11 Explorers’ Quotes to Improve Your Everyday Life
First thing’s first, everyone is an explorer in my book. Others may travel farther, or more often. A few may make newsworthy discoveries, or break records. They’ve found their path (or blazed one), and I applaud them for it. But you are on a journey too. You are exploring what it means to be alive every single day. Here are some of my favorite quotes from explorers that help guide me. I hope they prove useful for you too.
You Better Work.
“People I know who succeed don't mind working. Those who are competent seem to like doing things well -- not stopping because they haven't accomplished what they wanted to on the first go-round. They're willing to do it twenty times, if necessary. There's an illusion that the good people can easily do something, and it's not necessarily true. They're just determined to do it right. I was impressed by hearing one of the women at Radcliffe talk about writing a poem, how many revisions a single poem sometimes has to go through -- fifty or sixty revisions to come out with a poem sixteen lines long.”
Sylvia Earle
Don’t Rely on Others Seeing What You See to Justify Your Actions
“The greater the opportunity, the fewer are those who see it.”
James Cook
You Do You.
“I see no need to risk life and limb to find adventure. I can get my thrills in other ways—meeting locals, visiting beautiful and historic landmarks and architecture, trying new foods…just to name a few.”
Jessica Nabongo, first black woman to travel to every country in the world (thecatchmeifyoucan.com)
Honor Those Who Came Before You
"We must always remember with gratitude and admiration the first sailors who steered their vessels through storms and mists, and increased our knowledge of the lands of ice in the South."
Roald Amundsen (1872—1928)
Don’t Pre-Judge
“I understand he is a record-breaker in athletics. He will need his athletic ability on this trip. I am making no judgements or comments on these fellows now. Wait; I have seen too many enthusiastic starters, and I am sorry to say some of them did not finish well.”
Matthew Henson (on novice expedition member George Borup)
Most Things You Can Only Learn Through Experience
“None of us knows how we will respond to feeling out of our depth—until we have experienced it.”
Felicity Aston
They Can’t Take That Away From You
“The single observation I would offer for your consideration is that some things are beyond your control. You can lose your health to illness or accident. You can lose your wealth to all manner of unpredictable sources. What are not easily stolen from you without your cooperation are your principles and your values. They are your most important possessions and, if carefully selected and nurtured, will well serve you and your fellow man.”
Neil Armstrong
A Broader Measure of Wealth
“Wealth is also defined by family, connection to our ancestry, and our best vision of the future. All of these find their inner spirit, their constancy, and their strength in the values that shape our thinking and our actions.”
Nainoa Thompson, Polynesian Voyaging Society
Perspective is Everything
“I can't understand why men make all this fuss about Everest; it's only a mountain.”
Junko Tabei, first woman to summit Everest
Live in the Now
“We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls ride over the river, we know not. Ah, well! we may conjecture many things.”
-John Wesley Powell, explorer of the Colorado River and American west, Director of U.S. Geological Survey
Build Your Own Expedition Team
“There is something about building up a comradeship - that I still believe is the greatest of all feats - and sharing in the dangers with your company of peers. It's the intense effort, the giving of everything you've got. It's really a very pleasant sensation.”
Sir Edmund Hillary, first to summit Mt. Everest (with with Tenzing Norgay)