.

Brassmonkey wrote: “Climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are nought without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste; look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the end.”

"Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion."
Anatoli Boukreev

"You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know."
René Daumal

What was it Hillary said? ... It only counts if you make it down alive ...

"Because it’s there" -George Mallory

Anderl Meier: You’re very good. I have really enjoyed climbing with you.

Dr. Jonathan Hemlock: We’ll make it.

Anderl Meier: I don’t think so. But we shall continue with style.

"Are you healthy?”,
“Shall I turn my head and cough?”
“No known infections?!?”
“Only the usual: syphilis, running sores and clap. :D

I actually started making a list of quotesblike these a few months ago. In no particular order from my list:

Climbing was all about spirit, being in nature, walking away from the comforts of society based on consuming the earth and plundering its resources... Alpinist#53 p58.

The best journeys answer questions that in the beginning you didn't even think to ask. 180* South. Jeff Johnson

I’m a slow walker, but I never walk back. Abraham Lincoln

Discovery of "virgin" islands was mostly just European ignorance exposed. Jeff Long, Alpinist #54

"you can't rape the willing"

It may not be in any climbing literature but it should be

"Twight wanted desperately to climb the Eiger, while I wanted to have climbed it."

Jon Krakauer

Regarding the passion and allure of travelling virgin paths up into the unknown:

I, too, throbbed with emotion as I gazed at Beauty and the mystery...of Beauty...

Emile Javelle, after his FA of the Tour Noir, Aiguilles Dorées, about 1870

"You can't belay a man who's falling in love."

Ed Abbey

There are times in life, you can count them in minutes, when you expereince an awareness far greater than you usually find in a whole year.
~ F.M. Dostoevsky

Anyone have some good Warren Harding quotes?

I recall enjoying his "Downward Bound" book, but don't have a copy.

I'm partial to Robbin's "fail falling"

Teaching kids to toprope they inevitably say "I can't do it!" My response is always, "prove it."

I seem to be able to relate to "feeding The rat"

Prove the impossible

This quote runs through my head often "It is not an adventure until something goes wrong"....yvon chouinard

'5.8 my ass!'

As said by my buddy Conrad as he squirmed his way through an off-with section.

Love threads like these. I'll try to limit myself.. I have a list going that's a few pages long by now. An entire page devoted to Twight.. hahah. Man can write.

"There are a dozen reasons for climbing, some bad, and I've used most of them myself. The worst are fame and money. Commonly people cite exploration or discovery, but that's rarely relevant in today's world. The only good reason to climb is to improve yourself."
-Yvon Chouinard

"Confidence in your abilities is earned."
-Mark Twight

"Some people see no more in climbing than an escape from the harsh realities of modern times. This is not only uninformed but unfair...there can be an element of escapism in mountaineering, but this should never overshadow its real essence, which is not escape but victory over your own human frailty."
-Walter Bonatti

“Hardship is inevitable."
-Tommy Caldwell

It's not originally a climbing quote but it's associated with Mason's antarctic expedition.

 “Just have one more try—it’s dead easy to die,

It’s the keeping-on-living that’s hard.”

Robert Service

Nick Goldsmith wrote:I seem to be able to relate to "feeding The rat"