TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index M > Reinhold Messner Quotes

Thumbnail of Reinhold Messner (source)
Reinhold Messner
(17 Sep 1944 - )

Italian mountaineer and author who grew up in South Tyrol, overshadowed by the Dolomites. He mounted a 1000m summit at the age of five, encouraged by his father. In the following years, he tackled increasingly challenging expeditions, and was the first to scale all the 14 peaks taller than 8,000m.

Science Quotes by Reinhold Messner (16 quotes)

Classical mountaineering is a completely anarchical activity. Its only measures are possible or impossible.
— Reinhold Messner
From interview with Rudraneil Sengupta, 'Reinhold Messner: When You’re Alone, Fear is All on You', Mint (1 Mar 2014). A business newspaper in India, also online at livemint.com website.
Science quotes on:  |  Anarchy (8)  |  Classical (49)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mountaineering (5)  |  Possible (560)

Climbing for me was more than a sport. Danger and difficulty were part of the game, together with adventure and exposure.
— Reinhold Messner
In Reinhold Messner: My Life At The Limit (2014), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Climb (39)  |  Danger (127)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Exposure (9)  |  Sport (23)

Climbing is all about freedom, the freedom to go beyond all the rules and take a chance, to experience something new, to gain insight into human nature.
— Reinhold Messner
In Reinhold Messner: My Life At The Limit (2014), 12-13.
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Chance (244)  |  Climb (39)  |  Experience (494)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Insight (107)  |  New (1273)  |  Rule (307)

Climbing is not a competition, and you cannot talk in terms of “greatest”, it means nothing,
— Reinhold Messner
Rejecting being called the “greatest” climber, during interview, in Rudraneil Sengupta, 'Reinhold Messner: When You’re Alone, Fear is All on You', Mint (1 Mar 2014). A business newspaper in India, also online at livemint.com website.
Science quotes on:  |  Climbing (9)  |  Competition (45)  |  Greatest (330)

Experienced mountaineers, they know that the real feeling is—after you’ve made a summit and come back—the feeling of being reborn.
— Reinhold Messner
From interview with Rudraneil Sengupta, 'Reinhold Messner: When You’re Alone, Fear is All on You', Mint (1 Mar 2014). A business newspaper in India, also online at livemint.com website.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Experience (494)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Mountaineer (3)  |  Reborn (2)  |  Summit (27)

I am nothing more than a single narrow gasping lung, floating over the mists and summits.
— Reinhold Messner
In Everest: Expedition to the Ultimate (1979), 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Float (31)  |  Gasp (6)  |  Lung (37)  |  Mist (17)  |  More (2558)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Single (365)  |  Summit (27)

I made my own ABC of climbing. A is no artificial oxygen. B is no bolts. And C is no communication systems.
— Reinhold Messner
A bolt is an artificial anchor drilled into a rock to aid climbing. From interview with Rudraneil Sengupta, 'Reinhold Messner: When You’re Alone, Fear is All on You', Mint (1 Mar 2014). A business newspaper in India, also online at livemint.com website.
Science quotes on:  |  Artificial (38)  |  Bolt (11)  |  Climbing (9)  |  Communication (101)  |  Oxygen (77)

I was 5 when I went up my first 10,000ft mountain, with my parents, and I have been climbing ever since.
— Reinhold Messner
From interview with Rudraneil Sengupta, 'Reinhold Messner: When You’re Alone, Fear is All on You', Mint (1 Mar 2014). A business newspaper in India, also online at livemint.com website.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Child (333)  |  Climbing (9)  |  Hobby (14)

I was in continual agony; I have never in my life been so tired as on the summit of Everest that day. I just sat and sat there, oblivious to everything … I knew I was physically at the end of my tether.
— Reinhold Messner
In All 14 Eight-Thousanders (1999), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Agony (7)  |  Continual (44)  |  Everest (10)  |  Everything (489)  |  Life (1870)  |  Never (1089)  |  Oblivious (9)  |  Sit (51)  |  Summit (27)  |  Tired (13)

Mountains are not fair or unfair, they are just dangerous.
— Reinhold Messner
In All Fourteen 8,000ers.
Science quotes on:  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Fair (16)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Unfair (9)

Standing now in diffused light, with the wind at my back, I experience suddenly a feeling of completeness–not a feeling of having achieved something or of being stronger than everyone who was ever here before, not a feeling of having arrived at the ultimate point, not a feeling of supremacy. Just a breath of happiness deep inside my mind and my breast. The summit seemed suddenly to me to be a refuge, and I had not expected to find any refuge up here. Looking at the steep, sharp ridges below us, I have the impression that to have come later would have been too late. Everything we now say to one another, we only say out of embarrassment. I don’t think anymore. As I pull the tape recorder, trancelike, from my rucksack, and switch it on wanting to record a few appropriate phrases, tears again well into my eyes. “Now we are on the summit of Everest,” I begin, “it is so cold that we cannot take photographs…” I cannot go on, I am immediately shaken with sobs. I can neither talk nor think, feeling only how this momentous experience changes everything. To reach only a few meters below the summit would have required the same amount of effort, the same anxiety and burden of sorrow, but a feeling like this, an eruption of feeling, is only possible on the summit itself.
— Reinhold Messner
In Everest: Expedition to the Ultimate (1979), 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Amount (153)  |  Anxiety (30)  |  Anymore (5)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Arrive (40)  |  Back (395)  |  Begin (275)  |  Being (1276)  |  Below (26)  |  Breast (9)  |  Breath (61)  |  Burden (30)  |  Change (639)  |  Cold (115)  |  Completeness (19)  |  Deep (241)  |  Diffuse (5)  |  Effort (243)  |  Embarrassment (5)  |  Eruption (10)  |  Everest (10)  |  Everyone (35)  |  Everything (489)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experience (494)  |  Eye (440)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Find (1014)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Impression (118)  |  Inside (30)  |  Late (119)  |  Light (635)  |  Looking (191)  |  Meter (9)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Momentous (7)  |  Photograph (23)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Pull (43)  |  Reach (286)  |  Record (161)  |  Recorder (5)  |  Refuge (15)  |  Require (229)  |  Required (108)  |  Ridge (9)  |  Rucksack (3)  |  Same (166)  |  Say (989)  |  Seem (150)  |  Shake (43)  |  Sharp (17)  |  Something (718)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Stand (284)  |  Steep (7)  |  Strong (182)  |  Stronger (36)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Summit (27)  |  Supremacy (4)  |  Switch (10)  |  Talk (108)  |  Tape (5)  |  Tear (48)  |  Think (1122)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Want (504)  |  Wind (141)

The big problem with being solo is that you cannot divide fear. Doing a difficult ascent is a lot about your own fear, and if you are together with another person, or with two people, you can divide that fear, share it. But when you are alone, the fear is all on you, and it’s very difficult to learn to cope with it.
— Reinhold Messner
About solo mountain climbing. From interview with Rudraneil Sengupta, 'Reinhold Messner: When You’re Alone, Fear is All on You', Mint (1 Mar 2014). A business newspaper in India, also online at livemint.com website.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Climbing (9)  |  Fear (212)

The last few meters up to the summit no longer seem so hard. On reaching the top, I sit down and let my legs dangle into space. I don’t have to climb anymore. I pull my camera from my rucksack and, in my down mittens, fumble a long time with the batteries before I have it working properly. Then I film Peter. Now, after the hours of torment, which indeed I didn’t recognize as torment, now, when the monotonous motion of plodding upwards is at an end, and I have nothing more to do than breathe, a great peace floods my whole being. I breathe like someone who has run the race of his life and knows that he may now rest forever. I keep looking all around, because the first time I didn’t see anything of the panorama I had expected from Everest, neither indeed did I notice how the wind was continually chasing snow across the summit. In my state of spiritual abstraction, I no longer belong to myself and to my eyesight. I am nothing more than a single, narrow, gasping lung, floating over the mists and the summits.
— Reinhold Messner
In Everest: Expedition to the Ultimate (1979), 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Across (32)  |  Anymore (5)  |  Battery (12)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belong (168)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Camera (7)  |  Chase (14)  |  Climb (39)  |  Continually (17)  |  Dangle (2)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  End (603)  |  Everest (10)  |  Expect (203)  |  Eyesight (5)  |  Film (12)  |  First (1302)  |  First Time (14)  |  Float (31)  |  Flood (52)  |  Forever (111)  |  Gasp (6)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hour (192)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Keep (104)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Leg (35)  |  Let (64)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Looking (191)  |  Lung (37)  |  Meter (9)  |  Mist (17)  |  Monotonous (3)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Myself (211)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notice (81)  |  Panorama (5)  |  Peace (116)  |  Plod (3)  |  Properly (21)  |  Pull (43)  |  Race (278)  |  Reach (286)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Rest (287)  |  Rucksack (3)  |  Run (158)  |  See (1094)  |  Seem (150)  |  Single (365)  |  Sit (51)  |  Snow (39)  |  Someone (24)  |  Space (523)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  State (505)  |  Summit (27)  |  Time (1911)  |  Top (100)  |  Torment (18)  |  Upward (44)  |  Upwards (6)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wind (141)  |  Work (1402)

The wonderful things in life are the things you do, not the things you have.
— Reinhold Messner
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Do (1905)  |  Life (1870)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Wonderful (155)

There are three elements of mountaineering—difficulty, danger, and exposure. Difficulty is the technical aspect of it. Danger, it is best to avoid, but some people like to increase danger to a point where their success is dependent only on luck. And exposure, which is what truly defines Alpinism, is what you face in wild nature. It’s the weather, the cold, the oxygen, the storms, the avalanches and rock falls, rain and snow. It’s the exposure that determines how you will move, it tells you that one wrong step means death. Exposure means no help is coming from outside, it’s you and the mountain.
— Reinhold Messner
From interview with Rudraneil Sengupta, 'Reinhold Messner: When You’re Alone, Fear is All on You', Mint (1 Mar 2014). A business newspaper in India, also online at livemint.com website.
Science quotes on:  |  Avalanche (5)  |  Danger (127)  |  Death (406)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Exposure (9)  |  Help (116)  |  Mountaineering (5)  |  Rain (70)  |  Snow (39)  |  Weather (49)

We go to the mountains to experience … how human beings must have felt a hundred thousand years ago, before civilization, governments, social structures, religions, and all the rules that you must follow to be a human.
— Reinhold Messner
From interview with Rudraneil Sengupta, 'Reinhold Messner: When You’re Alone, Fear is All on You', Mint (1 Mar 2014). A business newspaper in India, also online at livemint.com website.
Science quotes on:  |  Civilization (220)  |  Experience (494)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Government (116)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Religion (369)  |  Rule (307)


See also:

Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.