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If I'm selecting a group, the first thing I look for is a record of achievement . . . If (candidates achieve) in small things, there's a very good chance they'll perform well in big things.

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
Thing
Chance
Perform
Good
Bigs
Achievement
Things
Look
Group
Wells
Record
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Groups
Well
Records
Looks
Achieve
Selecting
First
Small
Candidates

More quotes by Edmund Hillary

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I think my strengths perhaps are that I'm determined. I may not be the best climber in the world, but I do like to sort of succeed and so that tends to drive me on, as it were, and I don't give up too easily.
Edmund Hillary
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I've often thought about that and the only suitable member to join me on that climb [to Everest] was George Lowe: he was strong, a good man on a mountain, with a great sense of humour, and I liked that. I think George and I could've done that together ... I've probably never told George that.
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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Motivation is the single most important factor in any sort of success.
Edmund Hillary
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My relationship with the mountains actually started when I was 16. Every year, a group used to be taken from Auckland Grammar down to the Tangariro National Park for a skiing holiday.
Edmund Hillary
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Becoming a 'Sir' is slightly uncomfortable at first, although it is a considerable honor. It is amazing how quickly you become accustomed to it.
Edmund Hillary
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The Sherpas play a very important role in most mountaineering expeditions, and in fact many of them lead along the ridges and up to the summit.
Edmund Hillary
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Many people have been getting too casual about climbing Everest. I forecast a disaster many times.
Edmund Hillary
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June [Hillary] had been doing all these things - the Himalayas and all the rest of it - so we had done things together for a long time, and, particularly as far as our Sherpas were concerned, we had a very sound, I think, philosophy. So that made it very easy for us to agree on what should be done.
Edmund Hillary
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I really haven't liked the commercialization of mountaineering, particularly of Mt. Everest. By paying $65,000, you can be conducted to the summit by a couple of good guides.
Edmund Hillary
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On the summit of Everest, I had a feeling of great satisfaction to be first there.
Edmund Hillary
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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.
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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Boredom has always been a problem.
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
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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 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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I have discovered that even the mediocre can have adventures and even the fearful can achieve.
Edmund Hillary
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No one remembers who climbed Mount Everest the second time.
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