Royal Robbins Quotes

#1. To have access to literature, world literature, was to escape the prison of national vanity, of philistinism, of compulsory provincialism, of inane schooling, of imperfect destinies and bad luck.

Susan Sontag

#2. ... at four o'clock in the morning, when the world is full of magic, things may be safely said that may not be uttered at any other time, so long as the person who listens believes in the same kind of magic as the person who speaks.

Robin McKinley

#3. Our unconscious is not more animal than our conscious, it is often even more human.

Edward Bond

#4. 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

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

Royal Robbins

#6. The First Amendment is not a blanket freedom-of-information act. The constitutional newsgathering freedom means the media can go where the public can, but enjoys no superior right of access.

George Will

#7. It was a struggle treating Claude Rains as my lover, but we were friendly. It was no great love affair.

Gloria Stuart

#8. Enlist the interests of stern Morality and religious Enthusiasm in the cause of Political Liberty, as in the time of the old Puritans, and it will be irresistible.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

#9. There's an intimacy in listening to somebody's lies, I've always thought
you learn more about someone from the things they wish were true than from the things that actually are.

Jennifer DuBois

#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. Better we raise our skill than lower the climb

Royal Robbins

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

Royal Robbins

#13. 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

#14. 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

#15. Just when you think you have a twisted mind, crazy ideas, & no fear to make them known, you find out through experience you're not the only one.

April Mae Monterrosa

#16. Feminism is rooted in racial rights and gender rights, and all of those things intersect, and to say that that's not something you can stand behind - it confuses me. I think it's a really great word.

Mackenzie Davis

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

Royal Robbins

#18. 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

#19. 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

#20. 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

#21. Thought before word. Never word before thought.

Suzy Kassem

#22. Spiritual Intelligence is the Intuitive knowledge of the Self, others, situations and techniques to achieve the desired objectives of the world.

Awdhesh Singh

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

Royal Robbins