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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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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
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More quotes by Edmund Hillary

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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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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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Environmental problems are really social problems anyway. They begin with people as the cause and end with people as the victims
Edmund Hillary
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I don't spend a lot of time thinking about dying, but I like to think that I've - if it did occur - that I would die peacefully and not make too much of a fuss about it.
Edmund Hillary
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I was a dreamer when I was at high school and even primary school. I used to dream about doing adventurous things.
Edmund Hillary
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[Derek] Shackleton was a man who - it's probably arrogant to say it - but he was a little bit like me. He undertook incredible dangers and carried on over the sea and over the ice and all the rest of it. He was a remarkable man.
Edmund Hillary
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I think the whole attitude towards climbing Mount Everest has become rather horrifying. The people just want to get to the top. They don't give a damn for anybody else who may be in distress and it doesn't impress me at all that they leave someone lying under a rock to die.
Edmund Hillary
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I think Himalayan climbers tend to mature fairly late. I think most of the successful Himalayan climbers have ranged from 28 to just over 40, really.
Edmund Hillary
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I found fear stimulating. Particularly after you've done something that you'd been frightened of at the time, but you carried through and did the job.
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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I have the challenges sort of already there and as a consequence my companions feel a considerable desire to do this, too, and they feel very put out if they are left in the cold, so there we have it. We have me who has lots of ideas and then we have a very good team who wish - who are persuaded almost - to take part in these challenges.
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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I started to become more active and when I was at Auckland Grammar I went for the first time to the mountains. I went to Ruapehu and for the first time I saw snow. I had never seen snow before and for 10 days the group of us had a marvellous time.
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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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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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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It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.
Edmund Hillary
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Life's a bit like mountaineering - never look down.
Edmund Hillary
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Everest you won't change, but I will get better...I will conquer you.
Edmund Hillary
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I have to admit I do get a bit depressed at times and you know I think about the good old days when I was charging ahead.
Edmund Hillary