On the summit of Everest, I had a feeling of great satisfaction to be first there.
Interpretation
Achieving a significant goal brings immense satisfaction.
Edmund Hillary's quote reflects the profound sense of achievement that comes from reaching one's goals, especially when those goals are challenging and require immense effort, like scaling Mount Everest. His feelings of satisfaction highlight the personal fulfillment that accompanies such monumental accomplishments and the pride in being the first to achieve something significant.
In practice
During a motivational speech about overcoming obstacles and achieving goals.
I think I mainly climb mountains because I get a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I never attempt to analyze these things too thoroughly, but I think that all mountaineers do get a great deal of satisfaction out of overcoming some challenge which they think is very difficult for them, or which perhaps may be a little dangerous.
Despite all I have seen and experiences, I still get the same thrill out of glimpsing a tiny patch of snow in a high mountain gully and feel the same urge to climb toward it.
I've always hated the danger part of climbing, and it's great to come down again because it's safe.
Even when you're 50, you can make the effort to improve your standards.
Many people have been getting too casual about climbing Everest. I forecast a disaster many times.
I am a lucky man. I have had a dream and it has come true, and that is not a thing that happens often to men.
Going to the Portland Trail Blazers, who actually took the time to invest in me, was perhaps the best thing that ever happened to me in my career. I got to a small market where I could focus on basketball, basketball, basketball. No distractions.
Beside every great success are the seeds of enormous failure. In every failure, there's the opportunity seeds of great success. They're not miles apart. So if they're that close together, and if you're really working, you're always gonna have that likelihood that something's not going to work.
I retire from competition with great pride at having had a positive impact on my sport. I intend to keep training and practicing martial arts for as long as I live, and I look forward to watching the new generation of champions carry our sport into the future.
I was lucky enough to co-found a business in college that ended up with 400 employees, and I launched 20 different projects while I was there - a project a week.
I won from Mr. Jeffries because I outclassed him in every department of the fighting game. Before I entered the ring I was certain I would be the victor. I never changed my mind at any time.
Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.
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