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Life's a bit like mountaineering - never look down.

Edmund Hillary

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Edmund Hillary
Age: 88 †
Born: 1919
Born: July 20
Died: 2008
Died: January 11
Autobiographer
Beekeeper
Diplomat
Explorer
Mountaineer
Philanthropist
Tāmaki Makaurau
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary
Sir Edmund Hillary
Ed Hillary
Never
Life
Like
Mountaineering
Bits
Look
Looks

More quotes by Edmund Hillary

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My most important projects have been the building and maintaining of schools and medical clinics for my dear friends in the Himalaya and helping restore their beautiful monasteries, too.
Edmund Hillary
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I never talk about being leaders and all the rest of it. I can only remember one or two occasions in my life when I actually issued orders, and I felt thoroughly miserable after doing it.
Edmund Hillary
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We had so much in common [with June Hillary] that we just carried on with life as we had been doing. It wasn't easy, but it was - I realise now that it was the only thing to do.
Edmund Hillary
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Mount Everest, you beat me the first time, but I'll beat you the next time because you've grown all you are going to grow... but I'm still growing!
Edmund Hillary
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When I was 50 years old, I actually decided to draw up a list of half a dozen things that I really hadn't done very well, and I was going to make efforts to improve. One of them was skiing, and I really did become a very much better skier.
Edmund Hillary
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Once I've decided to do something, I do usually try to carry it through to fruition.
Edmund Hillary
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June [Hillary] is a very strong influence in my life and particularly now in my ancient years there is no doubt at all: if there's a decision to be made, quite often June is the one who makes it.
Edmund Hillary
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It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.
Edmund Hillary
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I always refused to give in if there was some argument with my father. Whether it was true or not, I refused to admit it and so often I would - well, tell lies, perhaps. I would either do that or change the story. Particularly if I felt that my father was being unjust, then I was very strongly motivated to not accept his ruling.
Edmund Hillary
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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.
Edmund Hillary
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It's all bullshit on Everest these days.
Edmund Hillary
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Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.
Edmund Hillary
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I was definitely seriously affected [with wifw and daughter deaths], no question, but I learnt to devote myself to the things that we'd been doing for years and years and slowly the pain drifted away.
Edmund Hillary
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No one remembers who climbed Mount Everest the second time.
Edmund Hillary
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Waihi Beach. It's a lovely beach, and we're right on the shore and I get a lot of pleasure out of waking up in the morning and hearing the waves roll in.
Edmund Hillary
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We shared a philosophy together [with June Hillary]. We believed very strongly in the welfare of helping other people, particularly the Third World people.
Edmund Hillary
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I have a number of heroes I still have warm feelings about. [Derek] Shackleton, for instance, was definitely, and still is, one of my great heroes.
Edmund Hillary
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It was wrong if there was a man suffering altitude problems and was huddled under a rock, just to lift your hat, say 'good morning' and pass on by, he said. Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain.
Edmund Hillary
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I think it all comes down to motivation. If you really want to do something, you will work hard for it.
Edmund Hillary
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George Lowe was the one who opened the mail, and George started laughing uproariously and I looked up at him in astonishment and said, What's so funny? And he said, You've been given a title, and I said, Ha, ha, big joke. I didn't believe him but, sure enough, in this letter it indicated that the Queen had given me a title.
Edmund Hillary