Explorer Quotes

The first great thing is to find yourself and for that you need solitude and contemplation - at least sometimes. I can tell you deliverance will not come from the rushing noisy centers of civilization. It will come from the lonely places.

God, send me anywhere, only go with me.

Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to Yours.

If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?

I am not the man I once was. I do not want to go back in time, to be the second son, the second man.

The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer.

People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege.

You were born an original. Don't die a copy.

It is better to go skiing and think of God, than go to church and think of sport.

There is one safe and happy place, and that is in the will of God.

I determined never to stop until I had come to the end and achieved my purpose.

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.

I demolish my bridges behind me - then there is no choice but forward.

I will go anywhere as long is it is forward.

Shall I tell you what supported me through all those years of exile among a people whose language I could not understand and whose attitude towards me we always uncertain and often hostile? It was this: "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world".

I am a missionary, heart and soul. God had an only Son, and He was a missionary and a physician. I am a poor, poor imitation of Him, or wish to be. In this service I hope to live; in it I wish to die!

Traveling - it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.

Love is life's snow. It falls deepest and softest into the gashes left by the fight - whiter and purer than snow itself.

From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders.

He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free.

For most of history, man has had to fight nature to survive;

in this century he is beginning to realize that, in order to survive, he must protect it.

You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

The future is in the hands of those who explore.

.. and from all the beauty they discover while crossing perpetually receding frontiers, they develop for nature and for humankind an infinite love.

Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.

It was the Lord who put into my mind that fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies. All who heard of my project rejected it with laughter, ridiculing me. There is no question that the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit, because He comforted me with rays of marvelous inspiration from the Holy Scriptures.

The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure.

The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.

Christ alone can save the world, but Christ cannot save the world alone.

The history of the human race is a continual struggle from darkness into light.

It is, therefore, to no purpose to discuss the use of knowledge; man wants to know, and when he ceases to do so, is no longer a man.

You were born an original. Don't die a copy !

You don't have to be a hero to accomplish great things---to compete. You can just be an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals.

Happiness is the struggle towards a summit and, when it is attained, it is happiness to glimpse new summits on the other side.

Nothing that results in human progress is achieved with unanimous consent.

Those that are enlightened before the others are condemned to pursue that light in spite of the others.

Mount Everest, you beat me the first time, but I'll beat you the next time because you've grown all you are going to grow... but I'm still growing!

I am immortal till my work is accomplished

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

If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

The reason I love the sea I cannot explain - it's physical.

When you dive you begin to feel like an angel. It's a liberation of your weight.

I will place no value on anything I have or may possess, except in relation to the kingdom of Christ. If anything will advance the interests of that kingdom, it shall be given away or kept only in reference to whether giving or keeping will most promote the glory1 of him to whom I owe all my hopes in time and eternity.

You are one with your skis and nature.

This is something that develops not only the body but the soul as well, and it has a deeper meaning for a people than most of us perceive.

Victory awaits him, who has everything in order - luck we call it.

Defeat is definitely due for him, who has neglected to take the necessary precautions - bad luck we call it

Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.

The best way to observe a fish is to become a fish.

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves

Do not think me mad. It is not to make money that I believe a Christian should live. The noblest thing a man can do is, just humbly to receive, and then go amongst others and give.

I am willing to go anywhere, anywhere, anywhere -- so long as it's forward.

The sea, the great unifier, is man's only hope.

Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat.

The whole plan of extermination was nothing less than a cold blooded, calculated political measure, having for its object the annihilation of a superior element in the population, which might prove troublesome, and to this must be added the motive of greed.

The best remedy for a sick church is to put it on a missionary diet.

You don't need human relationships to be happy, God has placed it all around us.

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

I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks.

The militant Muslim is the person who beheads the infidel, while the moderate Muslim holds the feet of the victim.

I was playing when I invented the aqualung. I think play is the most serious thing in the world.

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.

I speak and speak, [...] but the listener retains only the words he is expecting. [...] It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.

Riches don't make a man rich, they only make him busier.

People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.