I am my own home, and my handkerchief is my flag.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes self-sufficiency and personal identity. It suggests that one's inner self and personal symbols define their sense of belonging.
In this quote, Reinhold Messner expresses the idea that true home and identity come from within rather than from external sources or locations. By declaring his handkerchief as his flag, he suggests that personal symbols and meanings can represent one's unique essence, autonomy, and spirit. This reflects a broader philosophical notion of self-reliance and the importance of inner strength in shaping our identities.
In practice
During a motivational speech about finding inner strength.
I became famous for the fact that I would break many, many limits. People said, 'He does all these crazy things.' But oddly it was a crazy thing only because scientists and climbers said, 'Everest and the 8,000-meter peaks without oxygen - impossible. Messner is becoming sick in his head.'
A 30-year-old rock climber is an old man. At 40, one is in the middle of his high-altitude power. At 50, a crosser of deserts is at his best age. But at 60, each of us is out of the game.
I think my cultural work is more important than the adventures I did. The adventures are not important for human beings. It's the conquering of the useless.
In mountaineering, there is not only the activity, but the philosophy behind it. Some say a moral, but I am against that because all morality is dangerous.
I was the first man to climb the world's 14 tallest peaks without supplementary oxygen, but I never asked how high I would go, just how I would do it.
In my state of spiritual abstraction, I no longer belong to myself and to my eyesight. I am nothing more than a single narrow gasping lung, floating over the mists and summits.
A good traveller is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveller does not know where he came from.
The essence of the question is the opening up, and keeping open, of possibilities.
La memoria no guarda películas, guarda fotografías.
The mere physical man is like the ant crawling on the paper, who observes black lettering and attributes its production to the pen and nothing more.
Confidence in the natural world is self-reliance; in the spiritual world, it is God-reliance.
I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.
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