George Leigh Mallory Quotes

Because It's There. (when Asked Why He Wanted To Climb Everest)

I Look Back On Tremendous Efforts & Exhaustion & Dismal Looking Out Of A Tent Door On To A Dismal World Of Snow And Vanishing Hopes - & Yet, & Yet, & Yet There Have Been A Good Many Things To See The Other Side.

Because It Is There [famous Explanation For Wanting To Climb Mount Everest].

Mountaineers Have Often Observed A Lack Of Clarity In Their Mental State At High Altitudes; It Is Difficult For The Stupid Mind To Observe How Stupid It Is.

The First Question Which You Will Ask And Which I Must Try To Answer Is This; What Is The Use Of Climbing Mount Everest? And My Answer Must At Once Be, It Is No Use. There Is Not The Slightest Prospect Of Any Gain Whatsoever.

The Highest Of The World's Mountains, It Seems, Has To Make But A Single Gesture Of Magnificence To Be The Lord Of All, Vast In Unchallenged And Isolated Supremacy.

For The Stone From The Top For Geologists, The Knowledge Of The Limits Of Endurance For The Doctors, But Above All For The Spirit Of Adventure To Keep Alive The Soul Of Man.

Half The Charm Of Climbing Mountains Is Born In Visions Preceding This Experience - Visions Of What Is Mysterious, Remote, Inaccessible.

My Mind Is In A State Of Constant Rebellion. I Believe That Will Always Be So.

One Comes To Bless The Absolute Bareness, Feeling That Here Is A Pure Beauty Of Form, A Kind Of Ultimate Harmony.

Just To Lie Here In The Sun With Great White Peaks All Around Me And The Biggest Glacier In Europe At My Feet, To Eat From Time To Time, To Sleep A Little And Dream A Great Deal- It Is A Heavenly Existence.

Gradually, Very Gradually, We Saw The Great Mountain Sides And Glaciers And Aretes, Now One Fragment And Now Another Through The Floating Rifts, Until Far Higher In The Sky Than Imagination Had Dared To Suggest The White Summit Of Everest Appeared.