Nik Wallenda Quotes

Climbing is unadulterated hard labor. The only real pleasure is the satisfaction of going where no man has been before and where few can follow.

Men climb mountains, scale heights, venture into the unexplored to prove to other men it can be done.

At 19 I left school and embarked on a 9-day bike ride with friends from London to Monte Carlo.

There is no joy involved in climbing mountains, there is simply the challenge, the self-invented challenge, the play.

I never was content unless I was trying my skill...or testing my endurance.

I did the Kilimanjaro climb a few years ago, then the six-day trek to Machu Picchu in Peru so this bike ride to raise money for Great Ormond Street seemed like the next big challenge.

Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.

Life for the European is a career; for the American it is a hazard.

I climbed nine mountains because I love adventure, and I got addicted to that feeling and I never wanted to stop. I wanted to see what I could accomplish. I finally can say that I stood on top of the world.

My Antarctic expedition is just about doable, just feasible and that's what is exciting to me. If I knew it was possible, if I knew I could do it without too much bother, I wouldn't be interested.

I think I mainly climb mountains because I get a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I never attempt to analyze these things too thoroughly, but I think that all mountaineers do get a great deal of satisfaction out of overcoming some challenge which they think is very difficult for them, or which perhaps may be a little dangerous.

I enjoyed climbing with other people, good friends, but I did quite a lot of solo climbing, too.

Pretty much any time I got a chance to do something cool, I tried to grab for it, and that's where my solace comes from.

The most adventurous I've been was doing Raleigh International when I was 20.

Meeting Australian mountaineer and author Tim Macartney-Snape when I was 16 in 1994 had a big impact on me. His ascent of Everest from sea to summit captured my imagination.

I like challenges; I like excitement. I like entering different worlds and trying to succeed - not excel, but succeed.

We go out, we explore, we take risk. And our successes have to pay for all that.

I'd never been one for leaving the comforts of home. That person wasn't me; I didn't spend my formative years youth-hostelling round Rwanda or climbing Everest in a tie-dye playsuit to raise awareness of something or other.

Ultimately, rugby players are like surfers. You look for the perfect wave, but you don't always find it. And if you did, you'd probably pack up and try something else.

I was the first man to climb the world's 14 tallest peaks without supplementary oxygen, but I never asked how high I would go, just how I would do it.

The art of climbing is the art of survival. The best climber is the man or woman going in the most crazy places but surviving.

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.

I want to do things not many have done.

I came to Flatanger with a plan in my mind to bolt a really, really hard thing that would be beautiful and keep me motivated to try it for a long time, in some underdeveloped area.

I'm never going to go and test myself on Everest, but I sort of understand the psychology of people who might want to.