Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.
~ W. H. Auden
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Quotes
Slow
The superior man wishes to be slow in his words and earnest in his conduct.
~ Confucius
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On the edge
Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center. Big, undreamed-of things—the people on the edge see them first.
~ Kurt Vonnegut
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The specific outcome
The specific outcome is not the primary driver of our practice. […] We can begin with this: If we failed, would it be worth the journey? Do you trust yourself enough to commit to engaging with a project regardless of the chances of success? The first step is to separate the process from the outcome. Not because we don’t care about the outcome. But because we do.
~ Seth Godin
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Unfolding
All our progress is an unfolding, like the vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Success
What I tell young people is if you identify your goals, and have the willpower to overcome difficulties—there will always be certain difficulties—and you find the right people to help you, you will be successful.
~ Reinhold Messner
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Arise
It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.
~ Aristotle
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Deterioration
Any society which is not improving is deteriorating, and the more so the closer and more familiar it is. Even a really superior man almost always begins to deteriorate when he is habitually king of his company.
~ J. Stuart Mill
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Advancing
He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into living peace.
~ John Ruskin
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Gravitation
Laws and institutions are constantly tending to gravitate. Like clocks, they must be occasionally cleansed, and wound up, and set to true time.
~ Henry Ward Beecher
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Instincts
Our instincts as humans are slowly dimming the less time we spend in wild nature: rainstorms, cold, whiteouts, loose rocks, adventure. Climbing is an important and sacred opportunity for us to exist in situations that we faced a hundred thousand years ago. The animalistic side of human beings. Our instincts are an important element of our intelligence.
~ Reinhold Messner
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Moderation
In everything the middle course is best: All things in excess bring trouble to men.
~ Plautus
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Progressive development
Indeed, the grandest of all laws is the law of progressive development. Under it, in the wide sweep of things, men grow wiser as they grow older; Societies better.
~ Bovee
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Revelation
It is curious to note the old sea-margins of human thought. Each subsiding century reveals some new mystery; we build where monsters used to hide themselves.
~ Longfellow
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Discussion
He that is not open to conviction is not qualified for discussion.
~ Richard Whately
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Judgement
As climbers, we are inventors of our own goals, and must decide on our own how to achieve them. There is nobody else there. Nobody to control. We do extreme, dangerous things, and nobody else can say what is right or wrong. There is no moral loathing. We have only our instincts about human behavior, and in the end we are our own judges.
~ Reinhold Messner
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Slowly
To live long, it is necessary to live slowly.
~ Cicero
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Learning
I’ve always treated the world as my classroom, soaking up lessons and stories to fuel my path forward. I hope you do the same. The worst thing you can ever do is think that you know enough. Never stop learning. Ever.
~ Arnold Schwarzenegger
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Understanding
I have found you an argument; But I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
~ Samuel Johnson
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Failures
Without failures I would not be here. I learned most of what I know today through them. Maybe it was my partner, or the equipment was not proper, or the training—especially the mental training, which is the most important thing—were not good enough. With success, you don’t always know why you succeed, but when you fail, it’s clear what you did wrong. Then you can make changes and learn.
~ Reinhold Messner
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