Quotes by Mountaineers

The seal of Reason, made impregnable:_ The seal of Truth, immeasurably splendid:The seal of Brotherhood, man's miracle:_ The seal of Peace, and Wisdom heaven-descended:The seal of Bitterness, cast down to Hell:_ The seal of Love, secure, not-to-be-rended:The seventh seal, Equality: that, broken,God sets His thunder and earthquake for a token.
Aleister Crowley
Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild."“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.
Jon Krakauer
Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.
Ed Viesturs
Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is doing a public service.
Leslie Stephen
You never conquer a mountain. You stand on the summit a few moments then the wind blows your footprints away.
Arlene Blum
It is the ultimate wisdom of the mountains that we are never so much human as when we are striving for what is beyond our grasp and that there is no battle worth the winning save that against our own ignorance and fear.
James Ramsey Ullman
You never conquer a mountain. You stand on the summit a few moments then the wind blows your footprints away.
Arlene Blum
It is the ultimate wisdom of the mountains that we are never so much human as when we are striving for what is beyond our grasp and that there is no battle worth the winning save that against our own ignorance and fear.
James Ramsey Ullman
Because it's there.
G. H. L. Mallory
Grandchildren don't make a man feel old it's the knowledge that he's married to a grandmother.
G. Norman Collie
We are so clothed in rationalization and dissemblance that we can recognize but dimly the deep primal impulses that motivate us.
James Ramsey Ullman
To make certain that crime does not pay the government should take it over and try to run it.
G. Norman Collie
The moment one definitely commits oneself then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help that would never otherwise have occurred. A stream of events issues from the decision raising unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.
W.H.Murray
The moment one definitely commits oneself the Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help that would never otherwise have occurred. A stream of events issues from the decision raising unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.
WH. Murray
Verily, I say unto thee, many are the adepts that have looked upon the back parts of my father, and cried, "our eyes fail before the glory of thy countenance.
Aleister Crowley
I cling unto the burning Æthyr like Lucifer that fell through the Abyss, and by the fury of his flight kindled the air. And I am Belial, for having seen the Rose upon thy breast, I have denied God.And I am Satan! I am Satan! I am cast out upon a burning crag! And the sea boils about the desolation thereof. And already the vultures gather, and feast upon my flesh.
Aleister Crowley
So sweet is this song that no one could resist it. For in it is all the passionate ache for the moonlight, and the great hunger of the sea, and the terror of desolate places,—all things that lure men to the unattainable.Omari tessala marax,tessala dodi phornepaxamri radara poliaxarmana piliuamri radara piliu son;mari narya barbitonmadara anaphax sarpedonandala hriliuTranslation:I am the harlot that shaketh Death.This shaking giveth the Peace of Satiate Lust.Immortality jetteth from my skull,And music from my vulva.Immortality jetteth from my vulva also,For my Whoredom is a sweet scent like a seven-stringed instrument,Played unto God the Invisible, the all-ruler,That goeth along giving the shrill scream of orgasm.Every man that hath seen me forgetteth me never, and I appear oftentimes in the coals of the fire, and upon the smooth white skin of woman, and in the constancy of the waterfall, and in the emptiness of deserts and marshes, and upon great cliffs that look seaward; and in many strange places, where men seek me not. And many thousand times he beholdeth me not. And at last I smite myself into him as a vision smiteth into a stone, and whom I call must follow.
Aleister Crowley
Now there is naught but a vast black triangle having the apex downwards, and in the centre of the black triangle is the face of Typhon, the Lord of the Tempest, and he crieth aloud: Despair! Despair! For thou mayest deceive the Virgin, and thou mayest cajole the Mother; but what wilt thou say unto the ancient Whore that is throned in Eternity? For if she will not, there is neither force nor cunning, nor any wit, that may prevail upon her.Thou canst not woo her with love, for she is love. And she hath all, and hath no need of thee. And thou canst not woo her with gold, for all the Kings and captains of the earth, and all the gods of heaven, have showered their gold upon her. Thus hath she all, and hath no need of thee. And thou canst not woo her with knowledge, for knowledge is the thing that she hath spurned. She hath it all, and hath no need of thee. And thou canst not woo her with wit, for her Lord is Wit. She hath it all, and hath no need of thee. Despair! Despair!Nor canst thou cling to her knees and ask for pity; nor canst thou cling to her heart and ask for love; nor canst thou put thine arms about her neck, and ask for understanding; for thou hast all these, and they avail thee not. Despair! Despair! Then I took the Flaming Sword, and I let it loose against Typhon, so that his head was cloven asunder, and the black triangle dissolved in lightnings.
Aleister Crowley
Imagination is haunted by the swiftness of the creatures that live on the mountain - eagle and peregrine falcon, red deer and mountain hare. The reason for their swiftness is severely practical: food is so scarce up there that only those who can move swiftly over vast stretches of ground may hope to survive. The speed, the whorls and torrents of movement, are in plain fact the mountain's own necessity. But their grace is not necessity. Or if it is - if the swoop, the parabola, the arrow-flight of hooves and wings achieve their beauty by strict adherence to the needs of function - so much the more is the mountain's integrity vindicated. Beauty is not adventitious but essential.
Nan Shepherd
Looking out of a tent door into a world of snow and vanishing hopes. ~George Mallory
Conrad Anker
In the firmament of science Mayer and Joule constitute a double star, the light of each being in a certain sense complementary to that of the other.
John Tyndall
And allow me again to assure you that when you've got yourself going, doing your True Will, you won't find you have any time to get bored.
Aleister Crowley
The mystic's idea of deliberately stupefying and stultifying himself is an "abomination unto the Lord." This, by the way, does not conflict with the rules of Yoga. That kind of suppression is comparable to the restrictions in athletic training, or diet in sickness.
Aleister Crowley
All phenomena of which we are aware take place in our own minds, and therefore the only thing we have to look at is the mind; which is a more constant quantity over all the species of humanity than is generally supposed.
Aleister Crowley
... it was once necessary to proclaim the entire doctrine of Yoga in the fewest possible words.... I did so.“Sit still. Stop thinking. Shut up. Get out!”The first two of these instructions comprise the whole of the technique of Yoga. The last two are of a sublimity which it would be improper to expound in this present elementary stage.
Aleister Crowley
When an individual is raped in this country, more than 90 percent of the time the rapist gets away with the crime.
Jon Krakauer
Police and prosecutors are morally and professionally obligated to make every effort to identify specious rape reports, safeguard the civil rights of rape suspects, and prevent the falsely accused from being convicted. At the same time, however, police and prosecutors are obligated to do everything in their power to identify individuals who have committed rape and ensure that the guilty are brought to justice. These two objectives are not mutually exclusive. A meticulous, expertly conducted investigation that begins by believing the victim is an essential part of prosecuting and, ultimately, convicting those who are guilty of rape. It also happens to be the best way to exonerate those who have been falsely accused. Rape victims provide police with more information--and better information--when detectives interview them from a position of trust rather than one of suspicion.
Jon Krakauer
The accused rapist, Calvin Smith, had graduated from a small-town high school the previous June, where he'd distinguished himself as an athlete. Individuals who knew Smith have described him as "kind," "easygoing," and "goofy." But he had never had sex before meeting Kaitlynn Kelly, and a look at what he has posted on a social media site suggests that he was a frustrated, involuntary celibate. On January 11, 2011, Smith posted a line from the animated sitcom Family Guy on his Facebook page: "women are not people god just put them here for mans entertainment.
Jon Krakauer
Rape and war, she explained are among the most common causes of post-traumatic stress disorder, and survivors of sexual assault frequently exhibit many of the same symptoms and behaviors as survivors of combat: flashbacks, insomnia, nightmares, hypervigilance, depression, isolation, suicidal thoughts, outbursts of anger, unrelenting anxiety, and an inability to shake the feeling that the world is spinning out of control.
Jon Krakauer
The two seem, at first glance, to be opposed, but when you have advanced a little in both, you find that concentration learned in Yoga is of immense use in attaining the mental powers necessary in Magick; on the other hand, the discipline of Magick is of the greatest service in Yoga.
Aleister Crowley
Underneath his sweetness and gentleness was the heat of a volcano. [Michael Faraday] was a man of excitable and fiery nature; but through high self-discipline he had converted the fire into a central glow and motive power of life, instead of permitting it to waste itself in useless passion.
John Tyndall
When you cure a blind person, he or she is not a statistic.
Geoff Tabin
Every individual has some qualities that endear him to some other. And per contra, I doubt if there is any class which is not detestable to some other class. Artists, police, the clergy, "reds," foxhunters, Freemasons, Jews, "heaven-born," women's clubwomen (especially in U.S.A.), "Methodys," golfers, dog-lovers; you can't find one body without its "natural" enemies. It's right, what's worse; every class, as a class, is almost sure to have more defects than qualities. As soon as you put men together, they somehow sink, corporatively, below the level of the worst of the individuals composing it. Collect scholars on a club committee, or men of science on a jury; all their virtues vanish, and their vices pop out, reinforced by the self-confidence which the power of numbers is bound to bestow.
Aleister Crowley
Rain is disagreeable, but snow is as much part of the mountain as are sunshine and clear skies.
Gaston Rébuffat
The so-called poet with his vague dreams and ideals is indeed no better than a harmless lunatic; the true poet is the worker, who grips life's throat and wrings out its secret, who selects austerely and composes concisely, whose work is as true and clean as razor-steel, albeit its sweep is vaster and swifter than the sun's!
Aleister Crowley
For the most appalling quality of water is its strength. I love its flash and gleam, its music, its pliancy and grace, its slap against my body; but I fear its strength. I fear it as my ancestors must have feared the natural forces that they worshipped. All the mysteries are in its movement. It slips out of holes in the earth like the ancient snake. I have seen its birth; and the more I gaze at that sure and inremitting surge of water at the very top of the mountain, the more I am baffled. We make it all so easy, any child in school can understand it – water rises in the hills, it flows and finds its own level, and man can't live without it. Bud I don't understand it. I cannot fathom its power.
Nan Shepherd
Remember in any case, that not only the Adept, but anyone with the smallest capacity for Adeptship, is fundamentally an Artist; he will certainly not possess any of those bourgeois "virtues" which are just so many reactions to Blue Funk.
Aleister Crowley
...we have no right to decide off-hand that it is an unnatural pleasure to eat sawdust. A man might be constituted so that he liked it. And so long as his peculiarity doesn't damage or interfere with other people, there's no reason why he shouldn't be left alone.But if it is the man's fixed belief that sawdust eating is essential to human happiness; if he attributes almost everything that happens either to the effects of eating it or not eating it; if he imagines that most of the people he meets are also sawdust-eaters, and above all, if he thinks that the salvation of the world depends entirely upon making laws to compel people to eat sawdust, whether they like it or not, then it is fair to say that his mind is unbalanced on the subject; and that, further, the practice itself, however innocent it may appear, is in that particular case perverse. Sanity consists in the proper equilibrium of ideas in general. That is the only sense in which it is true that genius is connected with insanity.
Aleister Crowley
She it is, she, that found meIn the morphia honeymoon;With silk and steel she bound meIn her poisonous milk she drowned me,Even now her arms surround me
Aleister Crowley
Until you've got your mouth full of cocaine, you don't know what kissing is. One kiss goes on from phase to phase like one of those novels by Balzac and Zola and Romain Rolland and D. H. Lawrence and those chaps. And you never get tire. You're on fourth speed all the time, and the engine purrs like a kitten, a big white kitten with the stars in its whiskers.
Aleister Crowley
The wonderful things in life are the things you do, not the things you have.
Reinhold Messner
Know yourselves- be infertile and let the earth be silent after ye.
Peter Wessel Zapffe
Astrology has no more useful function than this, to discover the inmost nature of a man and to bring it out into his consciousness, that he may fulfil it according to the law of light.
Aleister Crowley
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of performing these small ceremonies regularly, and being as nearly accurate as possible with regard to the times. You must not mind stopping in the middle of a crowded thoroughfare—lorries or no lorries—and saying the Adorations; and you must not mind snubbing your guest—or your host—if he or she should prove ignorant of his or her share of the dialogue. It is perhaps because these matters are so petty and trivial in appearance that they afford so excellent a training. They teach you concentration, mindfulness, moral and social courage, and a host of other virtues.
Aleister Crowley
Thou hast no right but to do thy will... For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.
Aleister Crowley
For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.
Aleister Crowley
Another flaw of the system is the fact that various danger fronts often require very different firmaments. As a logical superstructure is built upon each, there follow clashes of incommensurable modes of feeling and thought. Then despair can enter through the rifts. In such cases, a person may be obsessed with destructive joy, dislodging the whole artificial apparatus of his life and starting with rapturous horror to make a clean sweep of it. The horror stems from the loss of all sheltering values, the rapture from his by now ruthless identification and harmony with our nature’s deepest secret, the biological unsoundness, the enduring disposition for doom.
Peter Wessel Zapffe
No good story is quite true.
Leslie Stephen
– The life of the worlds is a roaring river, but Earth’s is a pond and a backwater.– The sign of doom is written on your brows – how long will ye kick against the pin-pricks?– But there is one conquest and one crown, one redemption and one solution.– Know yourselves – be infertile and let the earth be silent after ye.
Peter Wessel Zapffe
...the true test of the perversity of a pleasure is that it occupies a disproportionate amount of the attention.
Aleister Crowley
We must conquer life by living it to the full, and then we can go to meet death with a certain prestige.
Aleister Crowley
Those, therefore, who effect to despise "profane" Science are themselves despicable. It is their own incapacity for true Thought of any serious kind, their vanity and pertness; nay more also! their own subconsciousness sense of their own shame and idleness, that induces them to build these flimsy fortification of pretentious ignorance.
Aleister Crowley
To Nature nothing can be added; from Nature nothing can be taken away; the sum of her energies is constant, and the utmost man can do in the pursuit of physical truth, or in the applications of physical knowledge, is to shift the constituents of the never-varying total. The law of conservation rigidly excludes both creation and annihilation. Waves may change to ripples, and ripples to waves; magnitude may be substituted for number, and number for magnitude; asteroids may aggregate to suns, suns may resolve themselves into florae and faunae, and floras and faunas melt in air: the flux of power is eternally the same. It rolls in music through the ages, and all terrestrial energy—the manifestations of life as well as the display of phenomena—are but the modulations of its rhythm.
John Tyndall
...in the absence of will power, the most complete collection of virtues and talents is wholly worthless.
Aleister Crowley
Love in a night shall live and die,Love in a day shall wing and fly;Love in the Spring shall last an hour,Easily fade a spring-tide flower.
Aleister Crowley
From elementary school through high school, my siblings and I were hectored to excel in every class, to win medals in science fairs, to be chosen princess of the prom, to win election to student government. Thereby and only thereby, we learned, could we expect to gain admission to the right college, which in turn would get us into Harvard Medical School: life's one sure path to meaningful success and lasting happiness.
Jon Krakauer
So nobody must be allowed to think at all. Down with the public schools! Children must be drilled mentally by quarter-educated herdsmen, whose wages would stop at the first sign of disagreement with the bosses. For the rest, deafen the whole world with senseless clamour. Mechanize everything! Give nobody a chance to think. Standardize "amusement." The louder and more cacophonous, the better! Brief intervals between one din and the next can be filled with appeals, repeated 'till hypnotic power gives them the force of orders, to buy this or that product of the "Business men" who are the real power in the State. Men who betray their country as obvious routine.The history of the past thirty years is eloquent enough, one would think. What these sodden imbeciles never realize is that a living organism must adapt itself intelligently to its environment, or go under at the first serious change of circumstance.
Aleister Crowley
If you only do what others have already done, you will only feel what others have already felt. However, if you choose to achieve something that no one has ever done, then you will have a satisfaction that no one else has ever had.
Edmund Hillary
There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.Love is the law, love under will.
Aleister Crowley
Taking him for all and all, I think it will be conceded that Michael Faraday was the greatest experimental philosopher the world has ever seen.
John Tyndall