The most beautiful famous phrases and aphorisms about the Mountain

"When men and mountains meet, great things happen."

William Blake

So wrote William Blake, an eighteenth-century English poet. Impossible to blame him. The mountain is made not only to be admired in the landscape treasures that it continually offers to our gaze, in every season, but also to be experienced, with excursions, climbs, trips.

Those who frequent the peaks are well aware of the incomparable sensation of freedom that only the crisp air of the altitude and the boundless views are able to give.

Man has always had a passionate veneration for the mountains, sometimes tinged with awe. Philosophers, artists, mountaineers, men who have made history. Below we will read their words, we will listen to the reverberation of their voices that speak to us of the mystical experience of the mountain.

Let's start with Paolo Cognetti, contemporary Italian writer, winner of the 2017 Strega Prize.

“The mountain is not just snow and cliffs, ridges, streams, lakes, pastures. The mountain is a way of living life. One step ahead of the other, silence, time and measure. "

Paul Cognetti

In this sentence, he speaks to us of his vision of existence, comparing it to a solitary and tiring climb, which requires years and prudence. A prudence that is acquired as one proceeds with height and age.

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Although surrounded by wonders that we cannot help but admire in ecstasy, the mountain, like life, is not made up only of this. Just as a climb requires you to pay attention to every step in order not to take false ones, without letting yourself be completely carried away by the beauty of nature, so life cannot simply be let passively pass by enjoying only its joys, debauchery and pleasures that it offers us. .

It must be weighed in every phase, and silence is necessary to give space to a reflection that gives it the depth that will make us fully experience it.

Of the same opinion was the Scottish writer and naturalist John Muir, who in the last years of the nineteenth century wrote:

"Now we are in the mountains and the mountains are within us."

John Muir

In this short and hermetic sentence there is a simple truth: not only do mountains represent an analogy with the path of life to which we are all called and therefore are part of us, but they are also the extreme point of contact between man and the nature.

The immersion in the green of the pastures and the full breath of breath make the visitors really part of the mountain itself and they participate in it. Man becomes one with nature, in a single large organism.

“A plain country as beautiful as it is, it never was in my eyes. I need streams, rocks, wild pines, black woods, mountains, steep paths that are difficult to climb and descend, precipices around me that instill a lot of fear. "

Jacques Rosseau

Not only respect and reverence, but fear as well. This is the kind of suggestion that the mountain instills in the thoughts of Jean-Jacques Rosseau.

In this quote the famous French philosopher, famous for his studies on pedagogy and education, abounds and exaggerates the dark aspects of a nature that can be harsh and inhospitable, coloring the mountain with dark and frightening tones.

The mountain, however, is put in contrast with the quiet of the plain, poor in stimuli, however pleasant. Rousseau's voice therefore suggests another vision of the mountain in our ears that can be compared to that of life and, more deeply, of the human psyche.

So inaccessible and unpredictable, full of meanders to which no one can have access, the mind has always been one of the greatest worries of man, who cannot get close to the truth that lies behind his mystery.

The placid pastures have nothing to do with the irresistible charm of the snow-capped peaks, as well as the depths of the soul.

Another philosopher who celebrated the power of the mountains in his writings is Friedrich Nietzsche. We can still hear his voice powerfully uttering a phrase of great wisdom:

“A few hours of climbing in the mountains make a rascal and a saint two almost identical creatures. Fatigue is the shortest way to equality and brotherhood - and freedom is ultimately added by sleep. "

Friedrich Nietzsche

It doesn't matter who the adventurer chooses to climb the steep mountain trails.

As you proceed you will feel the suffocating heat of the sun that floods the slopes of the mountain, the pain in the feet that for hours have trampled on nothing but hard and sharp stones, the cramps in the legs, stiffened by prolonged effort, the fatigue that accompanies the last stretches, up to almost to make him give up.

The climb to the top is almost a mission. A mission that hesitates in achieving oneself, one's freedom and the feeling of dominating the world from above.

A mission that ultimately requires a lot of effort to be rewarded with rest. With healthy and physiological sleep, a natural need that brings all human beings to the same level.

Nietzsche reminds us that we all have the same needs and must meet the same needs. He reminds us that physical torments, our bodily nature, make us all equal and, in a certain sense, brothers.

“Nobody sees them, the climbers, when they are suspended above the abyss, in the boundless silence, engaged in a reckless fight; when, surprised by the night, they crouch numb on a slender terrace, to wait for the sun to return and the fight can begin again. "

Dino Buzzati

As we can read from this quote, Dino Buzzati pays tribute not only to the mountain, but also to those who have the courage to challenge it.

The climbers are painted with all the characteristic traits of the heroes of romantic literature: men in a desperate and incessant search for themselves.

These heroes choose an insidious path to find the answers they are looking for, engaging in a real fight with the mountain, which with the mighty force of the elements can counter them.

A nature that is not hospitable, but adverse, which, in a continuous tug-of-war, tries to hinder the human being by preventing him from continuing his path.

A nature that is not a friend, but, as if it were endowed with its own personality, and its unstoppable will, does everything to avoid being violated.

Faced with so much power, the hero can do nothing but wait for the sun, the rising of which marks the arrival of the most opportune moment to act.

The path to self-discovery is a fierce battle, but time and stubbornness can reward the most persistent.

Finally, we close with the voice of Walter Bonatti, a mountaineer who has literally made the mountains his life.

"The great mountains have the value of the men who climb them, otherwise they would be nothing more than a pile of stones."

Walter Bonati

As wonderful as it is, a mountain will simply remain a monument of nature, observing the world from above, but without a name and without an identity. It is the deeds of men that make them famous.

Similarly, an existence becomes worth living only if there is a man ready to give all of himself to live it without sparing himself.