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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
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Diplomat
Explorer
Mountaineer
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Tāmaki Makaurau
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary
Sir Edmund Hillary
Ed Hillary
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More quotes by 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
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I have been seriously afraid at times but have used my fear as a stimulating factor rather than allowing it to paralyse me. My abilities have not been outstanding, but I have had sufficient strength and determination to meet my challenges and have usually managed to succeed with them.
Edmund Hillary
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While on top of Everest, I looked across the valley towards the great peak Makalu and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed. It showed me that even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn't the end of everything. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges.
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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Once I've decided to do something, I do usually try to carry it through to fruition.
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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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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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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Everest you won't change, but I will get better...I will conquer you.
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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On the summit of Everest, I had a feeling of great satisfaction to be first there.
Edmund Hillary
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I had a very strong desire to carry out adventures, but in those early days I didn't actually do any. I just dreamt about it.
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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As a youngster I was a great dreamer, reading many books of adventure and walking lonely miles with my head in the clouds.
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 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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Strong motivation is the most important factor in getting you to the top
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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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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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