George Leigh Mallory Quotes

#1. - Why do you want to climb Mt. Everest, Sir? - Because it is there.

George Leigh Mallory

#2. We will stomp to the top with the wind in our teeth.

George Leigh Mallory

#3. 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.

George Leigh Mallory

#4. 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.

George Leigh Mallory

#5. Why do we travel to remote locations? To prove our adventurous spirit or to tell stories about incredible things? We do it to be alone amongst friends and to find ourselves in a land without man.

George Leigh Mallory

#6. The greatest danger in life is not to take the adventure.

George Leigh Mallory

#7. 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.

George Leigh Mallory

#8. Half the charm of climbing mountains is born in visions preceding this experience - visions of what is mysterious, remote, inaccessible.

George Leigh Mallory

#9. One must conquer, achieve, get to the top; one must know the end to be convinced that one can win the end - to know there's no dream that mustn't be dared ...

George Leigh Mallory

#10. Because it's there. (when asked why he wanted to climb Everest)

George Leigh Mallory

#11. 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.

George Leigh Mallory

#12. 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.

George Leigh Mallory

#13. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money.

George Leigh Mallory

#14. 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.

George Leigh Mallory

#15. Why climb Mount Everest? Because it's there.

George Leigh Mallory

#16. One comes to bless the absolute bareness, feeling that here is a pure beauty of form, a kind of ultimate harmony.

George Leigh Mallory

#17. Because it is there [famous explanation for wanting to climb Mount Everest].

George Leigh Mallory