A Quote by Henry David Thoreau

The tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts of the globe, whither it is a slight insult to the gods to climb and pry intotheir secrets, and try their effect on our humanity. Only daring and insolent men, perchance, go there. Simple races, as savages, do not climb mountains,--their tops are sacred and mysterious tracts never visited by them. Pomola is always angry with those who climb the summit of Ktaadn.

Henry David Thoreau

Quote Topics

Always Among Angry Climb Daring Effect Globe Go Gods Humanity Insolent Insult Men Mountains Mysterious Never Only Our Parts Pry Races Sacred Savages Secrets Simple Slight Summit Them Those Tops Try Unfinished Visited

Quote Author

Henry David Thoreau
American - Author
July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862

You don't climb mountains without a team, you don't climb mountains without being fit, you don't climb mountains without being prepared and you don't climb mountains without balancing the risks and rewards. And you never climb a mountain on accident - it has to be intentional.

Mark Udall

You soon realize that the peak you've climbed was one of the lowest, that the mountain was part of a chain of mountains, that there are still so many, so many mountains to climb...And the more you climb, the more you want to climb - even though you're dead tired.

Indira Gandhi

Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some are given a chance to climb, but they refuse. They cling to the realm, or the gods, or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.

George R. R. Martin

I used to climb mountains a lot; I decided to go to Pakistan to climb K2, the world's second-highest mountain. I didn't get quite to the top.

Greg Mortenson

I don't climb mountains. Mountains climb me. The mountain is myself. I climb on myself.

Nanao Sakaki

Faith can move mountains but let them happily fall down on the heads of other people. What's the point in moving mountains when it's so simple to climb over them?

Boris Vian

There are two kinds of people. Those who climb mountains and those who sit in the shadow of the mountains and critique the climbers.

Richard Paul Evans

In a sense everything that is exists to climb. All evolution is a climbing towards a higher form. Climbing for life as it reaches towards the consciousness, towards the spirit. We have always honored the high places because we sense them to be the homes of gods. In the mountains there is the promise of... something unexplainable. A higher place of awareness, a spirit that soars. So we climb... and in climbing there is more than a metaphor; there is a means of discovery.

Rob Parker

I feel like I'm doing what I love. If I can get out, shoot, film and climb, and be with my friends and family, I'm happy. It doesn't take a lot. I don't need to climb huge mountains. I have a deep connection with wilderness and the environment, and I'm thankful for that.

Jimmy Chin

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.

Friedrich Nietzsche

The Nose is a beautiful route. The best thing is that, in one day, you get to climb so much. You climb and climb and climb the whole day.

Adam Ondra

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

Greg Child

I have the tools to climb the mountain so I don't mind climbing mountains. I have climbed mountains since I was growing up in east London in Plaistow. I'm not scared of climbing mountains. When you get to the top, the view's great. That's what it's all about.

Sol Campbell

The climbing of earths heights, in itself, means little. That men and women want and try to climb them means everything. For it is the ultimate wisdom of the mountains that we are never so much human as when we are striving for what is beyond our grasp, and that there is no battle worth the winning save that against our own ignorance and fear.