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.
— Edmund Hillary
Cheering Climbing Mount Everest quotations
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?
Had I been a man I might have explored the Poles or climbed Mount Everest, but as it was my spirit found outlet in the air. . . .
I have climbed my mountain, but I must still live my life.
Jesus Christ did not ask much from us, He did not demand that people climb Mount Everest or make great sacrifices. He just asked that we love one another.
Climbing to the top demands strength, whether it is to the top of Mount Everest or to the top of your career.
No one remembers who climbed Mount Everest the second time.
Climbing to the top demands strength, whether it is to the top of Mount Everest or to the top of your career.
I can't understand why men make all this fuss about Everest-it's only a mountain.
I was on NPR's All Things Considered yesterday.
The question was, 'You're on the torture rack, they're going to kill you, who are you going to vote for? Mitt Romney, or Barack Obama? I said, 'Look, I've climbed Mount Everest. I know how to do what it takes. Take this to the bank: I would rather die.'
Mountains are not fair or unfair, they are just dangerous.
- Why do you want to climb Mt. Everest, Sir? - Because it is there.
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.
The highest of the world's mountains, it seems, has to make but a single gesture of magnificence to be the lord of all, vast in unchallenged and isolated supremacy.
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.
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.
There are two things I will never do in my life.
I will never climb Mount Everest, and I will never work with Val Kilmer again. There isn't enough money in the world.
Self-mastery is a challenge for every individual.
Only we can control our appetites and passions. Self-mastery cannot be bought by money or fame. It is the ultimate test of our character. It requires climbing out of the deep valleys of our lives and scaling our own Mount Everests.
It's amazing that more people have climbed Mount Everest than have broken the 4-minute mile.
Gradually, very gradually, we saw the great mountain sides and glaciers and aretes, now one fragment and now another through the floating rifts, until far higher in the sky than imagination had dared to suggest the white summit of Everest appeared.
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.
I still climb Mount Everest just as often as I used to.
I play polo just as often as I used to. But to walk down to the hardware store I find a little bit more difficult
Because it is there [famous explanation for wanting to climb Mount Everest].
Why climb Mount Everest? Because it's there.
I have lots of other mountains that I would like to climb.
I have no dream of Everest, but there are some, like Mount Fuji, I'd like to do.
Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said Because it is there. Well, space is there, and were going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there.
Spiritual guidance needs guidance. It's like comparing walking on the ground and mountain climbing. Once you learn how to walk, you can walk on the ground by yourself, but if you want to climb Mount Everest, you need a guide.
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.
But now that I was finally here, standing on the summit of Mount Everest, I just couldn't summon the energy to care.
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.
I soon learned that Everest wasn't a private affair. It belonged to many men.
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.
A lot of the time I hate the theater.
You think, 'I have to climb Mount Everest, again, tonight.' Oh, the theater is a scary place to be.
Many people have been getting too casual about climbing Everest. I forecast a disaster many times.
This forms the nub of a dilemna that every Everest climber eventually comes up against: in order to succeed you must be exceedingly driven, but if you're too driven you're likely to die.
