Climbing Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old climbing quotes, climbing sayings, and climbing proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

The problem with spending your life climbing up the ladder is that you will go right past Jesus, for he's coming down John Ortberg
Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery why we climb. Greg Child
Getting old is like climbing a mountain; you get a little out of breath, but the view is much better! Ingrid Bergman
Mountain climbing is my passion, and to empower women through my expeditions is the reason. Samina Baig
Climbing would be a great, truly wonderful thing if it weren't for all that damn climbing. John Ohrenschall
Climbing is this lifestyle activity that really works every muscle in your body. Chris Sharma
Climbing is often group activity and it's always inspiring to see how other people, who share your passions, do things. Fred Nicole
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. Gilbert K. Chesterton
A man does not climb a mountain without bringing some of it away with him, and leaving something of himself upon it. Martin Conway
Climbing is, above all, a matter of integrity. Gaston Rebuffat
Every mountain top is within reach if you just keep climbing. Barry Finlay
Once I had a better beat, I needed to have an even better one. And somewhere in that climbing, I lost sight of, sort of, my moral and ethical underpinnings. Jayson Blair
The secret to climbing up is to put your heart into your work. Jeffrey Gitomer
When you're climbing at high altitudes, life can get pretty miserable. Edmund Hillary
In climbing, having confidence in your partners is no small concern. One climber's actions can affect the welfare of the entire team. Jon Krakauer
Every climb is different, has its own unique set of movements and body positions. Climbing and my appreciation for nature are totally intertwined. Chris Sharma
When you go to the mountains, you see them and you admire them. In a sense, they give you a challenge, and you try to express that challenge by climbing them. Edmund Hillary
It is the climbing of the mountain that makes the view from the top so breathtaking. Richard C. Miller
In some ways, climbing in the clouds is comforting. You can no longer see how high off the ground you are. Tommy Caldwell
Writing about climbing is boring. I would rather go climbing. Chuck Pratt
Climbing the economic ladder has been very hard for me; I still feel a great deal of guilt towards those I left behind. Elena Ferrante
At its best, climbing becomes a life focus around which everything else must orbit and at its least is an excellent diversion from the real world. Todd Skinner
Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same position with creeping. A. C. Benson
Climbing may be hard, but it's easier than growing up. Ed Sklar
Life is like a mountain: after climbing up one side and sliding down the other, put up the sled. Josh Billings
After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. Nelson Mandela
Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall. Stephen Covey
Climbing is a process like yoga or running. We want to go to the spots where we're barely able to hold on. Those are the climbs that force us to become better athletes and grow as climbers. Chris Sharma
In climbing you are always faced with new problems in which you must perform using intuitive movements, and then later analyze them to figure out why they work, and then learn from them. Wolfgang Gullich
The climbing as a whole is not very esthetic or enjoyable; it is merely difficult. Yvon Chouinard
Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it. Andy Rooney
The harder you fall, the heavier your heart; the heavier your heart, the stronger you climb; the stronger you climb, the higher your pedestal. Criss Jami
Sometimes, that mountain you've been climbing, is just a grain of sand. Carrie Underwood
Climbing to the top demands strength, whether it is to the top of Mount Everest or to the top of your career. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
Climbing is not a battle with the elements, nor against the law of gravity. It's a battle against oneself. Walter Bonatti
Failures are the stairs we climb to reach success. Roy T. Bennett
Climbing, simply and joyfully, is the way I love the world. Steph Davis
Climbing is a great effort, but the extraordinary pleasure. Jerzy Kukuczka
Climbing is unadulterated hard labor. The only real pleasure is the satisfaction of going where no man has been before and where few can follow. Annie Smith Peck
Going to the mountains is going home. John Muir
Climbing trees is still one of my favorite things to do. A tree and a good book and I'm happy. Emayatzy E. Corinealdi
It's like climbing a staircase. I'm on the top of the staircase, I look behind me and I see the steps. That's where I was. Jeanne Moreau
Climbing is a great game great not in spite of the demands it makes, but because of them. Great because it will not let us give half of ourselves-it demands all of us. It demands our best. Royal Robbins
A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Old age is like climbing a mountain. You climb from ledge to ledge. The higher you get, the more tired and breathless you become, but your views become more extensive. Nelson Mandela
I say we are climbing out of a ditch and we are climbing up. Tim Kaine
If you don't keep climbing, you fall to the bottom. That's for sure. But if you do keep climbing, you fall anyway. Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky
Mountain climbers rope themselves together to prevent the sensible ones from going home. Earl Wilson
Climbing may be hard, but it's easier than growing up. Ed Sklar
You don't start climbing a mountain to get to the middle. Why be content with being average? James Hart
Perhaps 'because it is there, ' is not sufficient reason for climbing a mountain. David Loughery
There are only three real sports: bull-fighting, car racing, and mountain climbing. All the others are mere games. Ernest Hemingway
Most people aim to get ahead in life, but the social ladder can be very slippery. Stephen Arnott
He who climbs up is easily seized by the heels. German Proverb
When you are climbing your concentration is absolute; no other thoughts have a hope of breaking through that barrier. Tony Lourens
Many a time I have sat on the summit after a difficult climb, ravenous, my nerve worn out, my strength exhausted, but blissfully happy. It is that feeling which drives us, climbers, ever and again up into the high mountain tracts, remote from all life; which impels us to undertake the most fearful exertions, which drives us far beyond the narrow confines of the world. Hermann Buhl
Today to the end of the marvelous stair, / Where those glittering pinnacles flash in the air! / Climbing, climbing, higher I go, / With the sky close above me, the earth far below. Amy Lowell
I'm soaring like a glider, riding / on-air, like teasing the birds on their treetops, / climbing higher and higher until everything / looks like a patchwork quilt. Sonia Walker
There are two mountains, I'm caught in the middle / Can't see the forest before the trees / This climbing breaks me a little / But the hope inside of me / That this lonely valley leads / To a bridge over troubled dreams. Delta Lee Goodrem
But I'm lookin' for a better way / Something in my life / Nothing ever seems to satisfy / I reach my hands out to the sky / And I'll be climbing for the rest of my life. Thomas Carl Keifer
Well well I'm climbing up the mountain to the sky / I'm a going where I never never die / I'm climbing yes I'm climbing you know I'm climbing / Yeah I'll reach the other side by and by. DP
Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was. Dag Hammarskjold
Climbing is all about freedom, the freedom to go beyond all the rules and take a chance, to experience something new, to gain insight into human nature. Reinhold Messner
Highest of heights, I climb this mountain and feel one with the rock and grit and solitude echoing back at me. Bradley Chicho
Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you. David McCullough Jr.
The climb might be tough and challenging, but the view is worth it. There is a purpose for that pain; you just can't always see it right away. Victoria Arlen
The best part of climbing is when it all clicks and gravity ceases to exist. Chris Sharma
Climbing is not a battle with the elements, nor against the law of gravity. It's a battle against oneself. Walter Bonatti
The tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts of the globe, whether it is a slight insult to the gods to climb and pry into their secrets and try their effect on our humanity. Only daring and insolent men, perchance, go there. Henry David Thoreau
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
The mountains are calling and I must go. John Muir
It’s wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky. Behind me and before me is God and I have no fears. Helen Keller
Every man should pull a boat over a mountain once in his life. Werner Herzog
“When you're young the future is a mountain to climb. Once there though you realize all the beauty was in the climb itself. Dean Cavanagh
It was possible that when the climbers were ready, the mountain wouldn't be. Anatoli Boukreev
Leaders don't climb hills of success with shoes of pride. They are slippery enough to bring a person down to the valley. Israelmore Ayivor