Maurice Herzog Quotes

The true alpinist doesn't want any infrastructure, he wants to go into the wild. And the odds of getting killed there are relatively high. And most people are sensible enough not to want that.

The art of climbing is to go where you go knowing that you could die, but you don't die. That is adventure.

I'd rather climb Everest than go for a walk in the park.

If you live a life of make-believe, your life isn't worth anything until you do something that does challenge your reality. And to me, sailing the open ocean is a real challenge, because it's life or death.

I enjoy every climb - maybe it's because it's a literal dance between life and death.

I'm a man's man. I go out climbing and live outdoors.

Mountaineering is one of the most difficult sports - we are away from routine life for days, living in tents, and it requires high degree of physical and mental strength.

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.

I decided to fly through the air and live in the sunlight and enjoy life as much as I could.

If there was the opportunity to climb a mountain, or to go ballooning, or some adventurous activity, I would always be keen to do it. I loved the countryside.

It's too bad that one has to conceive of sports as being the only arena where risks are, for all of life is risk exercise. That's the only way to live more freely, and more interestingly.

A woman can walk miles without making one single step forward. As a child born in a harem, I instinctively knew that to live is to open closed doors. To live is to look outside. To live is to step out. Life is trespassing.

I'm kind of obsessed by Everest and all those men that mountaineer and take themselves to extreme limits.

Life is about daring to carry out your ideas. And for me, it always comes back to the wilderness, nature, mountains.

The art of climbing is the art of survival. The best climber is the man or woman going in the most crazy places but surviving.

Adventure has to do with private, personal experiences. But, the possibilities, there are millions of unclimbed mountains - I have seen in the Eastern part of Tibet, mountains 6,000-6,500 meters high, vertical walls twice as tall as the Eiger... but nobody is going there, because they aren't 8,000-meter peaks.

I don't really think about why I climb, I just simply love it.

For me, climbing has always been about adventure and that involves difficulties, danger and exposure, so I deliberately set out to climb with as little equipment as possible.

The goal of climbing big, dangerous mountains should be to attain some sort of spiritual and personal growth, but this won't happen if you compromise away the entire process.

There is probably no pleasure equal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp; but it is a pleasure which is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in it.

A few hours of mountain climbing make a blackguard and a saint two rather similar creatures.

There's a wonderful saying that's dead wrong. 'Why did you climb the mountain?' 'I climbed the mountain because it was there.' That's utter nonsense...You climbed the mountain because you were there, and you were curious if you could do it. You wondered what it would be like.

Honestly, I do not experience fear in the mountains. On the contraryI feel my shoulders straightening, squaring, like the birds as they straighten their wings. I enjoy the freedom and the altitude. It is only when I return to life below that I feel the world's weight on my shoulders.

You can't call it an adventure unless it's tinged with danger. The greatest danger in life, though, is not taking the adventure at all. To have the objective of a life of ease is death. I think we've all got to go after our own Everest.

Dig into life with wild roving abandon, opening your mind to the delicious possibilities that perplex the mind, entice the heart, and excite the spirit.