50+ Inspiring Edmund Hillary Quotes And Famous Sayings

A collection of Edmund Hillary quotes including – It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves, and People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.

Quotes from Sir Edmund Hillary

Sir Edmund Hillary was a mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist best known as being the first climber to reach the top of Mount Everest.

Hailing from New Zealand, Edmund Hillary had a humble modesty whilst achieving great things.

As you can imagine, he is one of the most quoted adventurers of all time!

In this collection of Edmund Hillary Quotes, we've paired some of his most famous and thoughtful words of motivation together with beautiful images.

Please feel free to share them – you'll find buttons in the right hand corner of your screen!

Edmund Hillary Quote Collection

“It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves”

― Sir Edmund Hillary

“I was just an enthusiastic mountaineer of modest abilities who was willing to work quite hard and had the necessary imagination and determination. I was just an average bloke; it was the media that transformed me into a heroic figure. And try as I did, there was no way to destroy my heroic image. But as I learned through the years, as long as you didn’t believe all that rubbish about yourself, you wouldn’t come to much harm.”

— Edmund Hillary

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

― Edmund Hillary

“I think it all comes down to motivation. If you really want to do something, you will work hard for it.”

“My mother really was the strength in our family. She would sort of keep us in line and I admired her very much.”

“Motivation is the single most important factor in any sort of success.”

“You don't have to be a hero to accomplish great things—to compete. You can just be an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals.”

― Edmund Hillary

“People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.”

― Edmund Hillary”

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

Related: Enjoy the climb quotes

“If you only do what others have already done, you will only feel what others have already felt. However, if you choose to achieve something that no one has ever done, then you will have a satisfaction that no one else has ever had.”

― Sir Edmund Hillary

Edmund Hillary Quotes

“Polypro wicks away the sweat. Cotton absorbs it. Ergo, cotton is for suckers”

― Sir Edmund Hillary

While on top of Everest, I looked across the valley towards the great peak Makalu and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed. It showed me that even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn't the end of everything. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges.

– Edmund Hillary

“Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.”

― Edmund Hillary

“ It is still not hard to find a man who will adventure for the sake of a dream or one who will search, for the pleasure of searching, not for what he may find.”

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

“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.”

“My relationship with the mountains actually started when I was 16. Every year, a group used to be taken from Auckland Grammar down to the Tangariro National Park for a skiing holiday.”

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

“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.”

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

Sir Edmund Hillary Quotes

“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.”

“I’ve always hated the danger part of climbing, and it’s great to come down again because it’s safe … But there is something about building up a comradeship — that I still believe is the greatest of all feats — and sharing in the dangers with your company of peers. It’s the intense effort, the giving of everything you’ve got. It’s really a very pleasant sensation.”

— Edmund Hillary, New Zealand Mountaineer

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

“When you go to the mountains, you see them and you admire them. In a sense, they give you a challenge, and you try to express that challenge by climbing them.”

“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 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 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.”

“On the summit of Everest, I had a feeling of great satisfaction to be first there.”

“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 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.”

“Mount Everest, you beat me the first time, but I'll beat you the next time because you've grown all you are going to grow… but I'm still growing!”

“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.”

Inspiring Quotes by Edmund Hillary

“Waihi Beach. It's a lovely beach, and we're right on the shore and I get a lot of pleasure out of waking up in the morning and hearing the waves roll in.”

“It was wrong if there was a man suffering altitude problems and was huddled under a rock, just to lift your hat, say ‘good morning' and pass on by, he said. Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain.”

“Nothing can replace courage, a resounding motivation and that little bit of luck.”

“Strong motivation is the most important factor in getting you to the top”

“I will come again & conquer you because as a mountain you can't grow, but as a human, I can”

“My most important projects have been the building and maintaining of schools and medical clinics for my dear friends in the Himalaya and helping restore their beautiful monasteries, too.”

“I would like to be remembered for the schools and hospitals and bridges and all the other activities that we did with the Sherpas. Unquestionably, they are the things I feel that were the most worthwhile of everything I was involved in.”

“I am hell-bent for the South Pole, God willing and crevasses permitting.”

“You don't have to be intellectually bright to be a competent leader.”

“If you have plenty – more than enough – and someone else has nothing, then you should do something about it.”

Everest Quotes by Edmund Hillary

In later years, Sir Edmund Hillary railed against the commercialization of Mount Everest. One of the aspects he disliked (which I'm sure we can all agree on!), is the build up of trash left behind by climbers.

This first quote about Mount Everest by Edmund Hillary points it out bluntly.

“Mt Everest is now littered with junk from bottom to top.”

“In some ways I believe I epitomise the average New Zealander: I have modest abilities, I combine these with a good deal of determination, and I rather like to succeed.”

“Because my name appears in history books, most children think I am dead.”

People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.

Travel and Adventure Quotes

Have these quotes by Sir Edmund Hillary inspired you to look for a little more adventure? You might like to look at these other adventure quotes and inspirational travel quotes:

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