Other extremely alluring traits in people are simplicity and naturalness. Simplicity and naturalness are never painfully obvious qualities, and yet which I come across them in a person, I get this sense of a firm foundation and of a direct access to truth.

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.

When you are totally defeated you begin again to enjoy the small things around you. Just going to the mountains, not for victory or glory, but to enjoy nature or enjoy fine people. If you always succeed you enjoy the admiration of many people. Being defeated means being limited to the basis existential choices of life. If you can enjoy the quiet evening hours it is beautiful; a hero who always succeeds may not have time to enjoy such things.

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

I don't like egocentricity, which is something that I have arduously battled in myself my entire life.

Every type of evil we've got in us is the result of that one true illness of the human mind - that is, of being self-centered.