quotations about mountain climbing
Resisting gravity as you hike a mountain, you recreate the structure of a life, at first loping easily but not seeing much, then trudging more slowly while enjoying the benefit of experience and a wider viewpoint.
BRIAN NELSON
Earth Bound
Climb mountains not so the world can see you, but so you can see the world.
ANONYMOUS
A few hours' mountain climbing make of a rogue and a saint two fairly equal creatures.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Human, All Too Human
If the climb is very long, look at it a piece at a time.
ROB VAN DER PLAS
The Original Mountain Bike Book
He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
A Nietzsche Reader
It's a round trip. Getting to the summit is optional, getting down is mandatory.
ED VIESTURS
No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks
You can heave your spirit into a mountain and the mountain will keep it, folded, and not throw it back as some creeks will. The creeks are the world with all its stimulus and beauty; I live there. But the mountains are home.
ANNIE DILLARD
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Although I deeply love oceans, deserts, and other wild landscapes, it is only mountains that beckon me with that sort of painful magnetic pull to walk deeper and deeper into their beauty.
VICTORIA ERICKSON
attributed, goodreads
If one should ask me what "use" there was in climbing or attempting to climb the world's highest peak, I would be compelled to answer "none." There is no scientific end to be served; simply the gratification of the impulse of achievement, the indomitable desire to see what lies beyond that ever beats within the heart of man.
GEORGE MALLORY
attributed, Ghosts of Everest
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
Scrambles Amongst the Alps
When the guidebooks and Web sites about the Camino inform you that you will be crossing the Pyrenees they don't make it quite clear how steep the climb is. Up, up, up, up you keep going until you reach the snowcaps and the raw wind.
KEVIN SESSUMS
I Left It on the Mountain
Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery why we climb.
GREG CHILD
attributed, Cloud Dancers