Top 900 Climbing Quotes & Sayings

Explore popular Climbing quotes.
Last updated on April 14, 2025.
One of the things that separates climbing from other sports is how independent and personal it is. With most sports, you either win or lose, but climbing is about your own personal experience.
Accidents on big mountains happen when people's ambitions cloud their good judgment. Good climbing is about climbing with heart and with instinct, not ambition and pride.
Everest is not real climbing. It's rich people climbing. It's a trophy on the wall, and they're done... When I say I wish I'd never gone, I really mean that. — © Jon Krakauer
Everest is not real climbing. It's rich people climbing. It's a trophy on the wall, and they're done... When I say I wish I'd never gone, I really mean that.
A lot of people confuse free climbing with free solo. Free climbing is when we use ropes, but we only make upward progress with our bodies.
I've been a really big fan of climbing. I really got into it when I watched the show 'Beyond the Limit' about climbing Mount Everest.
Social climbing and power climbing -- the two are often synonymous -- are what make Washington run. ... If there are more than two people together, if there are three, one of them is climbing.
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.
I can see the time coming when I won't need to be out there in the upper pyramid of climbing, but the things you gain from a lifetime of climbing are worth communicating.
I am at a climbing area called the Wendenstock in Switzerland. This area has some of the best quality multi-pitch climbing I have seen on limestone. There is about a two-hour approach on one of the steepest grass slopes I have ever seen. The setting is amazing.
One of the frustrating things for people who miss the first rally in a bull market is that they wait for the big correction and it never comes. The market just keeps climbing and climbing. It feeds on itself in frenzied fashion and propels prices considerably higher for six months or so, and sometimes longer.
The perception is that I've always made winning look easy. People think it's easy, but they don't see what's behind it, the time away from the family. The days spent climbing, training out in all weather, climbing but trying to keep the speed for the sprint.
I say we are climbing out of a ditch and we are climbing up.
that's exactly what climbing is to me. ... Expression. What a painter does on a canvas, what a writer can do with the twenty-six letters in the alphabet. It's the key that unlocks my spirit, the clearest representation of who I am. When I'm focused, climbing is almost an unconscious act for me. I don't have to drive myself, I'm already driven.
Mountain climbing is my passion, and to empower women through my expeditions is the reason. I am doing the mountain climbing to empower women.
I would like to be myself in life - my real self. My ego, though, is powerful and not necessarily working in my best interest all the time. Even when climbing I can't escape the clutches of my ego. The reason why I started climbing was because I could be free from myself.
Because grades in climbing are subjective, I am fan of making big gaps between climbing grades.
I look at climbing not so much as standing on the top as seeing the other side. There are always other horizons in front of you, other horizons to go beyond and that's what I like about climbing.
The strongest climbers aren’t always the happiest or nicest to be around; neither are some of them coming from the purest motivation. Climbing another V17 is not going to save the world! This activity of 'rock climbing' is merely one of many ways to exist, pass the time, and evolve and grow from one moment to the next. That’s all.
I love playing the Fillmore. I love the walk from the hotel and climbing up those old, iron stairs that lead to the stage. I imagine Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix and the Doors and all those other great bands climbing those same stairs.
I've done archery for about six weeks, and rock climbing, tree climbing - and combat, running and vaulting. But also yoga and things like that, to stay catlike!
Writing a screenplay is like climbing a mountain. When you’re climbing, all you can see is the rock in front of you and the rock directly above you. You can’t see where you’ve come from or where you’re going.
Once you let yourself believe that you've gotten to the top, you've lost sight of the real goal. Which is to keep climbing no matter what. And by climbing, I don't mean trying to out do yourself with even more accomplishments. Instead, what I mean is that just when we think we have done something well, we should start looking at the other areas of our lives that need attention.
If you're climbing big routes that'll take you 16 hours, or, like, El Capitan, you have to take something like a big, robust sandwich. Climbing isn't like running or triathlons, where you have to constantly be eating blocks, gels, and pure sugar. Climbing is relatively slow, so you can pretty much eat anything and digest it as you climb.
I think one of the things we learned from the physicists and also the theoretical biologists is the idea that when you're dealing with very complex systems you're going to get a large variety of behavior which can be interpreted as hill climbing, but hill climbing with a lot of modifications, hill climbing with big jumps occasionally.
I enjoyed climbing with other people, good friends, but I did quite a lot of solo climbing, too.
Climbing is never going to be 100% safe, but the climbing I do with work is done under much stricter guidelines than the climbing I do in my spare time.
I think speed climbing is kind of an artificial discipline. Climbers compete on the same holds and train on the same holds, which doesn't have much in common with the climbing philosophy in my opinion.
You might need a little more nuance in personal relationships. Climbing the work ladder is different from climbing the social ladder.
There may be more to learn from climbing the same mountain a hundred times than by climbing a hundred different mountains.
Seven years ago, when I started free soloing long, hard routes in Yosemite - climbing without a rope, gear or a partner - I did it because it seemed like the purest, most elegant way to scale big walls. Climbing, especially soloing, felt like a grand adventure, but I never dreamed it could be a profession.
If you're going climbing with young people, you get very, very used to seeing your climbing partner as a tiny little dot.
One of the frustrating things for people who miss the first rally in a bull market is that they wait for the big correction, and it never comes. The market just keeps climbing and climbing.
We search out the most perfect pieces of rock. It's so amazing that these formations are so perfect for climbing on. It's almost as if they were created for climbing. You're taking these random rock formations and you're bringing to it this interaction. It transforms it from being this random rock into almost this piece of art. It's almost like a sculpture or something. Just by finding the handholds, finding that line up the rock. Every climb is different, has its own unique set of movements and body positions. Climbing and my appreciation for nature are totally intertwined.
For me, the most relevant factor in my ability to perform well on the rock has to do with my love of climbing. After nearly thirty years of climbing, I still love to do it whenever possible!
A man doesn't go to drink coffee after climbing, coffee is integral part of the climbing.
In the journey to peace and to reunification, I always emphasize that we are not climbing just one mountain, we are climbing a range of mountains and, of course in this process, we will face a lot of difficulties. However, peace will be settled and the two Koreas will achieve reunification.
In climbing, a fundamental thing is to want to do something you've never done before. That's the beauty of climbing, whether you're a girl or boy, seasoned veteran or beginner. You're not sure you'll be able to do this, but you try, and discovering you are capable is an amazing experience and an amazing feeling.
Climbing is actually a great sport for blind people and that carried me on to climbing bigger and bigger mountains, snowy mountains, ice faces, and developing different techniques to be able to do that.
Climbing is an amazing, unique sport, and I want to share that with as many people as possible. I want to be an ambassador for the sport and raise the profile. I try to take advantage of any opportunity to share climbing with the world.
Yosemite has the most impressive and accessible granite big walls in the world. The rock is amazing. And because of that, it's been the mecca for climbing in the U.S. - and the world to a large degree - for all of climbing history. It's the place to test yourself against the historic routes of the past.
There are so many aspects to the sport. It never gets boring because you always do something different. Maybe you train really hard on a sport climbing and get tunnel vision for a while, but as soon as you burn out a bit, you concentrate on another aspect, like traveling. You see the world through the vehicle of climbing.
I failed on a climbing problem eight times before realizing I was climbing as high as I knew I could and then letting go. On my next try I climbed with no thought of failure and reached the top. We cannot know what we can do in advance. The only way to find out is to go all-out trying, thinking only of success.
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.
Climbing is about pioneering new routes, exploring new ground, facing the unknown. Those hooked on climbing the normal routes on the eight-thousanders will miss all theat. They are wasting the best years of their climbing lives.
What I like about climbing that it's so broad. For certain periods I can focus on sport climbing and then I can shift my focus more on the bouldering or I can shift my focus on climbing in the mountains.
I think it's great that so many people are enjoying climbing. I've always loved climbing; I don't see why other people wouldn't enjoy it just as much. As long as everyone does their best to respect the areas in which they're climbing, I don't see how the growth of the sport could be a bad thing.
If you're concentrating on climbing , you can't be concentrating on money and cars and houses and wives and boyfriends. And when you come back to deal with them, you have a better view of their reliative importance. Climbing puts things in perspective again.
Climbing, as my grandmother said, it's a pretty frivolous thing. She always wondered when I was going to get a real job. But climbing is a real job for me now, and I enjoy it. It's a gift that I'm able to do it, share adventure and motivation with people.
be mindful of the prayers you send pray hard but pray with care for the tears you are crying now are just your answered prayers letters of light we scale merrily, move mysteriously around so that when you think you're climbing up, man, in fact you're climbing down
Wall climbing is an offshoot of the more traditional sport of mountain climbing. It is very difficult; one must combine a great deal of stamina with the ability of a world-class gymnast.
It's kind of too movie-like to say, "When I started climbing, I knew I wanted to climb Everest some day." Instead, I just started rock climbing as a kid, when I was 16, and then I started teaching and a buddy of mine started taking me out.
In a general sense, I think it's bad to bring too much money into climbing, since it takes away a little from the beauty of the mountains. But at the same time, I can't blame the Nepali government - or the Indian, Pakistani or Chinese, depending on where you're climbing - from wanting to capitalize on foreign climbers.
I travel and climb about eight months a year. That's pretty great training in itself. When I am home, I do a lot of bouldering, gym climbing, and specific strength training in a effort to get stronger for climbing.
I guess I don't try to justify climbing or defend it, because I can't. I see climbing as a compulsion that, at its best, is no worse than many other compulsions - golf or stamp collecting or growing world-record pumpkins.
Climbing is my lifelong journey. And in the same way you go running and you have days where you really feel in tune, you have some days where you don't feel that good. It's this never-ending process. Accepting that and enjoying that for what it is, that's really where the life of climbing is.
In particular, with climbing, we're climbing on these surfaces that Mother Nature has created. We search out the most perfect pieces of rock. It's so amazing that these formations are so perfect for climbing on. It's almost as if they were created for climbing.
Climbing is wildly diverse, ranging from the rock-climbing wall at the local health club to the cutting edge of major Himalayan Alpine ascents. — © Jeff Lowe
Climbing is wildly diverse, ranging from the rock-climbing wall at the local health club to the cutting edge of major Himalayan Alpine ascents.
I've been mistagged. I like ice climbing, but I do a lot more rock climbing. Ice is just more mysterious and changeable than rock.
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.
Historically, many of the great names in alpine climbing seemed to have just gone climbing as training. In fact, the model alpinist has often portrayed himself in literature as a half-crazed nonconformist, living life on the edge every moment he's sober enough to climb. It is true that amazing feats of skill and daring have been accomplished using this rather random approach. For some climbers that "life on the edge" approach may be the only way they can accomplish these feats, but there are far better methods to prepare for the challenges of alpine climbing.
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