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.

— Edmund Hillary

Edmund Hillary Quotes

When you’re climbing at high altitudes, life can get pretty miserable.

— Edmund Hillary

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.

— Edmund Hillary

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.

— Edmund Hillary

The Sherpas play a very important role in most mountaineering expeditions, and in fact many of them lead along the ridges and up to the summit.

— Edmund Hillary

Some day I’m going to climb Everest.

— Edmund Hillary

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.

— Edmund Hillary

When I was 50 years old, I actually decided to draw up a list of half a dozen things that I really hadn’t done very well, and I was going to make efforts to improve. One of them was skiing, and I really did become a very much better skier.

— Edmund Hillary

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.

— Edmund Hillary

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

— Edmund Hillary

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

— Edmund Hillary

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.

— Edmund Hillary

Once I’ve decided to do something, I do usually try to carry it through to fruition.

— Edmund Hillary

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

— Edmund Hillary

I don’t know if I particularly want to be remembered for anything. I personally do not think I’m a great gift to the world. I’ve been very fortunate.

— Edmund Hillary

Many people have been getting too casual about climbing Everest. I forecast a disaster many times.

— Edmund Hillary

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.

— Edmund Hillary

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

— Edmund Hillary

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.

— Edmund Hillary

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

— Edmund Hillary

There is precious little in civilization to appeal to a yeti.

— Edmund Hillary
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