These 40 inspirational mountain quotes will bring out the adventurer in you, encouraging you to seek new heights and explore places unseen.

Have you ever been asked if you’re a mountain or a beach person? While I personally feel inspired by both, there is something about the mountains I feel in my soul. Whether we’re flying over them, driving to them, watching a nature documentary or climbing one, mountains make me feel alive.

Someday I hope to write a novel and you can bet part of that novel will be written from a secluded mountain cabin. At least that’s my plan anyway.

If you feel the same way, then I’m fairly certain these mountain quotes will resonate with you. 

You’ll see John Muir mountain quotes, Henry David Thoreau and even Dr. Suess. Some of these quotes are literal, speaking to the beauty the mountains bring us and some tackle the topic of the personal mountains we face in our lives and how to climb and conquer them.

40 Inspiring Mountain Quotes for the Adventurer in You

1. “Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery why we climb.” -Greg Child

2. “He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.”-Friedrich Neitszche

3. “The mountains are calling and I must go.” – John Muir

4. “Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you.” ― David McCullough Jr.

5. Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.” – T.S. Eliot

6. “You are not in the mountains. The mountains are in you.” -John Muir

7. “The mountains were his masters. They rimmed in life. They were the cup of reality, beyond growth, beyond struggle and death. They were his absolute unity in the midst of eternal change.” ― Thomas Wolfe

8. “May your dreams be larger than mountains and may you have the courage to scale their summits.” -Harley King

9. “There are far better things ahead than the ones we leave behind.” – C.S. Lewis

10. “You’re off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, so… get on your way!” -Dr. Seuss

11. “Although I deeply love oceans, deserts, and other wild landscapes, it is only mountains that beckon me with that sort of painful magnetic pull to walk deeper and deeper into their beauty.” – Victoria Erikson

12. “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.” – John Muir

13. “When the sun is shining I can do anything; no mountain is too high, no trouble too difficult to overcome.” – Wilma Rudolph

14. The mountains themselves call us into greater stories.” ― Donald Miller

15. “The mountains were so wild and so stark and so very beautiful that I wanted to cry. I breathed in another wonderful moment to keep safe in my heart.” ― Jane Wilson-Howarth

16. “Mountains know secrets we need to learn. That it might take time, it might be hard, but if you just hold on long enough, you will find the strength to rise up.” – Tyler Knott

17. “So this was what a mountain was like, the same as a person: the more you know, the less you fear.” ― Wu Ming-Yi

18. “Nothing lives long, Only the earth and mountains” — Dee Brown

19. “Mountains are only a problem when they are bigger than you. You should develop yourself so much that you become bigger than the mountains you face.― Idowu Koyenikan

20. “Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.” — William Shakespeare

21. “Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.” — Andy Rooney

22. “If adventure has a final and all-embracing motive, it is surely this: we go out because it is our nature to go out, to climb mountains, and to paddle rivers, to fly to the planets and plunge into the depths of the oceans… When man ceases to do these things, he is no longer man.” — Wilfrid Noyce

23. “I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, “This is what it is to be happy.” -Sylvia Plath

24. I go to seek a great perhaps” — John Green

25. “The most dangerous thing you can do in life is play it safe.’’ – Casey Neistat

26. “The choices we make lead up to actual experiences. It is one thing to decide to climb a mountain. It is quite another to be on top of it.” – Herbert A. Simon

27. “I learn something every time I go into the mountains.” – Michael Kennedy

28. Despite all I have seen and experienced, I still get the same simple thrill out of glimpsing a tiny patch of snow in a high mountain gully and feel the same urge to climb towards it.” – Edmund Hillary

29. “Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.” – Henry David Thoreau

30. “An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.” – Henry David Thoreau

31. “May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.” – Edward Abbey

32. “The lake and the mountains have become my landscape, my real world.” – Georges Simenon

33. “If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.” – Anatole France

34. “Mountains are earth’s undecaying monuments.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne

35. “Mountains are only a problem when they are bigger than you. You should develop yourself so much that you become bigger than the mountains you face.” – Idowu Koyenikan

36. “I think, every time I’m on the mountain, I’m just so thankful to be there.” – Chloe Kim

37. “Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, So… get on your way!” – Dr. Seuss

38. “The summit is what drives us, but the climb itself is what matters.” – Conrad Anker

39. “Highest of heights, I climb this mountain and feel one with the rock and grit and solitude echoing back at me.” –Bradley Chicho

40. “When the sun is shining I can do anything; no mountain is too high, no trouble too difficult to overcome.” – Wilma Rudolph

Do you have a favorite mountain quote? If quotes are your thing, be sure to check out this collection of favorite outdoor quotes we asked 17 travel bloggers to share with us. You’ll see some well recognized ones and just possibly find a new favorite or two.