I've always hated the danger part of climbing, and it's great to come down again because it's safe.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the relief that comes with safety after facing a dangerous challenge like climbing.
Edmund Hillary reflects on the paradox of climbing, acknowledging the inherent dangers involved, yet also appreciating the contrast of safety that follows after successfully overcoming such risks. This highlights the idea that courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to embrace challenges for the sense of accomplishment they bring.
In practice
This quote can inspire climbers to reflect on their own experiences with fear and safety.
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.
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.
Ever since the morning of May 29, 1953, when Tenzing Norgay and I became the first climbers to step onto the summit of Mount Everest, I've been called a great adventurer.
If you haven't found something worth dying for, you're not fit to live.
His whole body shakes with the strain as he tries to lift something he knows he can't lift, something everybody knows he can't lift. But, for just a second, when we hear the cement grind at our feet, we think, by golly, he might do it.
Let your tears roll tonight, but tomorrow you will start the battle again. What defeats us, always, is just our own sorrow.
I've been in this struggle for many years now. I understand racism. I understand that there are a lot of people in this country who don't care about the problems of the inner city. We have to fight every day that we get up for every little thing that we get. And so I keep struggling.
I landed in New Jersey, where I could barely speak English, and I had to figure out what a short brown kid was going to do in this big white world.
I don't run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run toward it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your feet.
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