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

Great effort, fear and suffering sweet all the worthless chaff out of us.

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

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.

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.

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