“I thought you’d rather have a live donkey than a dead lion.”

Optimism is the true moral courage.

Now my eyes are turned from the South to the North, and I want to lead one more Expedition. This will be the last to the North Pole.

Superhuman effort isn’t worth a damn unless it achieves results.

I have often marveled at the thin line which separates success from failure.

We had seen God in His splendors, heard the text that Nature renders. We had reached the naked soul of man.

Optimism is true moral courage.

I do not know what ‘moss’ stands for in the proverb , but if it stood for useful knowledge… I gathered more moss by rolling than I ever did at school.

If you’re a leader, a fellow that other fellows look to, you’ve got to keep going.

The noise resembles the roar of heavy, distant surf. Standing on the stirring ice one can imagine it is disturbed by the breathing and tossing of a mighty giant below.

I called to the other men that the sky was clearing, and then a moment later I realized that what I had seen was not a rift in the clouds but the white crest of an enormous wave.

After months of want and hunger, we suddenly found ourselves able to have meals fit for the gods, and with appetites the gods might have envied.

From the sentimental point of view, it is the last great Polar journey that can be made.

By endurance we conquer.

No person who has not spent a period of his life in those ‘stark and sullen solitudes that sentinel the Pole’ will understand fully what trees and flowers, sun-flecked turf and running streams mean to the soul of a man

I seemed to vow to myself that some day I would go to the region of ice and snow and go on and on till I came to one of the poles of the earth, the end of the axis upon which this great round ball turns.

Difficulties are just things to overcome after all.

It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself.

Is a decision made in advance really any kind of choice?

I try never to be governed by fear; that’s how I choose things.

The people who inspire me most are those who are willing to see the world from a loving perspective. People who perceive obstacles as opportunities and problems as spiritual assignments. People who choose love.

We choose to be writers because we don’t want to talk.

Given the choice between accomplishing something and just lying around, I’d rather lie around. No contest.

The more you retrain yourself to choose happiness over fear, the more blissful you will be.

Remember that you have a choice in what you see. If you choose to see a person’s darkness, you strengthen your darkness within. If you choose to see their light, you shine from the inside out.