💬 Quotes

"For a man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good."

"It is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two must be lacking."

"A prince ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline; for this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules."

"Therefore, a prince must not mind incurring the scandal of those vices without which it would be difficult to save the state, for if one considers everything well, it will be found that some things which seem virtues would, if followed, lead to one's ruin, and some others which appear vices result in one's greater security and wellbeing."

"The vulgar crowd is always taken by appearances and the world consists chiefly of the vulgar."

"Fortune is a woman; and it is necessary, if you wish to master her, to conquer her by force; and it can be seen that she lets herself be overcome by the bold rather than by those who proceed coldly."

"You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair."

"Every person is a miniature nation, with its own history, its own struggle for survival, and its own internal politics."

"The past is a ghost; it cannot hurt you unless you decide to give it life."

"Things always can go wrong. That is the nature of life. But it is the struggle that makes it worth living."

"We must learn to look at the world with compassion, even when it offers us nothing but cruelty."

"Every day is a gift, even if it is a crappy one."

"A sewing machine is not just a tool; it is a life raft in a sea of uncertainty."

"You don't choose who you fall for. It's a pull, a gravity that you can't resist, no matter how hard you try."

"The margin for error on Everest is razor-thin. The consequences of even the most trivial miscalculation are often fatal."

"Above 8,000 meters, the body begins to die. It is a place where human beings were never meant to exist."

"I was haunted by the knowledge that I had been a part of a tragedy that could have been avoided."

"Climbing an 8,000-meter peak is a delusional pursuit, an exercise in narcissism that turns into a fight for survival."

"The mountain does not care about your ambition, your preparation, or your desire to reach the top. It only knows the cold and the wind."

"With enough determination, any bloody idiot can get up this hill. The numbing difficulty is getting back down."