Edmund Hillary
Edmund Hillary
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary KG, ONZ, KBEwas a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest. They were part of the ninth British expedition to Everest, led by John Hunt. Hillary was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century...
NationalityNew Zealander
ProfessionExplorer
Date of Birth20 July 1919
believe climbing building-up
I've always hated the danger part of climbing, and it's great to come down again because it's safe But there is something about building up a comradeship - that I still believe is the greatest of all feats - and sharing in the dangers with your company of peers. It's the intense effort, the giving of everything you've got. It's really a very pleasant sensation.
get-better conquer everest
Everest you won't change, but I will get better...I will conquer you.
famous-motivational conquer
It's not the moutain we conquer but ourselves.
thinking challenges mountain
I think I mainly climb mountains because I get a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I never attempt to analyze these things too thoroughly, but I think that all mountaineers do get a great deal of satisfaction out of overcoming some challenge which they think is very difficult for them, or which perhaps may be a little dangerous.
real adventure pay
It's not a real adventure when you have to pay for it.
taken holiday years
My relationship with the mountains actually started when I was 16. Every year, a group used to be taken from Auckland Grammar down to the Tangariro National Park for a skiing holiday.
attitude science climbing
Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.
lonely book reading
As a youngster I was a great dreamer, reading many books of adventure and walking lonely miles with my head in the clouds.
remember climbing-mount-everest mt-everest
No one remembers who climbed Mount Everest the second time.
beautiful school important
My most important projects have been the building and maintaining of schools and medical clinics for my dear friends in the Himalaya and helping restore their beautiful monasteries, too.
people wish succeed
I'm a very, very modest person and with limited abilities. I do have the wish to succeed in anything I undertake, and that does help out, but, in general, there are so many other people who are skilled in their field that I feel very ordinary.
team challenges desire
I have the challenges sort of already there and as a consequence my companions feel a considerable desire to do this, too, and they feel very put out if they are left in the cold, so there we have it. We have me who has lots of ideas and then we have a very good team who wish - who are persuaded almost - to take part in these challenges.
affection
I still had the same affection for New Zealand as I've always had. Didn't change at all.
daughter pain
I was definitely seriously affected [with wifw and daughter deaths], no question, but I learnt to devote myself to the things that we'd been doing for years and years and slowly the pain drifted away.