Antarctic Quotes

“But alas! Firemen [stoking a ship] are not what they were. The gor-blimey firemen of the coal-burning days must, I think, be a diminishing species and in these degenerate times, when ships burn oil, the firemen is rapidly becoming a perfect gentleman, which is a pity …. Yet all was not quite lost in 1932, since one of them, … finding an altercation with the cook becoming beyond his powers of argument, upheld tradition and ‘drew him off a Burton.’ In other words, he knocked him out for the count.”
― F. D, Ommanney

“Thomas Pynchon ("V"): "Everyone has an Antarctic.”
― Michael Warr, Murder in the Antarctic

“I have never seen an aurora. They happen in the arctic and antarctic circles normally, close to the north and south poles.”
― Steven Magee

“For scientific discovery give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel give me Amundsen; but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton”
― Sir Raymond Priestly

“An explorer soon discovers that the world is full of busybodies righteously ready to save him, as they probably think, from himself. The only way to deal with such people is to agree to their terms and then go ahead as one pleases. There are enough legitimate discouragements in the world without submitting to artificial ones”
― Lincoln Ellsworth

“When it is darkest there is always light ahead”
― Roald Amundsen

“A good book we like, we explorers. That is our best amusement, and our best time killer”
― Roald Amundsen

“In broad terms, we are trying to find the Endurance so that she might be protected into the future, when conservation science will have advenced sufficiently for a responsible body to consider raising her remains for preservation and public display.”
― Mensun Bound, The Ship Beneath the Ice: The Discovery of Shackleton's Endurance