The man coming back from the hard mountain trip is a wiser being, calmer and radiating inside. I'd say momentary liberated.

Classic mountaineering grows out of a traditional romantic imagination. Its heart is the feeling, its path is blood, sweat and tears, and its restriction is God.

If there is such a thing as spiritual materialism, it is displayed in the urge to possess the mountains rather than to unravel and accept their mysteries.

The mountains are exceptional places for, as the natural environment is concerned, they are the concentration of the wildest possible variety of all natural phenomena and forms. They are somehow a concentration of the truth of nature or even I'd say its essence.

The most significant dimension of freedom is the freedom from one's own ego - in other words, from the feeling that I am the center of everything

Enslavement to your own weakness - be it an addiction to alcohol, or to a woman or to fame - it's degrading, and it means losing your dignity and your freedom.

Beauty is the door to another world.