Book

“The real flight of this hawk is impending.

Still,this bird is yet to be tested for real.

Though I have leaped over the seas,

well,the entire sky is still remaining to fly.

And make sure that ,i am gonna do it with all my heart and all my soul.

#loveyoourlife #liveyourlife #hvFUN”
― Arunima Sinha, Born Again on the Mountain: a story of losing everything and finding it back

“When it came to "getting away from it all," there really weren’t many places quite like the top of the tallest mountain in the world. He glanced around the summit, noting the other reason why he enjoyed coming up here. It was tradition for every expedition to the top of Everest to leave something behind—a small token or marker indicating their successful climb to the famous peak. Each one was different and each one seemed to reflect the personality of the party it represented: small flags and banners with the hand-written names of climbers past, a used oxygen canister, a spare glove, even a small metal lunchbox with (Clark noted with a small smile) a picture of Superman on the cover. To Clark, each of these markers indicated the pinnacle of human achievement, the fulfilled promise of the best the human race had to offer. And today, it represented something else as well: man’s ability to conquer the harsh reality of nature… a point in stark contrast to the previous night’s activities.

This set were Sherpa prayer flags, each displaying a symbol, not of a distant god or mythological beast, but denoting some aspect of the enlightened human mind: compassion, perfect action, fearlessness. His thoughts turned to another example of the peak of human achievement, of what one man with drive, desire and dedication could accomplish without the benefit of superpowers or metagene enhancement. One that held a much more personal meaning to Clark.

Bruce.”
― Chris Dee, World's Finest: Red Cape, Big City

“Evenings were peaceful, smoke settling in the quiet air to soften the dusk, lights twinkling on the ridge we would camp on tomorrow, clouds dimming the outline of our pass for the day after. Growing excitement lured my thoughts again and again to the West Ridge….
There was loneliness, too, as the sun set, but only rarely now did doubts return. Then I felt sinkingly as if my whole life lay behind me. Once on the mountain I knew (or trusted) that this would give way to total absorption with the task at hand. But at times I wondered if I had not come a long way only to find what I really sought was something I had left behind.”
― Thomas F. Hornbein

“Nothing is impossible in this world, all you need is courage and hardwork.”
― Bhawna Dehariya

“. . .There is nothing to complain of. . .we had a gorgeous day for the climb, almost windless and brilliantly fine, yet we were unable to get to the summit. So we have no excuse - we have been beaten in fair fight; beaten by the height of the mountain, and by our own shortness of breath. But the fight was worth it, worth it every time, and we shall cherish the privilege of defeat by the world's greatest mountain.”
― Howard Somervell

“Trekking means a travelling experience with a thrilling excitement.”
― Amit Kalantri

“Few experiences rival a serious climb for bringing us into close contact with our own limitations. Part engineering project, part chess game, part ultramarathon, mountaineering demands of us in a way that other endeavors do not. After my trip to Cholatse, I came to think of high-altitude climbing not so much as a sport but as a kind of art or even, in its purest form, rugged spirituality—a modern version of secular asceticism that purifies the soul by stripping away worldly comfort and convenience while forcing you to stare across the threshold of mortality. It is our effort to toil through these hazardous and inhospitable landscapes that culminates with such potent effect, what humanistic psychologists have described as the attainment of self-actualization, a pinnacle of personal expression that dissolves the constraints of our ordinary lives and allows us, even if fleetingly, to “become what we are capable of becoming.” This transformative power is, in a way, why summits have taken on so much symbolic importance for those who pursue them. As the reigning mythology suggests, the higher the peak—Rainier, Cholatse, Everest—the more it fires the imagination.”
― Nick Heil, Dark Summit: The True Story of Everest's Most Controversial Season

“Don't practice to just win a match or competition instead practice winning everyday and this is how you will excel in your life.”
― Bhawna Dehariya

“To become a better 'player' of the game, it is very important to keep practicing and have self-control.”
― Bhawna Dehariya

“Well said!!! The best view comes after the hardest climb and to reach to the peak one has to cross many tiny foothills.”
― Bhawna Dehariya

“One never can know enough about snow.”
― Charles Granville Bruce, The Assault on Mount Everest 1922

“Wireless coverage can even be found on the summit of Mount Everest, the highest-elevated and arguably one of the most hostile surfaces on the planet. Wherever there is a wireless connection, you will inevitably find someone using a mobile device.”
― Karen L. Yacobucci, Video Marketing for Libraries: A Practical Guide for Librarians (Volume 33)

“Perhaps it was for the best that it was the native Tenzing Norgay and the down-to-earth New Zealander Ed Hillary who finally 'knocked the bastard off'. They both used the achievement to better effect than a dream-filled Englishman might have.”
― Ed Douglas, Chomolungma Sings the Blues

“In truth, there seems to be an Everest-sized mountain of hypocrisy over the issue of garbage. Trekkers and mountaineers want the advantages of a western lifestyle in an environment that can't deal with its detritus and then they feel guilty about the consequences.”
― Ed Douglas, Chomolungma Sings the Blues

“Less than a week in the Tri-State area brought the memories flooding back, as if he hadn’t locked them up in a box and punted them off of Mount Everest.”
― Katherine McIntyre, Tempting Ballad

“Breaking Everest by Stewart Stafford

On this Everest of déjà vu,
We broke up in avalanches,
Rote tumbling and tedium,
Dead stares at the bottom.

Climbers phoning in motion,
A poke for the All-Seeing Eye,
Pack mules heaving baggage,
Tense on the musical ski lifts.

Even with three tiny travellers,
That peak hosted no summits,
Cast-off hairshirt strait-jackets,
The wound-licking began afresh.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford