Mountains are special. Mountains are humbling. Mountains are intimidating. They make us realize the enormity of the world. But once you scale a height, you never feel proud; you are always humbled because the mountain allowed you to climb it. Yes, I always believe that mountains can only be conquered if they want themselves to be. Here are a few mountain quotes and hiking quotes that might trigger the adventurer in you.

Between the mountains and man, it is the mountain that always wins.

Here are a few inspirational Mountain Quotes that might inspire you, to rekindle the passion for adventure in you. If neither, then let them at least inspire you to accept whatever challenges life throws at you and do the best! Here, we have put together a list of some of the inspiring and best mountain quotes along with some quotes on hiking and trekking.

Inspiring Mountain Quotes

1. “Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery why we climb”. – Greg Child

I think this quite effectively sums up why we climb the mountains. We cannot pinpoint the exact reason why we climb the mountains. It makes us humble. It makes us realise our shortcomings as well as our strengths. What do you say?

2. “Everybody wants to reach the peak, but there is no growth on the top of a mountain. It is in the valley that we slog through, the lush grass and rich soil, learning and becoming what enables us to summit life’s next peak”. – Andy Andrews

3. “The mountains were his masters. They rimmed in life. They were the cup of reality, beyond growth, beyond struggle and death. They were his absolute unity in the midst of eternal change”. ― Thomas Wolfe

4. “Walking – the most ancient exercise and still the best modern exercise”. – Carrie Latet

5. “The greatest joy in climbing is to be in charge of one’s own destiny”. – Sir Chris Bonnington

6. “Despite all I have seen and experienced, I still get the same simple thrill out of glimpsing a tiny patch of snow in a high mountain gully and feel the same urge to climb towards it”. – Edmund Hillary

7. “Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it”. — Andy Rooney

8. “My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing.” – Aldous Huxley

9. “Mountains teach that not everything in this world can be rationally explained.” – Aleksander Lwow

10. “I like geography best because your mountains & rivers know the secret; Pay no attention to borders.” – Brian Andrea

11. “Your faith can move mountains and your doubt can create them.”– Swami Vivekananda

12. “Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.” – Khalil Gibran

Short Mountain Quotes

13. “I learn something every time I go into the mountains”. – Michael Kennedy

14. “Good things don’t come by easy”. – Bear Grylls

15. “Going to the mountains is like going home”. – John Muir

16. “In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks”. – John Muir

17. “You are not in the mountains. The mountains are in you”. – John Muir

18. “Mountains are earth’s undecaying monuments.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne

19. “I go to seek a great perhaps”. – John Green

20. “How wild it was, to let it be”. – Cheryl Strayed

21. “Between every two pines there is a doorway to a new world”. – John Muir

22. “Leave the road, take the trails”. – Pythagoras

23. “The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones”. – Confucius

24. “Real freedom lies in wildness, not in civilization”. – Charles Lindbergh

25. “Mountains have a way of dealing with overconfidence”. – Hermann Buhl

26. “I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference”. – Robert Frost

27. “When preparing to climb a mountain, pack a light heart”. – Dan May

28. “A little more altitude, a little less attitude”.

29. “What are men to rocks and mountains”?– Jane Austen

30. “Mountains are the beginning and the end of all-natural scenery”. – John Ruskin

31. “Mountains are earth’s undecaying monuments”. – Nathaniel Hawthorne

Funny Mountain Quotes

32. “Those who travel to mountain-tops are half in love with themselves and half in love with oblivion”. – Robert Macfarlane

33. “Until further notice, assume that we’re peaking”.

34. “I’ve realized that at the top of the mountain, there’s another mountain”. — Andrew Garfield

35. “You’re off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, so… get on your way”! – Dr. Seuss

36. “Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory”. – Ed Viesturs

37. “If you can survive camping with someone, you should marry them on the way home“. – Yvonne Prinz (The Vinyl Princess)

The quote by Yvonne Prinz has just hit the bull’s eye. If you can survive with your partner in trekking expedition and camping, then you might probably tolerate him for the rest of your life.

38. “I have two doctors, my left leg and my right”. – G.M. Trevelyan

40. “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing”. – Sir Rannulph Fiennes

39. “Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy a camper, which is kind of the same thing”. – Unknown

41. “I’d rather be in the mountains thinking of God than in church thinking of the mountains”. – John Muir

42. “In the mountains there are only two grades: You can either do it, or you can’t”. – Rusty Baille

43. “Sleeping bags are the soft tacos of the bear world”. 

44. “You climb to reach the summit, but once there, discover that all roads lead down”. – Stanislaw Lem

45. “You won’t find reasonable men at the top of tall mountains”. – Hunter S Thompson

Mountain Quotes for Instagram Captions

46. “I think, every time I’m on the mountain, I’m just so thankful to be there”. – Chloe Kim

47. “The mountains are calling and I must go”. – John Muir

48. “Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley”. – Theodore Roosevelt

49. “Always be thankful for the little things… even the smallest mountains can hide the most breathtaking views”! ― Nyki Mack

50. “Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid not to try”. – Micahel Jordan

51. “Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go”. – T. S. Eliot

52. “Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain”. – Richard M. Nixon

53. “It’s not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves”. – Edmund Hillary

54. “There is no wifi in the forest, but you will make better connection”. – Unknown

55. “I learn something every time I go into the mountains”. – Michael Kennedy

56. “If you think you’ve peaked, find a new mountain”. – Unknown

57. “Chasing angels or fleeing demons, go to the mountains”. – Jeffrey Rasley

58. “I love to sit on a mountain top and gaze. I don’t think of anything but the people I care about and the view”. – Julian Lennon

59. “If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads”. – Anatole France

60. “Go where you feel most alive”.

61. “The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there”. – Robert M. Pirsig

Beautiful Mountain Quotes

62. “And if someday, my sons ask, “Dad, why did you choose to climb?” Smiling, I’ll reply, I climbed so you could fly.” – Mekael Shane

63. “You need mountains, long staircases don’t make good hikers”. – Amit Kalantri

64. “If adventure has a final and all-embracing motive, it is surely this: we go out because it is our nature to go out, to climb mountains, and to paddle rivers, to fly to the planets and plunge into the depths of the oceans… When man ceases to do these things, he is no longer man”. – Wilfrid Noyce

65. “Purposes, plans, and achievements of men may all disappear like a yon cloud upon the mountain’s summit; but, like the mountain itself, the things which are of God shall stand fast for ever and ever”. – Charles Spurgeon

66. “I take all day to climb mountains and then spend about 10 minutes at the top admiring the view”. – Sebastian Thrun

67. “Women need opportunity and encouragement. If a girl can climb mountains, she can do anything positive within her field of work”.– Samina Baig

69. “Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.”– Edmund Hillary

70. “As a professional climber, that’s the question you always get: Why, why, why? It’s an ineffable thing; you can’t describe it”. – Jimmy Chin

71. “The mountain decides whether you climb or not. The art of mountaineering is knowing when to go, when to stay, and when to retreat”. – Ed Viesturs

72. “The most dangerous thing you can do in life is play it safe”. – Casey Neistat

Quotes on Climbing Mountains

73. “Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you”. ― David Mc Cullough Jr.

74. “The choices we make lead up to actual experiences. It is one thing to decide to climb a mountain. It is quite another to be on top of it”. – Herbert A. Simon

75. “He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary”. ― Friedrich Neitszche

76. “The best view comes after the hardest climb”.

77. “The experienced mountain climber is not intimidated by a mountain, he is inspired by it”. – Nyi Arthur Ward

78. “Choose the mountain you want to climb: don’t pay attention to what other people say, such as “that one’s more beautiful” or “this one’s easier”. You’ll be spending lots of energy and enthusiasm to reach your objective, so you’re the only one responsible and you should be sure of what you’re doing”. – Paulo Coelho

79. “Good Climbing is about climbing with heart and instinct , not ambition and pride”. – Bear Grylls

80. “There are two kinds of climbers, those who climb because their heart sings when they’re in the mountains, and all the rest”. – Alex Lowe

81. “Today, climbing has shown me a courageous, strong side of myself, a beautiful bravery. Other days I’ve seen pitiful weakness. I’ve watched myself crawl, belly-flat, across a mountainous landscape of fear. Climbing has shown me that I am all of these things: strong and weak, brave and cowardly, both immune to and at the mercy of the fear of death, all at the same time. Risk is the fee to learn these lessons. The cost is not negotiable. It is a price that, for now, I pay gladly”. – Steve House

82. “I don’t want to write about climbing or talk about it, or photograph it; or think about it; all I want to do is do it”. – Chuck Pratt

83. “Accidents on big mountains happen when people’s ambitions cloud their good judgment. Good climbing is about climbing with heart and with instinct, not ambition and pride”. – Bear Grylls

84. “It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wears you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe”. – Muhammad Ali

85. “Every mountain top is within reach if you just keep climbing”. – Barry Finlay

86. “You don’t climb mountains without a team, you don’t climb mountains without being fit, you don’t climb mountains without being prepared and you don’t climb mountains without balancing the risks and rewards. And you never climb a mountain on accident – it has to be intentional”. – Mark Udall

87. “Once Everest was determined to be the highest summit on earth, it was only a matter of time before people decided that Everest needed to be climbed”. – Jon Krakauer

89. “We don’t need competition between people. There is competition between every person and this mountain. The last word always belongs to the mountain”. – Everest (movie)

Life and Mountains Quotes

90. “The mountains were his masters. They rimmed in life. They were the cup of reality, beyond growth, beyond struggle and death. They were his absolute unity in the midst of eternal change”. ― Thomas Wolfe

91. “The most dangerous thing you can do in life is play it safe”. – Casey Neistat

92. “Great things are done when men and mountains meet; this is not done by jostling in the street”. – William Blake

93. “Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain”. – Edmund Hillary

94. “If you are faced with a mountain, you have several options. You can climb it and cross to the other side. You can go around it. You can dig under it. You can fly over it. You can blow it up. You can ignore it and pretend it’s not there. You can turn around and go back the way you came. Or you can stay on the mountain and make it your home”.— Vera Nazarian

95. “The way up to the top of the mountain is always longer than you think. Don’t fool yourself, the moment will arrive when what seemed so near is still very far”. — Paulo Coelho

96. “The mountains have rules. They are harsh rules, but they are there, and if you keep to them you are safe. A mountain is not like men. A mountain is sincere. The weapons to conquer it exist inside you, inside your soul”. – Walter Bonatti

97. “Achieving the summit of a mountain was tangible, immutable, concrete. The incumbent hazards lent the activity a seriousness of purpose that was sorely missing from the rest of my life. I thrilled in the fresh perspective that came from the tipping the ordinary plane of existence on end”. – John Krakauer (Into the Thin Air)

98. “Success comes to those who have an entire mountain of gold that they continually mine, not those who find one nugget and try to live on it for fifty years”. – John C. Maxwell

99. “We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us”. – John Muir

100. “The cliche is that life is a mountain. You go up, reach the top and then go down”. – Jeanne Moreau

101. “You often hear people speaking as if life was like striving upward toward a mountain peak. That is not so. Life is as if you were traveling a ridge crest. You have the gulf of inefficiency on one side and the gulf of wickedness on the other, and it helps not to have avoided one gulf if you fall into the other”. – Theodore Roosevelt

102. “Life’s a bit like mountaineering – never look down”. – Edmund Hillary

103. “Our task, regarding creativity, is to help children climb their own mountains, as high as possible. No one can do more”. – Loris Malaguzzi

104. “In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds”.– Robert Green Ingersoll

Mountain Quotes and Love

105. “Although I deeply love oceans, deserts, and other wild landscapes, it is only mountains that beckon me with that sort of painful magnetic pull to walk deeper and deeper into their beauty”. – Victoria Erikson

106. “The mountains were so wild and so stark and so very beautiful that I wanted to cry. I breathed in another wonderful moment to keep safe in my heart”. ― Jane Wilson-Howarth

107. “I like the mountains because they make me feel small, Jeff says. They help me sort out what’s important in life”. ― Mark Obmascik (Halfway to Heaven)

108. “You never climb the same mountain twice, not even in memory. Memory rebuilds the mountain, changes the weather, retells the jokes, remakes all the moves”. – Lito Tejada-Flores

109. “Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean”. – John Muir

110. “Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity”. – John Muir

111. “Who wouldn’t be a mountaineer! Up here all the world’s prizes seem nothing”. – John Muir

112. “Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us, God”. – John Muir

113. “And if these mountains had eyes, they would wake to find two strangers in their fences, standing in admiration as a breathing red pours its tinge upon earth’s shore. These mountains, which have seen untold sunrises, long to thunder praise but stand reverent, silent so that man’s weak praise should be given God’s attention”. – Donald Miller

Challenging Mountain Quotes

114. “When you go to the mountains, you see them and you admire them. In a sense, they give you a challenge, and you try to express that challenge by climbing them”. – Edmund Hillary

115. “Never measure the height of a mountain until you reach the top. Then you will see how low it was”. – Dag Hammerskjold

116. “Mountains know secrets we need to learn. That it might take time, it might be hard, but if you just hold on long enough, you will find the strength to rise up”. – Tyler Knott

117. “Without mountains, we might find ourselves relieved that we can avoid the pain of the ascent, but we will forever miss the thrill of the summit. And in such a terribly scandalous trade-off, it is the absence of pain that becomes the thief of life”. – Craig D. Lounsbrough

118. “In the mountains, you are sometimes invited, sometimes tolerated, and sometimes told to go home”. – Fred Beckey

119. “Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in an office or mowing the lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain”. – Jack Kerouac

120. “Any coward can sit at home and criticize a pilot for flying into a mountain in a fog. But I would rather by far die on a mountainside than in bed”. – Charles Lindbergh

121. “If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go”. – Edmund Hillary

122. “You can’t move mountains by whispering at them”. – Pink

123. “The summit is what drives us, but the climb itself is what matters”.- Conrad Anker

124. “The farthest mountain is the one you think you can never reach and it may even be just by the side of you”! – Mehmet Murat ildan

125. “So this was what a mountain was like, the same as a person: the more you know, the less you fear”. – Wu Ming-Yi

126. “Every great achievement is but a small peak in the mountain range of contributions”. – Dale T. Mortensen

Motivational Mountain Quotes

127. “Mountains are only a problem when they are bigger than you. You should develop yourself so much that you become bigger than the mountains you face”. ― Idowu Koyenikan

128. “May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds”. – Edward Abbey

129. “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

130. “On life and peaks it is the same. With strength, we win the grail, but courage is the thing we need to face the downward trail”. – Jacob Clifford Moomaw

131. “We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character”. – Henry David Thoreau

132. “May your dreams be larger than mountains and may you have the courage to scale their summits”. – Harley King

133. “Mountains are like the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter who anyone is or what they do”. – Jimmy Chin

134. “You can’t conquer a mountain, though it may conquer you”. – Jimmy Chin

135. “People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things”. – Edmund Hillary

136. “When you stand at the bottom of the mountain and look up at the mountaintop, the path looks hard and stony, and the top is obscured by clouds. But when you reach the top and you look down, you realize that there are a thousand paths that could have brought you to that place”. – Roz Savage

Hiking Quotes

137. “I slow down when hiking. The rhythm of nature is more leisurely. The sun comes up, it moves across the sky, and you begin to synchronize to that rhythm”. – John Mackey

138. “For hiking is one of those things that you can only do when you have the determination in you”. – Unknown

139. “You need special shoes for hiking—and a bit of a special soul as well”. – Terri Guillemets

We so much agree with the quote by Terri Guillemets. Trekking needs a special soul too – the soul that understands and respects the mountains, its flora, fauna and also its people. It also requires letting go of prejudices. Arrogance has no place in the mountains.

140. “If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk”. – Raymond Inmon

141. Returning home is the most difficult part of long-distance hiking; You have grown outside the puzzle and your piece no longer fits”. – Cindy Ross

142. Hiking is a bit like life: The journey only requires you to put one foot in front of the other…again and again and again. And if you allow yourself the opportunity to be present throughout the entirety of the trek, you will witness beauty every step of the way, not just at the summit”. – Unknown

143. We don’t stop hiking because we grow old – We grow old because we stop hiking”. – Finis Mitchel

144. “You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you’ve climbed a mountain”. – Tom Hiddleston

145. “The mountains whisper for me to wander; my soul hikes to the call”. – Angie Weiland-Crosby

Nature and Mountains Quotes

146. “Life sucks a lot less when you add mountain air, a campfire and some peace and quiet”. – Brooke Hampton

147. “I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order”. – John Burroughs

148. “Nature is not a place to visit. It is home”. – Gary Snyder

149. I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than trees”. – Henry David Thoreau

150. “Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt”. – John Muir

151. “Deep down, at the molecular heart of life, the trees and we are essentially identical”. – Carl Sagan

152. “To walk in nature is to witness a thousand miracles”. – Mary Davis

153. “Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent school masters and teach of us more than we can ever learn from books”. – John Lubbock

154. “To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from”. – Terry Tempest Williams

155. “In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful”. – Alice Walker

156. “My wish is to stay always like this, living quietly in a corner of nature”. – Claude Monet

157. “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better”. – Albert Einstein

158. “The clearest way into the universe is through the forest wilderness”. – John Muir

159. “If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I’ll bet they’d live a lot differently”. – Bill Watterson

160. “Nature has been for me, for as long as I remember, a source of solace, inspiration, adventure, and delight; a home, a teacher, a companion”. – Lorraine Anderson

161. “Wilderness is not a luxury but the necessity of the human spirit”. – Edward Abbey

162. “The farther one gets into the wilderness, the greater is the attraction of its lonely freedom”. – Theodore Roosevelt

163. “The wilderness holds answers to questions we have not yet learned to ask”. – Nancy Wynne Newhall

164. “Nature is my springboard. From her, I get my initial impetus. I have tried to relate the visible drama of mountains, trees, and bleached fields with the fantasy of wind blowing and changing colours and forms”. – Milton Avery

165. “The coniferous forests of the Yosemite Park, and of the Sierra in general, surpass all others of their kind in America, or indeed the world, not only in the size and beauty of the trees, but in the number of species assembled together, and the grandeur of the mountains they are growing on”. – John Muir

166. “Nature is one of the most underutilized treasures in life. It has the power to unburden hearts and reconnect to that inner place of peace”. – Janice Anderson

167. “Mountains are not Stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practise my religion.”- Anatoli Boukreev

168. It’s always further than it looks. It’s always taller than it looks. It’s always harder than it looks.” – Unknown

169. “But the objective, the people ask, the meaning, the goal? There is no meaning, there is no goal. Mountaineering is as meaningless as life itself – and thus its magic will never die.” – Peter Wessel Zapffe

170. “Those personal values, which we gain from our approach to the mountains, are great enough to enrich our life. Is not the irrationality of its very lack of purpose the deepest argument for climbing?” – Heinrich Harrer

171. “We cannot lower the mountain, therefore we must elevate ourselves” – Todd Skinner

172. “There’s no glory in climbing a mountain if all you want to do is to get to the top. It’s experiencing the climb itself – in all its moments of revelation, heartbreak, and fatigue – that has to be the goal.” – Karyn Kusam

Did you like these quotes? Why don’t you check out our post on Creative Travel Words for more travel inspirations!

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