"This is what our life is like; full of joy, full of sadness, full of longing, full of success, and of bitter disappointments. So full of happiness and suffering at the same time, that sometimes there is just too much of everything. It is then that we grow old." — Nejc Zaplotnik, translated by Mimi Marinsek Alpinist Magazine, Issue 74, "Nejc Zaplotnik, Mountain Poet"
"Experience is the hardest kind of teacher. It gives you the test first and the lesson afterward." — Oscar Wilde
"Don't get caught up in what others are doing—we all have our own paths, our own losses and wins. For me, curiosity and wonder are the driving forces. Curiosity is a powerful thing." — Jeremy Jones The Art of Shralpinism
"We are mirrors reflecting onto each other. The people we surround ourselves with shape us, and we shape those around us, too." — Brad Stulberg Outside Online, "Good Vibes Are Contagious"
"Nothing in this world is too wonderful to be true." — Michael Faraday
"Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ask no guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal. And if there were, it would be related to the great sloth which hangs upside down in a tree all day every day, sleeping its life away. To hell with that, shake the tree and knock the great sloth down on his ass." — Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451
"This is one corner… of one country, in one continent, on one planet that’s a corner of a galaxy that’s a corner of a universe that is forever growing and shrinking and creating and destroying and never remaining the same for a single millisecond. And there is so much, so much to see." — 11th Doctor Doctor Who, "The Power of Three"
"There’s always something to look at if you open your eyes." — 5th Doctor Doctor Who, "Kinda"
"We are small, so much smaller even than we may have thought. To me, that’s not a frightening idea. It’s a helpful corrective to the frantic self-importance we are prone to as a species—and also a reminder to make the most of our moment on this beautiful, strange, durable yet fragile planet." — Chris Hadfield You are Here
"Let go of everything you think you know and be a blank canvas." — Misty Copeland
"Those who try know that strength and knowledge come with doing." — Elinore Pruitt Stewart Letters of a Woman Homesteader
"Never be certain of anything. It's a sign of weakness." — 4th Doctor Doctor Who, "The Face of Evil"
"Such illusions, depending on how the eye is placed and used, drive home the truth that our habitual vision of things is not necessarily right: it is only one of an infinite number, and to glimpse an unfamiliar one, even for a moment, unmakes us, but steadies us again." — Nan Shepherd The Living Mountain
"This is not a book that relishes its own discoveries; it prefers to relish its own ignorances." — Nan Shepherd The Living Mountain
"There are things you can’t control, so you’d better know how you’re going to react to them." — Laurence Gonzales Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why
"You are not an idiot. It’s okay if you don’t know everything. Don’t pretend. Ask all the questions you want." — Jedidiah Jenkins To Shake the Sleeping Self: A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia, and a Quest for a Life with No Regret
"I, too, want to create a cartography for my life that only I can draw. It's no longer that important to me to place a flag on a summit and check it off on my map. What matters most are the questions that I ask myself between each mountain, and the answers that lead me to the next one. I want to grow with the evolution of these lines and with the spaces between them." — Kazuya Hiraide, translated from Japanese by Hiko Ito Alpinist Magazine, Issue 75, "A Map of the Heart: From Shispare to Rakaposhi"
"If you want to be someone who is brave, live with courage. If you want to be someone who is honest, tell the truth. If you want to be someone who is strong, do something that requires strength. Do those things and therefore become the kind of person who would do them. Wishing or aspiring to be a certain way does nothing. You must act. You must act that way until you are that way." — Carolyn Highland Out Here: Wisdom from the Wilderness
"It turns out there is a difference between wanting to be something and wanting to become something. Wanting to be something indicates a hope that somehow you will be struck by lightning and suddenly be that thing you wanted to be. Wouldn’t it be nice if I were suddenly, somehow, more outgoing, more confident. Hoping to be something is passive, and passivity gets you nowhere. Being is a state, and becoming is a process. And to be, you must become. Becoming requires work. Becoming requires action. Becoming means deciding you’re going to achieve something and taking real quantifiable steps in that direction." — Carolyn Highland Out Here: Wisdom from the Wilderness
"By taking off the pressure of having to excel at or master an activity, we allow ourselves to live in the moment. You might think this sounds simple enough, but living in the present is also something most of us suck at. Think about how focused you become when you’re presented with something totally new to accomplish. Now, what happens when that task is no longer new but still taps into intense focus because we haven’t yet mastered it? You’re a novice, an amateur, a kook. You suck at it. Some might think your persistence moronic. I like to think of it as meditative and full of promise. In the words of the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki, 'In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind, there are few.’ … By exposing ourselves to the experience of trying and failing we might develop more empathy. If we succeed in shifting from snap judgments to patience, maybe we could be a little more helpful to one another—and a whole lot more understanding. If we accept our failures and persevere nonetheless, we might provide a respite from the imperative to succeed and instead find acceptance in trying. Failing is O.K. Better still, isn’t it a relief?" — Karen Rinaldi New York Times, "(It’s Great to) Suck at Something"
