The Worst Journey in the World: Ranked number 1 in National Geographic’s 100 Best Adventure Books of All Time (Vintage Classics)

by Apsley Cherry-Garrard

More than once in my short life I have been struck by the value of the man who is blind to what appears to be a common-sense certainty: he achieves the impossible.

When leaders have this kind of feeling about their men they get much better results, if the men are good: if men are bad or even moderate they will try and take advantage of what they consider to be softness.

Such extremity of suffering cannot be measured: madness or death may give relief. But this I know: we on this journey were already beginning to think of death as a friend.

The road to Hell may be paved with good intentions: the road to Heaven is paved with lost opportunities.

If the conclusions arrived at with the help of the Emperor Penguin embryos about the origin of feathers are justified, the worst journey in the world in the interest of science was not made in vain.

men never really overcome fear until they imagine they are fighting to further a universal purpose – fighting for an idea, as they call it.

‘To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.’

for none but cowards have need to prove their bravery.