“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”

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.

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

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.

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.

Teachers should be very careful not to spoil their pupils’ taste for poetry for all time by making it a task and an imposition.

Maybe in another life, you say but I am stuck loving you in this one.

Life is nasty, brutish, and short.

The universal truth that connects all life to the source, my child, is love.

I’ve spent most of my life being extremely sensitive, drained, and nervous when around a lot of people.

Every person that comes into your life is here for a limited time, so be fair, be there.

I’ve spent most of my life not understanding that my anxiety was causing a downward spiral, self-medicating, and self-sabotage.

All the things life has to offer with all of its ups and downs, nothing’s perfect, but it’s all beautiful.

and in the chaos of life, there is you