Edmund Hillary was a well-known New Zealand mountaineer who became one of the first climbers to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. He realized his interest in mountaineering during his school’s trip to a small mountain. As soon as he graduated he decided to pursue his passion for climbing, he started training himself which helped him climb the highest peak in New Zealand. This made him eligible to join the British expedition to the highest peak of Mount Everest. His first expedition was in 1951 which could not be successful but he was again included in the expedition of 1953. This expedition was also on a verge of failure but Hillary along with his Sherpa guide found a new way. The duo made history on May 29, 1953, by being the first persons to reach the summit. He further explored various peaks of the Himalayan range. He is also credited as the only person to mark his steps on both the north and south poles. He was also a philanthropist and founded the ‘Himalayan Trust’ to support the Sherpa people with all the fundamental necessities like education and shelter. Read on the quotes and thoughts by this great mountaineer which will inspire you to always look forward in life. Browse through the sayings and quotations by Edmund Hillary which have been excerpted from his writings, work and life and are sure to pump in new gusto in you.
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.
Edmund Hillary
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.
Edmund Hillary
I think it all comes down to motivation. If you really want to do something, you will work hard for it.
Edmund Hillary
Good planning is important. I've also regarded a sense of humor as one of the most important things on a big expedition. When you're in a difficult or dangerous situation, or when you're depressed about the chances of success, someone who can make you laugh eases the tension.
Edmund Hillary
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.
Edmund Hillary
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.
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.
Edmund Hillary
I have enjoyed great satisfaction from my climb of Everest and my trips to the poles. But there's no doubt that my most worthwhile things have been the building of schools and medical clinics.
Edmund Hillary
Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.
Edmund Hillary
Adventuring can be for the ordinary person with ordinary qualities, such as I regard myself.
Edmund Hillary
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.
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
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.
Edmund Hillary
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.
Edmund Hillary
I have never regarded myself as a hero, but Tenzing undoubtedly was.
I think my first thought on reaching the summit- of course, I was very, very pleased to be there, naturally - but my first thought was one of a little bit of surprise. I was a little bit surprised that here I was, Ed Hillary, on top of Mt. Everest. After all, this is the ambition of most mountaineers.
Edmund Hillary
No one remembers who climbed Mount Everest the second time.
I'm sure the feeling of fear, as long as you can take advantage of it and not be rendered useless by it, can make you extend yourself beyond what you would regard as your capacity. If you're afraid, the blood seems to flow freely through the veins, and you really do feel a sense of stimulation.
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.
Edmund Hillary
Many people have been getting too casual about climbing Everest. I forecast a disaster many times.
Edmund Hillary
Tourism is a very big economic benefit to the Sherpa people, and also, they have very strong ties to their own social attitudes and their own religion, so fortunately, they're not too influenced by many of our Western attitudes.
Edmund Hillary
I really haven't liked the commercialization of mountaineering, particularly of Mt. Everest. By paying $65,000, you can be conducted to the summit by a couple of good guides.
On the summit of Everest, I had a feeling of great satisfaction to be first there.
Edmund Hillary
People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.
Edmund Hillary
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.
Edmund Hillary
I believe that of all the things I have done, exciting though many of them have been, there's no doubt in my mind that the most worthwhile have been the establishing of schools and hospitals, and the rebuilding of monasteries in the mountains.
Edmund Hillary
My most important projects have been the building and maintaining of schools and medical clinics for my dear friends in the Himalaya and helping restore their beautiful monasteries, too.
Edmund Hillary
When you're climbing at high altitudes, life can get pretty miserable.
Once I've decided to do something, I do usually try to carry it through to fruition.
Edmund Hillary
If I wished to do something, even if I couldn't find anyone who wanted to make the effort with me, I would go out solo climbing. I did find solo climbing very challenging and a little frightening. You knew that you were completely on your own, and you had to overcome all the problems and possible dangers.
My relationship with the mountains actually started when I was 16. Every year, a group used to be taken from Auckland Grammar down to the Tangariro National Park for a skiing holiday.
I don't spend a lot of time thinking about dying, but I like to think that I've - if it did occur - that I would die peacefully and not make too much of a fuss about it.
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.
Edmund Hillary
There is precious little in civilization to appeal to a Yeti.
Edmund Hillary
My mother was a schoolteacher and very keen that I go to a city school, so although it was fairly impoverished times, I traveled every day to the Auckland Grammar School.
Edmund Hillary
You don’t have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things – to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated
I don't know if I particularly want to be remembered for anything. I personally do not think I'm a great gift to the world. I've been very fortunate.
Edmund Hillary
Polypro wicks away the sweat. Cotton absorbs it. Ergo, cotton is for suckers
Edmund Hillary
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.
Edmund Hillary
I realised a little bit to my astonishment that I can give a lecture for a thousand people, and there will be this tumultuous applause, so, you know, I have the feeling well, it can't be all that bad.
Edmund Hillary
Take advantage of the years of pioneering efforts. You might find this boring, as the young want to rush head on, as it were.
Edmund Hillary
I hate being called an 'icon.' I just don't like it. That's all there is to it.
I like to think of Everest as a great mountaineering challenge, and when you've got people just streaming up the mountain - well, many of them are just climbing it to get their name in the paper, really.
Edmund Hillary
Becoming a 'Sir' is slightly uncomfortable at first, although it is a considerable honor. It is amazing how quickly you become accustomed to it.
I don't regard myself as a cracking good climber. I'm just strong in the back. I have a lot of enthusiasm, and I'm good on ice.
Edmund Hillary
I've always hated the danger part of climbing, and it's great to come down again because it's safe.
Edmund Hillary
I can remember when I first went into the Himalayan area way back in 1951. Money, for instance, was not important at all to the local people. But now, finance has become just as important to them as it is to us, and this is a change maybe not for the better.
