Royal Robbins Quotes

#1. When it's been a long day of climbing, and I feel like I can't go any farther, I concentrate on the next three feet. And then the next three feet; and then the next three feet. Pretty soon, I'm at the top.

Royal Robbins

#2. With the best equipment in the world the man with poor judgment is in mortal danger.

Royal Robbins

#3. My ambition was to become the best climber and I never did. I think that goal was a wrong goal. A better one is to put more emphasis on enjoyment and on getting a rounded experience and on things like friendship, rather than on sheer achievement.

Royal Robbins

#4. I had the unique experience the next day: placing sixteen bolts in a row. It was just blank and there was no way around. But it was a route worth bolting for, and after a time I began to take an almost perverse joy in it, or at least in doing a good job.

Royal Robbins

#5. Our ascent, of course, does not end the possibility for new accomplishments on El Capitan. The day will probably come when this climb will be done in five days, perhaps less; and a younger generation will make a new route on the west face.

Royal Robbins

#6. A simple equation exists between freedom and numbers: the more people, the less freedom.

Royal Robbins

#7. Climbing is a great game-great not in spite of the demands it makes, but because of them. Great because it will not let us give half of ourselves-it demands all of us. It demands our best.

Royal Robbins

#8. Before the deed comes the thought. Before the achievement comes the dream. Every mountain we climb, we first climb in our mind.

Royal Robbins

#9. Better we raise our skill than lower the climb

Royal Robbins

#10. Instead of the god of security, we bow to the greater god of freedom, the freedom to take risks and master danger in order to be intensely alive.

Royal Robbins

#11. A first ascent is a creation in the same sense as is a painting or a song

Royal Robbins

#12. The rock is a field of battle between our weakness and our strength. We wouldn't touch rock if we were perfectly self-controlled. And he who would climb and live must continuously wage this battle and never let folly win. It's an outrageously demanding proposition. But I never said it was easy.

Royal Robbins