"It used to be, on many days, that I could close my eyes and sense myself being perfectly happy. It’s a worthy thing to ponder, but maybe being perfectly happy is not really the point. Maybe that is only some modern American dream of the point, while the truer measure of humanity is the distance we must travel in our lives, time and again, 'twixt two extremes of passion—joy and grief,' as Shakespeare put it. However much I’ve lost, what remains to me is that I can still speak to name the things I love." — Barbara Kingsolver Small Wonders
"I envision the future version of myself that has transcended a difficult moment, that has figured out a tricky situation, that has the answer to a burning question. I imagine her out there waiting for me, and it’s a sort of comfort. Future me has gotten through this. ...Sometimes I’d arrive at that place up in the distance and realize I was the future me I had been looking at." — Carolyn Highland Out Here: Wisdom from the Wilderness
"Often the idea of change is more difficult than the change itself." — Sarah Marquis Wild by Nature: From Siberia to Australia, Three Years Alone in the Wilderness on Foot
"Well shit, at least you tried." — Unknown
"Worrying that you are crap is a waste of time. Worrying that you can’t do it is a waste of time. Worrying that you failed is a waste of time. No one cares. Just get on with it." — Peter Capaldi
"Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. Suffering is ultimately created by a resistance to what is, by a sense that the universe owed you something different than what you got, that things were supposed to be a different way." — Carolyn Highland Out Here: Wisdom from the Wilderness
"But there is this: They also won't tell you that you'll be strong. That you will rediscover what excites you, what breaks your heart, and how to love yourself again. And that by honoring yourself, you are honoring those who hold their own story close to themselves and cannot speak up. The paradox of resilience is that it provides you the strength and power to navigate through hardship, but it doesn't make you invulnerable to pain. Instead, resilience builds your capacity for radical compassion and hope." — Kathy Karlo
"The important thing is to go as far as possible despite the uncertainty, instead of wondering if it might have been possible after not even trying." — Kei Taniguchi Alpinist Magazine, Issue 68, "Pandora's Box" by Akihiro Oishi
"If you are given two options, take the harder one because you’ll regret it if you don’t. At least if you take the harder one and fail, you’ll have tried." — Alison Hargreaves Interview
"Perhaps [Charles] Pratt's ultimate wisdom took the form of acceptance: understanding that veiled depths surround us. Which, like looming exposure, might suddenly jump at you. Or like serendipitous beauty, might delight. Both sensations are perfectly OK, equally wondrous. And the shapes they assume depend more on your mindset than on the thing itself." — Doug Robinson Alpinist Magazine, Issue 74, "Letters to a Young Climber"
"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." — Wayne Dyer
"Or you could rise. That 'or' is always available to us, no matter how vehemently we pretend it’s not." — Carolyn Highland Out Here: Wisdom from the Wilderness
"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. ... Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." — Viktor Frankl Man’s Search for Meaning
"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing." — Helen Keller The Open Door
"Replace fear of the unknown with curiosity." — Unknown
"Fear can create a positive feedback loop. We are afraid, so we shrink and further invite the thing that scares us to occur. To beat the fear, to give ourselves a fighting chance at realizing the best possible outcome, we have to go all in and face it." — Carolyn Highland Out Here: Wisdom from the Wilderness
"Courage isn’t a matter of not being frightened, you know. It’s being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway." — 3rd Doctor Doctor Who, "Planet of the Daleks"
"It all boils down to fear. Fear is such a powerful emotion. Sometimes it keeps us safe, but more often, it keeps us from taking the risks that propel us forward. On the flip side, it can be a fantastic motivator." — Julie Hotz She Explores, Episode 2, "On Fear: Human Powered Travel"
"You are refined, not defined, by defeat." — Aaron Eveland
"Whenever you fall, pick up something." — Oswald Theodore Avery
