With the best equipment in the world the man with poor judgment is in mortal danger.

Before the deed comes the thought. Before the achievement comes the dream. Every mountain we climb, we first climb in our mind.

Instead of the god of security, we bow to the greater god of freedom, the freedom to take risks and master danger in order to be intensely alive.

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.

Better we raise our skill than lower the climb

A first ascent is a creation in the same sense as is a painting or a song

A simple equation exists between freedom and numbers: the more people, the less freedom.

The rock is a field of battle between our weakness and our strength.

My God, Jack - with a look like that, you two should just get a room. And try not to pick the one with a dead body next to it this time.

The act of loving is an act of self-evolution even when the purpose of the act is someone else's growth.

This world was once a fluid haze of light, Till toward the centre set the starry tides, And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast The planets: then the monster, then the man.

You can’t prevent undernourishment so easily, but famines you can stop with half an effort. Then the question was why don’t the governments stop them?

Mr. President, Mrs. Obama. There is a photograph of you [hugging] that went viral, became the most shared photograph in the history of Twitter. How do you keep the fire going?

We never find what we set out hearts on. We ought to be glad of that.

A devotion to humanity is... too easily equated with a devotion to a Cause, and Causes, as we know, are notoriously bloodthirsty.

Race has no place in American life or law.

I was a Catholic boy, I went to church every Sunday. A church has a certain magic and mystery for a child. It still shows in how I arrange things. It's always little altars.

The God that can be named is not God.