199 Jaw-Dropping Mountain Quotes To Inspire You

This post contains affiliate links. Read the full disclosure here.

If you are looking for some amazing mountain quotes you have come to the right place.

Mountains are incredibly inspiring places.

Often big achievements in our lives are likened to what it must be like to climb a mountain.

This list of mountain quotes will provide you with added motivation to achieve your goals.

Related Posts:

Right, let’s jump into this list of mountain quotes.

Contents show

Top 10 Mountain Quotes

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

When faced with a large project, remember you move a mountain one stone at a time.
Catherine Pulsifer

Your faith can move mountains and your doubt can create them.
Swami Vivekananda

Always be thankful for the little things… even the smallest mountains can hide the most breathtaking views!
Nyki Mack

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

I like geography best, he said, because your mountains & rivers know the secret. Pay no attention to boundaries.
Brian Andreas

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

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

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

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

More Mountain Quotes

Wherever we go in the mountains, we find more than we seek. John Muir

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.
Henry David Thoreau

Sometimes, you climb the mountain, and you fall and fail. Maybe there is a different path that will take you up. Sometimes a different mountain. Caterina Fake

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

Mountains terrify methey just sit about; they are so proud. Sylvia Plath

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

If you think you’ve peaked, find a new mountain.
Unknown

Nothing lives long, Only the earth and mountains. Dee Brown

A trail through the mountains, if used, becomes a path in a short time, but, if unused, becomes blocked by grass in an equally short time. Mencius

So you see, I am not shut out from the region of the beautiful, though my hand cannot perceive the brilliant colors in the sunset or on the mountain, or reach into the blue depths of the sky. Unknown Author

Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for they speak with the voice of God. George Washington Carver

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

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

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

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

Those who travel to mountaintops are half in love with themselves, and half in love with oblivion.
Robert Macfarlane

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success. Henry David Thoreau

Great things are done when men and mountains meet. William Blake

I like the mountains because they make me feel small,’ Jeff says. ‘They help me sort out what’s important in life. Mark Obmascik

Climb the mountain so you can see the world, not so the world can see you. David McCullough Jr.

When everything feels like an uphill struggle, think of the view from the top.
Unknown

Go where you feel most alive. Unknown

Never be discouraged. If I were sunk in the lowest pits of Nova Scotia, with the Rocky Mountains piled on me, I would hang on, exercise faith, and keep up good courage, and I would come out on top. Joseph Smith, Jr.

You are not in the mountains. The mountains are in you. John Muir

When the wind calls, you know, that somewhere in the mountains, it has found the answers that you were looking for. The pull of the horizon overcomes the inertia of reason…And you just have to go. Vikram Oberoi

Mountains are the beginning and the end of allnatural scenery. John Ruskin

There are far better things ahead than the ones we leave behind.
C.S. Lewis

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

The top of one mountain is always the bottom of another. Marianne Williamson

If adventure has a final and allembracing 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

I’m always looking for a new challenge. There are a lot of mountains to climb out there. When I run out of mountains, I’ll build a new one.
Sylvester Stallone

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 accidentit has to be intentional. Mark Udall

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

All good things are wild and free.Unknown

People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.
Edmund Hillary

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

Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains. William Shakespeare

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

Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test it’s a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain. Frank Herbert

How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!
John Muir

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 McCullough Jr.

Mountains are created to be conquered; adversities are designed to be defeated; problems are sent to be solved. William Arthur Ward

Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains. Steve Jobs

If we choose to walk into a forest where a tiger lives, we are taking a chance. If we swim in a river where crocodiles live, we are taking a chance. If we visit the desert or climb a mountain or enter a swamp where snakes have managed to survive, we are taking a chance. Peter Benchley

I go to seek a great perhaphs.
John Green

Climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are nought without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste; look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the end. Edward Whymper

I learn something every time I go into the mountains. Michael Kennedy

It’s not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves. Sir Edmund Hillary

The mountains are calling, and I must go. John Muir

Going to the mountains is like going home. John Muir

Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, so…. get on your way!
Dr Seuss

Every man should pull a boat over a mountain once in his life. Werner Herzog

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go. T.S. Eliot

I’m a person of the mountains and the open paddocks and the big empty sky, that’s me, and I knew if I spent too long away from all that I’d die; I don’t know what of, I just knew I’d die. John Marsden

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

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

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 itselfin all its moments of revelation, heartbreak, and fatiguethat has to be the goal. Karyn Kusama

What a glorious greeting the sun gives the mountains. John Muir

Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long. George Bernard Shaw

Highest of heights, I climb this mountain and feel one with the rock and grit and solitude echoing back at me.
Bradley Chicho

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 TejadaFlores

In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds. Robert Green Ingersoll

I like the mountains because they make me feel small. They help me sort out what’s important in life. Mark Obmascik

Inspirational Mountain Quotes

I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news. John Muir

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

Every mountain top is within reach if you just keep climbing. Barry Finlay

Climbing is my art; I get so much joy and gratification from it. Jimmy Chin

Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion. Anatoli Boukreev

Jumping from boulder to boulder and never falling, with a heavy pack, is easier than it sounds; you just can’t fall when you get into the rhythm of the dance. Jack Kerouac

Mountains know secrets we need to learn. That 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

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

What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it’s curved like a road through mountains. Tennessee Williams

In my afternoon walk, I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society. Henry David Thoreau

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

Stop staring at mountains. Climb them instead, yes, it’s a harder process, but it will lead you to a better view.
Unknown Author

I understood at a very early age that in nature, I felt everything I should feel in church but never did. Walking in the woods, I felt in touch with the universe and with the spirit of the universe. Alice Walker

The hardest mountain to climb is the one within. J. Lynn

A lone peak of high point is a natural focal point in the landscape, something by which both travelers and local orient themselves. In the continuum of landscape, mountains are discontinuityculminating in high points, natural barriers, unearthly earth. Rebecca Solnit

You need mountains, long staircases don’t make good hikers.
Amit Kalantri

Study how water flows in a valley stream, smoothly and freely between the rocks. Also learn from holy books and wise people. Everythingeven mountains, rivers, plants and treesshould be your teacher. Morihei Ueshiba

Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was. Dag Hammarskjold

Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid not to try. Unknown

Bald as the bare mountain tops are bald, with a baldness full of grandeur.
Matthew Arnold

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

So this was what a mountain was like, the same as a person: the more you know, the less you fear. Wu MingYi

Each fresh peak ascended teaches something. Sir Martin Convay

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

Coffee, Mountains. Adventure.
Unknown

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

Life’s a bit like mountaineering never look down. Sir Edmund Hillary

You don’t need to climb a mountain to know that it’s high. Paulo Coelho

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

Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.
Walt Whitman

Chasing angels or fleeing demons, go to the mountains. Jeffrey Rasley

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

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

In a flat country a hillock thinks itself a mountain.
Turkish Proverb

An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day. Henry David Thoreau

Great things are done when men and mountains meet; This is not done by jostling in the street. William Blake

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

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

Mountains have a way of dealing with overconfidence. Nemann Buhl

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

The best view comes after the hardest climb. Unknown

You can’t conquer a mountain, though it may conquer you. Jimmy Chin

Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.
Ed Viesturs

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

Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddam mountain. Jack Kerouac

The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass, and beyond there is a different country.J. Robert Oppenheimer

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.
John Muir

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves. Edmund Hillary

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

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

Go wild, for a while. Unknown

In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.
John Muir

What would be ugly in a garden constitutes beauty in a mountain. Victor Hugo

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

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

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

Motivational Mountain Quotes

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

When life gives you mountains put on your boots and hike.
Unknown

One day’s exposure to mountains is better than a cartload of books. John Muir

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

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

Popularity is a bubble. It’s a mountain: you can go up really hard but walk down really fast.
RM

A little more altitude, a little less attitude. Unknown

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

There’s no time to be bored in world as beautiful as this. Unknown

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. John Muir

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

The mountains are a demanding, cold place, and they don’t allow for mistakes. Conrad Anker

The lake and the mountains have become my landscape, my real world. Georges Simenon

My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing. Aldous Huxley

I’m always astonished by a forest. It makes me realize that the fantasy of nature is much larger than my own fantasy. I still have things to learn. Gunter Grass

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

We don’t live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means, and that is what life is for. George Mallory

Mountains are earth’s undecaying monuments. Nathaniel Hawthorne

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. Henry David Thoreau

Distant hills look green.
Irish Proverb

The higher you climb on the mountain, the harder the wind blows. Sam Cummings

When the sun is shining, I can do anything; no mountain is too high, no trouble too difficult to overcome. Wilma Rudolph

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

When we tire of wellworn ways, we seek for new. This restless craving in the souls of men spurs them to climb, and to seek the mountain view.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I am convinced that the jealous, the angry, the bitter and the egotistical are the first to race to the top of mountains. A confident person enjoys the journey, the people they meet along the way and sees life not as a competition. Shannon L. Alder

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

You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. Rene Daumal

You can’t move mountains by whispering at them.
Pink

Each stone, each bend cries welcome to him. He identifies with the mountains and the streams; he sees something of his own soul in the plants and the animals and the birds of the field. Paulo Coelho

If you want to train for big mountain endeavors, spend time in big mountains. Jimmy Chin

Mountains are not fair or unfair; they are just dangerous. Reinhold Messner

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

How wild it was, to let it be. Cheryl Strayed

The summit is what drives us, but the climb itself is what matters. Conrad Anker

The experienced mountain climber is not intimidated by a mountain he is inspired by it. William Arthur Ward

This mountain, the arched back of the earth risen before us, it made me feel humble, like a beggar, just lucky to be here at all, even briefly. Bridget Asher

When preparing to climb a mountain, pack a light heart.
Dan May

Only mountains can feel the frozen warmth of the sun through snow’s gentle caress on their peaks. Munia Khan

The mountains, the forest, and the sea, render men savage; they develop the fierce, but yet do not destroy the human. Victor Hugo

Hike more. Worry Less. Unknown

Life is better in hiking boots. Unknown

A forest bird never wants a cage.
Henrik Ibsen

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 tradeoff, it is the absence of pain that becomes the thief of life. Craig D. Lounsbrough

Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more that what we could learn from books. John Lubbock

Thought-Provoking Quotes About Mountains

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

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

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

No matter how tall the mountain is, it cannot block the sun. Chinese Proverb

Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and numbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from meI am happy. Hamlin Garland

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

The climb speaks to our character, but the view, I think, to our souls. Lori Lansens

As a mountain you can’t grow, but as a human I can. Edmund Hillary

No matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain cannot be denied it speaks in silence to the very core of your being. Ansel Adams

Over every mountain, there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley. Theodore Roethke

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

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

It is better to master one mountain than a thousand foothills. William Arthur Ward

I believe that the ascent of mountains forms an essential chapter in the complete duty of man and that it is wrong to leave any district without setting foot on its highest peak. Sir Leslie Stephen

By bringing myself over the edge and back, I discovered a passion to live my days fully, a conviction that will sustain me like sweet water on the periodically barren plain of our short lives.
Jonathan Waterman

The special forces gave me the selfconfidence to do some extraordinary things in my life. Climbing Everest then cemented my belief in myself. Bear Grylls

And into the mountains I go to lose my mind and find my soul. John Muir

The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks. Tennessee Williams

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 colors and forms. Milton Avery

The mountains whisper for me to wander; my soul hikes to the call.
Angie Weiland Crosby

It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out; it’s the grain of sand in your shoe. Robert W. Service

Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, and robes the mountain in its azure hue. Thomas Campbell

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. Martin Luther King, Jr.

What are men to rocks and mountains?
Jane Austen

The ground we walk on, the plants and creatures, the clouds above constantly dissolving into new formationseach gift of nature possessing its own radiant energy, bound together by cosmic harmony. Ruth Bernhard

Thousands of tired, nerveshaken, overcivilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity. John Muir

To Sum Up

Hopefully you enjoyed this big list of mountain quotes.

There are lots to inspire and motivate you every day.

I’d love to know which mountain quotes are your favourites.

Drop them in the comments below.

Don’t Miss A Thing

Twitter, Facebook or Instagram

Or why not subscribe to The Growth Reactor and get all the latest self development tips straight to your inbox every week?

Enter your name and email address below to subscribe.