Looking for a few fantastic mountain quote captions to use for Instagram? We have you covered!
These are our favorite mountain quotes in no particular order. We love spending time out in the mountains so much that it’s where we now call home. After traveling all around the globe, we’re humbled to call the Canadian Rockies home. In honor of our new home, that is why we have decided to share some inspiring words about nature, adventure, and the mountains. Read one for the best quotes about mountains.
The Best Mountain Quotes
(Mountain Quotes 1-20)
“Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery why we climb.”
— Greg Child
“Mountains are not fair or unfair, they are just dangerous.”
—Reinhold Messner
I thought about this mountain quote on our last climb. We got caught in a terrible snowstorm, after just enjoying the sunshine minutes before. The visibility was terrible and conditions were sketchy. That’s how the mountains are – unpredictable and very dangerous.
“I met a lot of young people who asked me what books to read or films to watch. I think that is a good way to start, but there’s no substitute for just going there.”
— Yvon Chouinard
“I’ve done a lot of thinking about fear. For me the crucial question is not how to climb without fear that’s impossible- but how to deal with it when it creeps into your nerve endings.”
— Alex Honnold (Honnold is one of the best free soloist in the world, so any mountain quotes he has to say is sure to be a good one.)
“Nothing lives long, Only the earth and mountains”
— Dee Brown
“I now walk into the wild.”
— Jon Krakauer
“Never measure the height of a mountain until you reach the top. Then you will see how low it was.”
—Dag Hammerskjold
“Go where you feel most alive.”
— Unknown (A short mountain quote and one of my favorite mountain instagram captions)
“I like the mountains because they make me feel small,’ Jeff says. ‘They help me sort out what’s important in life.”
― Mark Obmascik
The photo above is atop the Drakensberg mountains in South Africa. This quote about the mountains by Mark Obmascik brings me back to that hike and just how small we felt in the vast mountain ranges.
“You can never conquer the mountain. You can only conquer yourself.”
— Jim Whittaker
“He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
“The wonderful things in life are the things you do, not the things you have.”
― Reinhold Messner
“I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news”
– John Muir (Any mountain quotes by John Muir is a great one to use for your inspiration and mountain photos on Instagram)
“I have climbed my mountain, but I must still live my life.”
— Tenzing Norgay
“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
“The mountains are calling and I must go.”
— John Muir
“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
“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
“Hike more. Worry Less.”
— Unknown (Such a very simple mountain quote, but it couldn’t be more true, once you are hiking you need to worry less).
“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. (One of the best mountain view quotes)
Great Mountain Sayings
(Mountain Quotes 20-30)
“Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.”
— William Shakespeare (Another one of those perfect mountain sayings)
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.”
— T.S. Eliot
“Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.”
— Andy Rooney
“I’ve realized that at the top of the mountain, there’s another mountain.”
— Andrew Garfield
I think about this mountain quote by Andrew Garfield every time I reach a peak while hiking. As soon as I start to feel accomplished from a hard hike, I continue to look onward and see another peak to overcome.
“Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain.”
— Edmund Hillary
“The best view comes after the hardest climb.”
— Unknown
“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
“Every mountain top is within reach if you just keep climbing.”
— Barry Finlay
“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.”
— Reinhold Messner
“The cliche is that life is a mountain. You go up, reach the top and then go down.”
— Jeanne Moreau
Short Mountain Quotes
(Short Mountain Quotes 30-40)
“Every man should pull a boat over a mountain once in his life.”
— Werner Herzog
“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
“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
“You are not in the mountains. The mountains are in you.”
— John Muir
“How wild it was, to let it be.”
— Cheryl Strayed
Wild, by Cheryl Strayed, has to be one of my favorite books and movies about the mountains. Every time I want to be alone and breath in the wilderness I think about her famous quote about the mountains and how she felt.
“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
“May your dreams be larger than mountains and may you have the courage to scale their summits.”
— Harley King
“You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen.”
— Rene Daumal
“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
Inspirational Mountain Quotes
(Mountain Quotes 40-60)
“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more that what we could learn from books.”
— John Lubbock
“Great things are done when men and mountains meet; This is not done by jostling in the street.”
— William Blake
“Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery why we climb.”
— Greg Child
“I go to seek a great perhaps”
— John Green
“Success comes to those who have an entire mountain of gold that they continually mine, not those who find one nugget and try to live on it for fifty years.”
— John C. Maxwell
“Stop staring at mountains. Climb them instead, yes, it’s a harder process but it will lead you to a better view.”
— Unknown (One of the best mountain quotes to live by, challenge yourself once in awhile, you’ll surprise yourself).
“There are far better things ahead than the ones we leave behind.”
— C.S. Lewis
“The most dangerous thing you can do in life is play it safe.’’
– Casey Neistat
“Nature is one of the most underutilized treasures in life. It has the power to unburden hearts and reconnect to that inner place of peace.”
— Janice Anderson
“All good things are wild and free.”
— Unknown
“You’re off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, so… get on your way!”
— Dr. Seuss
“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
“Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid not to try.”
— Michael Jordan
“The farthest mountain is the one you think you can never reach and it may even be just by the side of you!”
— Mehmet Murat
“Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us, God.”
– John Muir
“Without mountains, we might find ourselves relieved that we can avoid the pain of the ascent, but we will forever miss the thrill of the summit. And in such a terribly scandalous trade-off, it is the absence of pain that becomes the thief of life.”
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
“Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.”
— John Ruskin
“It’s not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.”
— Sir Edmund Hillary
“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 (Stand on top of a mountain every so often and you’ll see why this is one of the best mountain quote and caption you could ever use).
“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity”
– John Muir
Epic Mountain View Quotes
(Mountain Quotes 60-80)
“Accidents on big mountains happen when people’s ambitions cloud their good judgment. Good climbing is about climbing with heart and with instinct, not ambition and pride.”
– Bear Grylls
“I learn something every time I go into the mountains.”
– Michael Kennedy
“Every mountain top is within reach if you just keep climbing.”
– Barry Finlay
This is the perfect mountain quote to think about right before you set off on a big hike.
“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”
– Henry David Thoreau
“An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.”
– Henry David Thoreau
“Over every mountain, there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley.”
– Theodore Roethke (One of the best deep mountain quotes)
“The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.”
– Tennessee Williams
“Nature is my springboard. From her, I get my initial impetus. I have tried to relate the visible drama of mountains, trees, and bleached fields with the fantasy of wind blowing and changing colors and forms.”
– Milton Avery
“What would be ugly in a garden constitutes beauty in a mountain.”
– Victor Hugo
“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.”
– John Lubbock
“Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for they speak with the voice of God.”
– George Washington Carver
This mountain quote could not be more true. Like all things, you can read all about the mountains and nature, but until you get out there and experience nature for yourself you know nothing.
“A forest bird never wants a cage.”
– Henrik Ibsen
“Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery why we climb.”
– Greg Child
“Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.”
– John Ruskin
“Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, So… get on your way!”
– Dr. Seuss (Yes this is one of my favorite mountain quotes)
“A trail through the mountains, if used, becomes a path in a short time, but, if unused, becomes blocked by grass in an equally short time.”
– Mencius
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
– John Muir (This is one of my favorite mountain captions to use on Instagram)
“Climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are naught without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste; look well to each step, and from the beginning think what may be the end.”
– Edward Whymper
“Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test it’s a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.”
– Frank Herbert
“The summit is what drives us, but the climb itself is what matters.”
– Conrad Anker
Mountain Instagram Captions
(Mountain Quotes 80-110)
“There are two kinds of climbers: those who climb because their heart sings when they’re in the mountains, and all the rest.”
– Alex Lowe
“If we choose to walk into a forest where a tiger lives, we are taking a chance. If we swim in a river where crocodiles live, we are taking a chance. If we visit the desert or climb a mountain or enter a swamp where snakes have managed to survive, we are taking a chance.”
– Peter Benchley
“The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.“
– Robert M. Pirsig
“The mountains are a demanding, cold place, and they don’t allow for mistakes.”
– Conrad Anker
“In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds.”
– Robert Green Ingersoll (such a great mountain caption for Instagram)
“If you want to train for big mountain endeavors, spend time in big mountains.”
-Jimmy Chin
“On climbs, there is a general way we manage fear. We look at things objectively, separating out perceived risk from real risk. You can really bring down the level of fear by knowing the real risks and setting aside the others. You also know that panicking just makes things worse.”
– Jimmy Chin
“Over every mountain, there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley.”
-Theodore Roethke
“When the sun is shining I can do anything; no mountain is too high, no trouble too difficult to overcome.”
– Wilma Rudolph
“I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news”
– John Muir
“I slow down when hiking. The rhythm of nature is more leisurely. The sun comes up, it moves across the sky, and you begin to synchronize to that rhythm”
-John Mackey
“Mountains are earth’s undecaying monuments”
– Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Chasing angels or fleeing demons, go to the mountains”
– Jeffrey Rasley
“If we surrendered to earth’s intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees. Rainer”
-Maria Rilke
“And then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?”
-Vincent van Gogh
“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”
-Henry David Thoreau
“The best views come after the hardest climb.”
-Unknown
“Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don’t be sorry.”
-Jack Kerouac
“Wildness is the preservation of the world.”
-Henry David Thoreau
“It is said that the forest has a certain limit if you look straight ahead, but the sides are boundless.”
-Riccardo Bozzi
“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
“At one time in the world there were woods that no one owned.”
-Cormac McCarthy
“Go outside. Don’t tell anyone and don’t bring your phone. Start walking and keep walking until you no longer know the road like the palm of your hand, because we walk the same roads day in and day out, to the bus and back home and we cease to see.”
-Charlotte Eriksson
“Explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space.”
-Edward Abbey
‘This was the perfect mountain quote to think about when we reached the summit of Athabasca Glacier (photo above). We explored the forest, climbed the mountain, breathed in the fresh air, and bagged that peak!
“Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of this childhood.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Great things are done when men and mountains meet. This is not done by jostling in the street.”
-William Blake
Keep close to nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.
-John Muir
“One day’s exposure to mountains is better than a cartload of books.”
-John Muir
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of autumn.”
-John Muir
“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.”
-John Lubbock
This is one of my favorite quotes about the mountains and it is so true! Books can teach you things, but actual experience is far more valuable.
“Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.”
-Dag Hammarskjold
“Life sucks a lot less when you add mountain air, a campfire and some peace and quiet.”
-Brooke Hampton
So there you have it – our favorite mountain quotes compiled into this post. Hopefully, these quotes about the mountains inspire you to get into the wilderness and live out your favorite dreams.
We love the mountains and hope you do too. There’s nothing quite as beautiful as staring out over the horizon from the top of a mountain.
