89 Mountain Quotes to Inspire Strength, Clarity, and a Sense of Wonder
Mountains remind us to stay grounded and keep climbing, so we’ve put together a list of all the best mountain quotes to inspire your next post.
And if you’re looking for short and scenic mountain sayings for Instagram, we also have you covered.
Now go ahead and browse through to find your favorite.
Short Mountain Quotes for Instagram
“The mountains are calling and I must go.” — John Muir
“You are not in the mountains. The mountains are in you.” — John Muir
“I believe that the ascent of mountains forms an essential chapter in the complete duty of man, and that it is wrong to leave any district without setting foot on its highest peak.” — Sir Leslie Stephen
“Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.” — Anatoli Boukreev
“Each stone, each bend cries welcome to him. He identifies with the mountains and the streams, he sees something of his own soul in the plants and the animals and the birds of the field.” — Paulo Coelho
“I live not in myself, but I become a portion of that around me: and to me high mountains are a feeling, but the hum of human cities torture.” — George Byron
“Go where you feel most alive.” — Unknown
“Climb the mountain so you can see the world, not so the world can see you.” — David McCullough Jr.
“In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.” — John Muir
“Mountains teach that not everything in this world can be rationally explained.” — Aleksander Lwow
“The higher you climb on the mountain, the harder the wind blows.” — Sam Cummings
“Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley.” — Theodore Roethke
“What are men to rocks and mountains?” — Jane Austen
“Great things are done when men and mountains meet.” — William Blake
“The top of one mountain is always the bottom of another.” — Marianne Williamson
“Mountains aren’t just funny. They’re hill areas.” — Unknown
“He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
“May your dreams be larger than mountains and may you have the courage to scale their summits.” — Harley King
“Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.” — John Ruskin
“Every mountain top is within reach if you just keep climbing.” — Barry Finlay
“The only Zen you find on tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.” — Robert M. Pirsig
“Life is better in hiking boots.” — Unknown
“Mountains make me believe that the world was not made in vain.” — Unknown
“Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.” — John Muir
“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
“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. They keep me continuously wanting to know more, feel more, see more.” — Victoria Erickson
“I’m the sort of person who needs a big mountain in front of me to climb.” — Katarina Witt
“The way up to the top of the mountain is always longer than you think. Don’t fool yourself, the moment will arrive when what seemed so near is still very far.” — Paulo Coelho
“The cliché is that life is a mountain. You go up, reach the top and then go down.” — Jeanne Moreau
“When we tire of well-worn ways, we seek for new. This restless craving in the souls of men spurs them to climb, and to seek the mountain view.” — Ella Wheeler Wilcox
“Purposes, plans, and achievements of men may all disappear like yon cloud upon the mountain’s summit; but, like the mountain itself, the things which are of God shall stand fast for ever and ever.” — Charles Spurgeon
“The mountains have rules. They are harsh rules, but they are there, and if you keep to them you are safe. A mountain is not like men. A mountain is sincere. The weapons to conquer it exist inside you, inside your soul.” — Walter Bonatti
“Jumping from boulder to boulder and never falling, with a heavy pack, is easier than it sounds; you just can’t fall when you get into the rhythm of the dance.” — Jack Kerouac
“Those who travel to mountain-tops are half in love with themselves, and half in love with oblivion.” — Robert Macfarlane
“I like the mountains because they make me feel small. They help me sort out what’s important in life.” — Mark Obmascik
“Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.” — Dag Hammarskjöld
“The best view comes after the hardest climb.” — Vanessa Gendoma
“If you don’t have a mountain, build one and then climb it. And after you climb it, build another one; otherwise you start to flatline in your life.” — Sylvester Stallone
“Everybody wants to reach the peak, but there is no growth on the top of a mountain. It is in the valley that we slog through the lush grass and rich soil, learning and becoming what enables us to summit life’s next peak.” — Andy Andrews
“This mountain, the arched back of the earth risen before us, it made me feel humble, like a beggar, just lucky to be here at all, even briefly.” — Bridget Asher
“I’ve realised that at the top of the mountain, there’s another mountain.” — Andrew Garfield
“Ever since a small boy, I have loved just to look at the mountains, to see them in different lights and from different angles, to feel their rough rock under my fingers and the breath of the winds against my feet. I am in love with the mountains.” — Wilfrid Noyce
“You never climb the same mountain twice, not even in memory. Memory rebuilds the mountain, changes the weather, retells the jokes, remakes all the moves.” — Lito Tejada-Flores
“The mountains, the forest, and the sea, render men savage; they develop the fierce, but yet do not destroy the human.” — Victor Hugo
“When the sun is shining I can do anything; no mountain is too high, no trouble too difficult to overcome.” — Wilma Rudolph
“A mountain is composed of tiny grains of earth. The ocean is made up of tiny drops of water. Even so, life is but an endless series of little details, actions, speeches, and thoughts. And the consequences whether good or bad of even the least of them are far-reaching.” — Swami Sivananda
“To me a mountain is a buddha. Think of the patience, hundreds of thousands of years just sittin there bein perfectly perfectly silent and like praying for all living creatures in that silence and just waitin for us to stop all our frettin and foolin.” — Jack Kerouac
“Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born.” — Jack Kerouac
“If you are faced with a mountain, you have several options. You can climb it and cross to the other side. You can go around it. You can dig under it. You can fly over it. You can blow it up. You can ignore it and pretend it’s not there. You can turn around and go back the way you came. Or you can stay on the mountain and make it your home.” — Vera Nazarian
“How do you fight against a mountain? How do you move it when you don’t even have a shovel? Maybe you don’t have to move it. Maybe you have to climb it.” — Alexandra Bracken
“In the mountains you never leave anyone behind. For any reason. That’s the way it is, and that’s the way it has to be.” — Luca D’Andrea
“The mountain is no longer alone; the trees support it.” — Charles of Leusse
“Whether in the valley of despair, the mountain peak of victory, or somewhere in-between, we are called to maintain a constant, stable connection to God Almighty.” — Jeremy Gove
“To be able to enjoy the pleasure of a descend from a mountaintop, something should take you to the top of the mountain in the first place. Your work – the roll of the rock takes you to the mountaintop.” — Nesta Erskine
“Mountain’s realization comes through the details of the breath, mountain appears in each step.” — Joan Halifax
“Mountain then lives inside our bones, inside our heart-drum. It stands like a huge mother in the atmosphere of our minds.” — Joan Halifax
“Mountain draws ancestors together in the form of clouds.” — Joan Halifax
“Mountain mother is a birth gate that joins the above and below, she is a prayer house, she is a mountain. Mountain is a mountain.” — Joan Halifax
“Where the mountain crosses. On top of the mountain, I do not myself know where. I wandered where my mind and my heart seemed to be lost. I wandered away.” — John Bierhorst
“Whatever you want is behind the mountain of struggles. Nothing great comes with ease.” — Israelmore Ayivor
“You have to conquer every mountain to realize the dream.” — Lailah Gifty Akita
“You may not be able to move the mountain with one hit, but you can do so by picking up the rocks bit by bit! Stop loading yourself and go bit by bit… You will get there!” — Israelmore Ayivor
“The power of such a mountain is so great and yet so subtle that, without compulsion, people are drawn to it from near and far, as if by the force of some invisible magnet.” — Lama Anagarika Govinda
“A mountain had died, its skeleton had been scattered over the ground.” — Vasily Grossman
“It seems the mountain is too high to climb. Halfway to top, spirit will break.” — Todd J. Caudill
“The poem that took the place of a mountain.” — Wallace Stevens
“Dancing to the music inside a mountain garage.” — Kurt Philip Behm
“Girt in by mountain walls and washed with waterfalls.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The mountain summits, thy expanding heart. Shall feel a kindred with that loftier world.” — William Cullen Bryant
“The mountain eagle seems to sail a ship far seen at even.” — Henrik Johan Ibsen
Inspirational Mountain Quotes
“Mountains have a way of dealing with overconfidence.” — Herman Buhl
“You climb to reach the summit, but once there, discover that all roads lead down.” — Stanislaw Lem
“A wise man climbs mountains, not so the world can see him, but so he can see the world.”
“There is no wifi in the mountains, but you’ll find a better connection.”
“On a mountain, there are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going.” — Beverly Sills
“Some days, you just have to create your own sunshine… on a summit.”
“Fear keeps us grounded. Faith lifts us up the mountain.” — Kristen Armstrong
“The mountain remains unmoved at seeming defeat by the mist.” — Rabindranath Tagore
“Adventure awaits on the other side of comfort—and usually uphill.”
“The climb may be tough, but the view from the top is always worth it.”
“Only if you’ve been in the deepest valley, can you know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.” — Richard Nixon
“No mountain too high if your spirit is wild enough to rise.” — Unknown
“The mountains stretch out their arms, beckoning the brave.” — Unknown
“Real freedom lies in wildness, not in civilization. Up in the mountains, I breathe free.” — Edward Abbey
“Don’t count the steps. Make the steps count.”
“Mountains whisper to those who listen.”
“Patience is the art of climbing slowly and smiling at the summit.” “If the path is easy, you’re probably not headed toward a peak.”
“The mountain is not in your way; it is your way.”
“Between peaks and valleys, greatness is born in the climb.”
