Best 86 quotes of Edmund Hillary on MyQuotes

Adventuring can be for the ordinary person with ordinary qualities, such as I regard myself.

As a youngster I was a great dreamer, reading many books of adventure and walking lonely miles with my head in the clouds.

Becoming a 'Sir' is slightly uncomfortable at first, although it is a considerable honor. It is amazing how quickly you become accustomed to it.

Boredom has always been a problem.

Challenge is what makes men. It will be the end when men stop looking for new challenges.

[Derek] Shackleton was a man who - it's probably arrogant to say it - but he was a little bit like me. He undertook incredible dangers and carried on over the sea and over the ice and all the rest of it. He was a remarkable man.

Despite all I have seen and experiences, I still get the same thrill out of glimpsing a tiny patch of snow in a high mountain gully and feel the same urge to climb toward it.

Environmental problems are really social problems anyway. They begin with people as the cause and end with people as the victims

Everest you won't change, but I will get better...I will conquer you.

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.

Geography was not furthered by the achievement, scientific progress was scarcely hastened, and nothing new was discovered. Yet the names of Hillary and Tenzing went instantly into all languages as the names of heroes, partly because they really were men of heroic mold but chiefly because they represented so compellingly the spirit of their time.

George Lowe was the one who opened the mail, and George started laughing uproariously and I looked up at him in astonishment and said, "What's so funny?" And he said, "You've been given a title", and I said, "Ha, ha, big joke." I didn't believe him but, sure enough, in this letter it indicated that the Queen had given me a title.

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.

Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain.

I always, I would say, make sure that in my presentation I'll have what I want to do. I try and make it so interesting to my companions that they want to go, too. I don't have to twist any arms or make - you know - any great challenges available.

I always refused to give in if there was some argument with my father. Whether it was true or not, I refused to admit it and so often I would - well, tell lies, perhaps. I would either do that or change the story. Particularly if I felt that my father was being unjust, then I was very strongly motivated to not accept his ruling.

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.

I did have my moments of despair. It was certainly not - it's not an experience I would like to have again. And then June came along.

If I'm selecting a group, the first thing I look for is a record of achievement . . . If (candidates achieve) in small things, there's a very good chance they'll perform well in big things.

I found fear stimulating. Particularly after you've done something that you'd been frightened of at the time, but you carried through and did the job.

If the going is tough and the pressure is on, If the reserves of strength have been drained and the summit is still not in sight, then the quality to seek in the person is neither great strength nor quickness of hand, but rather a resolute mind firmly set on its purpose that refuses to let its body slack or rest.

I had a very strong desire to carry out adventures, but in those early days I didn't actually do any. I just dreamt about it.

I had never experienced anything like it before and I don't think I have experienced anything like it since [on Ruapehu]. It was my dreams coming true in a way, and from there on I tended to become more of a doer than a dreamer.

I hate being called an 'icon.' I just don't like it. That's all there is to it.

I have a number of heroes I still have warm feelings about. [Derek] Shackleton, for instance, was definitely, and still is, one of my great heroes.

I have been seriously afraid at times but have used my fear as a stimulating factor rather than allowing it to paralyse me. My abilities have not been outstanding, but I have had sufficient strength and determination to meet my challenges and have usually managed to succeed with them.

I have discovered that even the mediocre can have adventures and even the fearful can achieve.

I have no desire to live anywhere else but New Zealand. I've had the good fortune to travel widely around the world, but New Zealand is home - and I like to be here. I'm proud to be a New Zealander.

I have the challenges sort of already there and as a consequence my companions feel a considerable desire to do this, too, and they feel very put out if they are left in the cold, so there we have it. We have me who has lots of ideas and then we have a very good team who wish - who are persuaded almost - to take part in these challenges.

I have to admit I do get a bit depressed at times and you know I think about the good old days when I was charging ahead.

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.

I'm a very, very modest person and with limited abilities. I do have the wish to succeed in anything I undertake, and that does help out, but, in general, there are so many other people who are skilled in their field that I feel very ordinary.

I'm definitely a Queen supporter. She was great.

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 never talk about being leaders and all the rest of it. I can only remember one or two occasions in my life when I actually issued orders, and I felt thoroughly miserable after doing it.

In those days we were punished very frequently and I felt that it was often unjust, and so I would resist the desire to agree with many, many things. So I used to get beaten quite frequently and I more or less accepted it as part of life.

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.

I started to become more active and when I was at Auckland Grammar I went for the first time to the mountains. I went to Ruapehu and for the first time I saw snow. I had never seen snow before and for 10 days the group of us had a marvellous time.

I still had the same affection for New Zealand as I've always had. Didn't change at all.

I still think have this deep desire for our Himalayan Trust - that we raise the necessary funds, that we do all the things that the Sherpas want us to do, and I would like to see us working together with them on these projects. Even though I'm old and decrepit I still have this strong feeling that I would like to carry these things out if it were still possible.

I think global warming is a very real problem for our world. I've seen the changes that have taken place in the Antarctic, in the Himalayas, where the natural ice has sort of faded away, and there's no doubt in my mind that we're living in a strange world, a world which is not easy to understand or handle, But there's nothing you can do about, you just have to live your life as best you can.

I think Himalayan climbers tend to mature fairly late. I think most of the successful Himalayan climbers have ranged from 28 to just over 40, really.

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.

I think my strengths perhaps are that I'm determined. I may not be the best climber in the world, but I do like to sort of succeed and so that tends to drive me on, as it were, and I don't give up too easily.

I think that a good mountaineer is usually a sensible mountaineer.

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.

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.

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.

It's all bullshit on Everest these days.

It's not a real adventure when you have to pay for it.