George Mallory
George Leigh Mallory was an English schoolteacher and mountaineer. He was educated at Winchester College and Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read history under the tutelage of A.C. Benson and wrote a biography of James Boswell. While at Cambridge, Mallory developed close friendships with several members of the Bloomsbury Group, including Duncan Grant and Lytton Strachey. He was keenly interested in political issues of the day, and was a Fabian socialist who favored women’s suffrage and Irish home rule. Mallory later worked as a schoolmaster at Charterhouse School, where he taught the future poet Robert Graves. Graves credited Mallory with encouraging his writing and introducing him to the work of modern authors.
Mallory is best known for participating in the three Mount Everest expeditions of the 1920s. Along with Andrew Irvine, he died attempting to be the first to climb Mount Everest. It is not known whether or not they reached the summit before their fatal accident.
“My mind is in a state of constant rebellion. I believe that will always be so.”
“People ask me, 'What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?' and my answer must at once be, 'It is of no use.'There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behaviour of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron... 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. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to live. That is what life means and what life is for.”
“Because it's there.”
“For the stone from the top for geologists, the knowledge of the limits of endurance for the doctors, but above all for the spirit of adventure to keep alive the soul of man.”
“How to get the best of it all? One must conquer, achieve, get to the top; one must know the end to be convinced that one can win the end - to know there's no dream that mustn't be dared. . . Is this the summit, crowning the day? How cool and quiet! We're not exultant; but delighted, joyful; soberly astonished. . . Have we vanquished an enemy? None but ourselves. Have we gained success? That word means nothing here. Have we won a kingdom? No. . . and yes. We have achieved an ultimate satisfaction. . . fulfilled a destiny. . . To struggle and to understand - never this last without the other; such is the law. . .”
“To struggle and to understand. Never the last without the first. That is the law.”
“So, 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. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for.”
“It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.”