Sir Edmund Hillary was the first mountaineer, along with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, to reach the summit of Everest.
Another achievement of Sir Edmund Hillary is that he was the first ever to reach both the poles and the top of Everest. His grit and resilience prove that we can achieve any goal if we are motivated enough.
Besides taking part in such adventures, Sir Edmund Hillary devoted his time and efforts to uplifting Sherpas. For this, he established the Himalayan Trust in Nepal. Through his quotes, we not only learn about courage and grit but also about humanism. So, let us go through his quotes for some inspiration.
Famous Quotes By Sir Edmund Hillary
These are some quotes by Sir Edmund Hillary that beautifully put across his viewpoints. Let's read them.
"Some day I'm going to climb Everest."
"I am a lucky man. I have had a dream and it has come true, and that is not a thing that happens often to men."
"You don't have to be intellectually bright to be a competent leader."
"Adventuring can be for the ordinary person with ordinary qualities, such as I regard myself."
"Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain."
"People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things."
"Environmental problems are really social problems anyway. They begin with people as the cause and end with people as the victims."
"Life's a bit like mountaineering – never look down."
"You won, this time. But you are as big as you are ever going to get. And I'm still growing."
"Because my name appears in history books, most children think I am dead."
"Becoming a 'Sir' is slightly uncomfortable at first, although it is a considerable honor. It is amazing how quickly you become accustomed to it."
Quotes By Sir Edmund Hillary On Self Discovery And Companionship
Let us learn a bit about ourselves and life with the help of these quotes.
(Sir Edmund Hillary is also the author of several books that tells about his wonderful adventures)
"I have never regarded myself as a hero, but Tenzing undoubtedly was."
"But there is something about building up a comradeship - that I still believe is the greatest of all feats - and sharing in the dangers with your company of peers. It's the intense effort, the giving of everything you've got. It's really a very pleasant sensation."
"On the summit of Everest, I had a feeling of great satisfaction to be first there."
"I will come again and conquer you because as a mountain you can’t grow, but as a human, I can."
"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."
"I hate being called an 'icon'. I just don't like it. That's all there is to it."
"As a youngster I was a great dreamer, reading many books of adventure and walking lonely miles with my head in the clouds."
"I have discovered that even the mediocre can have adventures and even the fearful can achieve."
"The Sherpas play a very important role in most mountaineering expeditions, and in fact, many of them lead along the ridges and up to the summit."
Motivating Quotes By Sir Edmund Hillary
Get inspired by these amazing quotes by Sir Edmund Hillary.
"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."
"I think the really good mountaineer is the man with the technical ability of the professional and with the enthusiasm and freshness of approach of the amateur."
"When you go to the mountains, you see them and you admire them. In a sense, they give you a challenge, and you try to express that challenge by climbing them."
"I am hell-bent for the South Pole — God willing and crevasses permitting."
"I was scared many times on Everest, but this is all part of the challenge. When I fell down a crevasse, it was pretty scary."
"I think that a good mountaineer is usually a sensible mountaineer."
"I was just an average bloke; it was the media that transformed me into a heroic figure. And try as I did, there was no way to destroy my heroic image. But as I learned through the years, as long as you didn't believe all that rubbish about yourself, you wouldn't come to much harm."
"Strong motivation is the most important factor in getting you to the top."
"Despite all I have seen and experienced, I still get the same simple thrill out of glimpsing a tiny patch of snow in a high mountain gully and feel the same urge to climb towards it."
"It's not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves."
"When I was 50 years old, I actually decided to draw up a list of half a dozen things that I really hadn’t done very well, and I was going to make efforts to improve. One of them was skiing, and I really did become a very much better skier."
"Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it."
Fascinating Quotes By Sir Edmund Hillary
Being a humorous person, Sir Edmund Hillary often made funny and witty remarks. Let's check them.
"It's not a real adventure when you have to pay for it."
"I don't know if I particularly want to be remembered for anything. I have enjoyed great satisfaction from my climb of Everest and my trips to the poles. But there's no doubt, either, that my most worthwhile things have been the building of schools and medical clinics."
- Forbes Global, October 2000.
"When you're climbing at high altitudes, life can get pretty miserable."
"In some ways, I believe I epitomize the average New Zealander: I have modest abilities, I combine these with a good deal of determination, and I rather like to succeed."
"I think I mainly climb mountains because I get a great deal of enjoyment out of it.
I never attempt to analyze these things too thoroughly, but I think that all mountaineers do get a great deal of satisfaction out of overcoming some challenge which they think is very difficult for them, or which perhaps may be a little dangerous."
"Nothing can replace courage, a resounding motivation, and that little bit of luck."
"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 care 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."
"You don't have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things – to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals."
“No one remembers who climbed Mount Everest the second time.”
