I have enjoyed great satisfaction from my climb of Everest and my trips to the poles. But there's no doubt that my most worthwhile things have been the building of schools and medical clinics.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes finding fulfillment in creating lasting contributions to society rather than just personal achievements.
In this quote, Edmund Hillary reflects on his remarkable achievements in exploration, such as climbing Everest and visiting the poles. However, he places greater value on his philanthropic efforts, particularly the establishment of schools and medical clinics, highlighting that true satisfaction comes from making a positive impact on others' lives and contributing to their well-being and education.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of community service.
I think I mainly climb mountains because I get a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I never attempt to analyze these things too thoroughly, but I think that all mountaineers do get a great deal of satisfaction out of overcoming some challenge which they think is very difficult for them, or which perhaps may be a little dangerous.
Despite all I have seen and experiences, I still get the same thrill out of glimpsing a tiny patch of snow in a high mountain gully and feel the same urge to climb toward it.
I've always hated the danger part of climbing, and it's great to come down again because it's safe.
Even when you're 50, you can make the effort to improve your standards.
Many people have been getting too casual about climbing Everest. I forecast a disaster many times.
I am a lucky man. I have had a dream and it has come true, and that is not a thing that happens often to men.
I had great mentors in my parents who always sought to understand the world around them. And they would push me to really think things through.
Coaching is unlocking a person's potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.
Teaching is the only major occupation of man for which we have not yet developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance. In teaching we rely on the 'naturals,' the ones who somehow know how to teach.
I don't teach writing classes anymore, and I'm really glad I don't, because I would feel very strange about telling people, 'Go out there and be a writer, and make a living from it.'
I am not conscious of working especially hard, or of 'working' at all. Writing and teaching have always been, for me, so richly rewarding that I don't think of them as work in the usual sense of the word.
The Arts and Sciences, essential to the prosperity of the State and to the ornament of human life, have a primary claim to the encouragement of every lover of his country and mankind.
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