I liked these men very much when I first met them on the mountain nearly a half-century ago, but I came to admire them far more in the years that followed. I thought their brand of heroism — the heroism of example, the heroism of debts repaid and causes sustained — far more inspiring than the gung-ho kind. Did it really mean much to the human race when Everest was conquered for the first time? Only because there became attached to the memory of the exploit, in the years that followed, a reputation for decency, kindness and stylish simplicity. Hillary and Tenzing fixed it when they knocked the bastard off.
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Jan Morris in "Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay" in TIME magazine (14 June 1999)Edmund Hillary
» Edmund Hillary - all quotes »
The real point of mountain climbing, as of most hard sports, is that it voluntarily tests the human spirit against the fiercest odds, not that it achieves anything more substantial — or even wins the contest, for that matter. For the most part, its heroism is of a subjective kind. It was the fate of Hillary and Tenzing, though, to become very public heroes indeed, and it was a measure of the men that over the years they truly grew into the condition. Perhaps they thought that just being the first to climb a hill was hardly qualification for immortality; perhaps they instinctively realized destiny had another place for them. For they both became, in the course of time, representatives not merely of their particular nations but of half of humanity. Astronauts might justly claim that they were envoys of all humanity; Hillary and Tenzing, in a less spectacular kind, came to stand for the small nations of the world, the young ones, the tucked-away and the up-and-coming.
Edmund Hillary
Heroism is the brilliant triumph of the soul over the flesh — that is to say, over fear: fear of poverty, of suffering, of calumny, of sickness, of isolation, and of death. There is no serious piety without heroism. Heroism is the dazzling and glorious concentration of courage.
Henri-Frederic Amiel
These men and women remind us that heroism is found not only on the fields of battle. They remind us that heroism does not require special training or physical strength. Heroism is here, all around us, in the hearts of so many of our fellow citizens, just waiting to be summoned — as it was on Saturday morning.
Barack Obama
On the other hand, heroism is basic to the character of the Nordic peoples. This heroism of the ancient mythic period—and this is what is decisive—has never been lost, despite times of decline, so long as the Nordic blood was still alive. Heroism, in fact, took many forms, from the warrior nobility of Siegfried or Hercules to the intellectual nobility of Copernicus and Leonardo, the religious nobility of Eckehart and Lagarde, or the political nobility of Frederick the Great and Bismarck, and its substance has remained the same.
Alfred Rosenberg
I used to dislike the Whigs but in my years of loneliness I have come to the conclusion that they governed England better than anybody else. They thought our their measures carefully and adapted them to their times and generation. They were not heroic but they were wise. In modern days we see much heroism but little wisdom.
Archibald Primrose Rosebery
Hillary, Edmund
Hillel the Elder
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