Greg Mortenson Quotes

When you take the time to actually listen, with humility, to what people have to say, it's amazing what you can learn. Especially if the people who are doing the talking also happen to be children.

If you teach a boy, you educate an individual; but if you teach a girl, you educate a community.

If you really want to change a culture to empower women improve basic hygiene and health care and fight high rates of infant mortality the answer is to educate girls.

My father ended up starting the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre, which is on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. My mother started a school.

Slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects.

In times of war, you often hear leaders—Christian, Jewish, and Muslim—saying, ‘God is on our side.’ But that isn’t true. In war, God is on the side of refugees, widows, and orphans.

If you really want to change a culture... empower women.

You can hand out condoms, drop bombs, build roads, or put in electricity, but until the girls are educated a society won’t change.

The tune was too ingrained for Mortenson to consider the novelty of this moment- an American, lost in Pakistan, singing a German hymn in Swahili.

Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel.' Sign in Skardu

When your kids accomplish something it means much more than anything you've done.

The older I get, the more I appreciate my childhood. It was paradise.

Just as the Torah and Bible teach concern for those in distress, the Koran instructs all Muslims to make caring for widows, orphans, and refugees a priority.

But what I really believe is education is a key to pretty much everything - prosperity, economics, peace, stability.

Liberals, conservatives, Muslims, Jews, Christians, and I find - I think education is something that can bring us together.

Our greatest ally in the Pakistan region of turmoil is the moderate Muslim majority, who we must reach out to and embrace if we ever are to have peace for our children.

I used to climb mountains a lot; I decided to go to Pakistan to climb K2, the world's second-highest mountain. I didn't get quite to the top.

And they did it with something that is basicly worthless in our society - pennies. But overseas, pennies can move mountains

I say if you fight terrorism, it's based in fear, but if you promote peace, it's based on hope.

. . . hope resides in the future, while perspective and wisdom are almost always found by looking to the past.

The Pathan people of Waziristan are proud people who I greatly admire.

Yes, I first visited Korphe village, Braldu valley, Baltistan, Pakistan, after failing to summit K2 in 1993, and met Haji Ali, a long time dear mentor and friend. My second visit to Korphe was in 19

Yes, I was detained for eight days in Waziristan in 1996. It was against my will, and my passport and money were taken from me. I was not mistreated or harmed, but I was also not allowed to leave.

I decided in '96 to dedicate my life to mostly promoting literacy and education for girls in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Some of the most memorable moments I've had is to have my family along - who are our greatest ambassadors for peace. Politics will never bring peace, but people will.

He was a man who understood the virtue of small things.

If you look at the 9/11 highjackers, certainly they were educated, some even had university degrees, but nobody really checked their mothers, who were nearly all illiterate.

My work to promote education and literacy in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan has become my life's mission. This takes a full-time commitment 365 24/7.

Really, what education does is it gives opportunity, but it also gives hope.

The people of Pakistan are some of the most hospitable, kinds and generous people I have met anywhere, in the over 70 countries I have visited in my lifetime.

The solution to terrorism is education, not bombs.

Once I started the first school, I realized this is what my life is meant to be, is to promote education and help kids go to school and that's very clear.

The Koran and Islam is about submission, justice and compassion. All people of the "book" - which means the Torah, Koran and Bible are accorded equal respect under Islam.

I've had two fatwas issued against me by despot mullahs opposed to education - and important to know that the great majority of Imams and Islamic religious leaders support education for all children.

The Balti had as many names for rock as the Inuit have for snow.

Haji Ali taught me to...slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects.

Two decades of virtually uninterrupted fighting had made even the most dignified structures appear drunken, wounded, or lost. The entire city seemed to affirm the notion that warfare is a disease.