Philosophy Quotes

"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. Oh, we may learn a little about the behavior of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron. We shall not find a single foot of earth that can be planted with crops to raise food. It’s no use. So, 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. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for.”"

- George Leigh Mallory

"Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery why we climb."

- Greg Child

"To aim for the highest point is not the only way to climb a mountain."

- Nan Shepherd

"Those who travel to mountaintops are half in love with themselves and half in love with oblivion."

- Robert MacFarlane

"Without mountains, we might find ourselves relieved that we can avoid the pain of the ascent, but we will forever miss the thrill of the summit. And in such a terribly scandalous trade-off, it is the absence of pain that becomes the thief of life."

- Craig D. Lounsbrough

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Mountains seem to answer an increasing imaginative need in the West. More and more people are discovering a desire for them, and a powerful solace in them. At bottom, mountains, like all wildernesses, challenge our complacent conviction - so easy to lapse into - that the world has been made for humans by humans. Most of us exist for most of the time in worlds which are humanly arranged, themed and controlled. One forgets that there are environments which do not respond to the flick of a switch or the twist of a dial, and which have their own rhythms and orders of existence. Mountains correct this amnesia. By speaking of greater forces than we can possibly invoke, and by confronting us with greater spans of time than we can possibly envisage, mountains refute our excessive trust in the man-made. They pose profound questions about our durability and the importance of our schemes. They induce, I suppose, a modesty in us."

- Robert MacFarlane

"Life's a bit like mountaineering—never look down."

- Edmund Hillary

"Beyond the mountains, more mountains."

- Haitian proverb

"Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long."

- George Bernard Shaw

"The cliche is that life is a mountain. You go up, reach the top and then go down."

- Jeanne Moreau

"The mountains were his masters. They rimmed in life. They were the cup of reality, beyond growth, beyond struggle and death. They were his absolute unity in the midst of eternal change."

- Thomas Wolfe

"I've realized that at the top of the mountain, there's another mountain."

- Andrew Garfield

"Some things are too big to be seen; some emotions are too huge to be felt."

- Neil Gaiman

"The top of one mountain is always the bottom of another."

- Marianne Williamson

"I’ve realized that at the top of the mountain, there’s another mountain."

- Andrew Garfield

"You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen."

- Rene Daumal

""Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery of why we climb.""

- Greg Child

""Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long.""

- George Bernard Shaw

""The cliche is that life is a mountain. You go up, reach the top and then go down.""

- Jeanne Moreau

""What are men to rocks and mountains?""

- Jane Austen

""The top of one mountain is always the bottom of another.""

- Marianne Williamson

""Those who travel to mountaintops are half in love with themselves and half in love with oblivion.""

- Robert MacFarlane

""The mountains were his masters. They rimmed in life. They were the cup of reality, beyond growth, beyond struggle and death. They were his absolute unity in the midst of eternal change.""

- Thomas Wolfe

""I've realized that at the top of the mountain, there's another mountain.""

- Andrew Garfield

""Beyond the mountains, more mountains!""

- Haitian proverb

""To aim for the highest point is not the only way to climb a mountain.""

- Nan Shepherd

""In the mountains, you are sometimes invited, sometimes tolerated and sometimes told to go home.""

- Fred Beckey

""Without mountains, we might find ourselves relieved that we can avoid the pain of the ascent, but we will forever miss the thrill of the summit. And in such a terribly scandalous trade-off, it is the absence of pain that becomes the thief of life.""

- Craig D. Lounsbrough

"This grumpy old race car I know once told me something, 'It's an empty cup.'"

- Lightning McQueen