Quotes from Reinhold Messner

Mountains are not fair or unfair - they are dangerous.

Ueli Steck, I'm absolutely certain, had a very strong inner drive to keep pushing. He set very high standards for himself.

The mountains are dangerous. Only an unintelligent person will say they are not dangerous.

The only possibility to have a knowledge of both the Earth's nature and our own internal nature is through traditional climbing when you go on your own, far from safety, and encounter the unknown.

Every week someone rings me up wanting to open a new Messner museum, but I'm not interested.

I go to the mountains for an adventure and each time I pray I will get up and down again.

Mountaineering is over. Alpinism is dead. Maybe its spirit is still alive a little in Britain and America, but it will soon die out.

I'm a rock climber, a high-altitude climber, an adventurer, a storyteller through my museums, and a writer of more than 50 books.

A 30-year-old rock climber is an old man. At 40, one is in the middle of his high-altitude power. At 50, a crosser of deserts is at his best age. But at 60, each of us is out of the game.

Once you lose your credibility, you can never restore it.

I think my cultural work is more important than the adventures I did. The adventures are not important for human beings. It's the conquering of the useless.

I was first to understand it was boring to go with heavy shoes to base camp. When we first tried Dhaulagiri, a very difficult approach at high altitude, we needed very heavy boots. So it was usual to wear such heavy boots to approach all base camps. But I thought this was crazy. We needed lighter shoes for many of the approaches.

When I held in my hands the remains of Gunther, I had a strong feeling, like a phantom pain of an amputee.

On your own, relying on yourself, you will never feel you are stronger than the mountain, and your respect for the peak grows.

Climbing is more of an art than a sport. It's the aesthetics of a mountain that compels me. The line of a route, the style of ascent. It is creative.

I am not an anarchist, but I am anarchistical.

Without the possibility of death, adventure is not possible.

Before kids, I was really going to the limit. Afterwards, I was approaching the limit but then maybe turning around.

Those that reach their goals perish.