Ernest Shackleton · 374 pages
Rating: (6.8K votes)
“Loneliness is the penalty of leadership, but the man who has to make the decisions is assisted greatly if he feels that there is no uncertainty in the minds of those who follow him, and that his orders will be carried out confidently and in expectation of success.”
― Ernest Shackleton, quote from South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917
“When I look back at those days I have no doubt that Providence guided us, not only across those snowfields, but across the storm-white sea that separated Elephant Island from our landing-place on South Georgia. I know that during that long and racking march of thirty-six hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia it seemed to me often that we were four, not three. I said nothing to my companions on the point, but afterwards Worsley said to me, ‘Boss, I had a curious feeling on the march that there was another person with us.’ Crean confessed to the same idea. One feels ‘the dearth of human words, the roughness of mortal speech’ in trying to describe things intangible, but a record of our journeys would be incomplete without a reference to a subject very near to our hearts.”
― Ernest Shackleton, quote from South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917
“Huge blocks of ice, weighing many tons, were lifted into the air and tossed aside as other masses rose beneath them. We were helpless intruders in a strange world, our lives dependent upon the play of grim elementary forces that made a mock of our puny efforts.”
― Ernest Shackleton, quote from South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917
“We had seen God in His splendours, heard the text that Nature renders. We had reached the naked soul of man.”
― Ernest Shackleton, quote from South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917
“Our spoons are one of our indispensable possessions here. To lose one's spoon would be almost as serious as it is for an edentate person to lose his set of false teeth.”
― Ernest Shackleton, quote from South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917
“The articles had frozen stiff during the night, and the owners considered, it appeared, that this state of affairs provided them with a grievance, or at any rate gave them the right to grumble. They said they wanted dry clothes and that their health would not admit of their doing any work. Only by rather drastic methods were they induced to turn to. Frozen gloves and helmets undoubtedly are very uncomfortable, and the proper thing is to keep these articles thawed by placing them inside one’s shirt during the night.”
― Ernest Shackleton, quote from South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917
“A strange occurrence was the sudden appearance of eight emperor penguins from a crack 100 yds. away at the moment when the pressure upon the ship was at its climax. They walked a little way towards us, halted, and after a few ordinary calls proceeded to utter weird cries that sounded like a dirge for the ship. None of us had ever before heard the emperors utter any other than the most simple calls or cries, and the effect of this concerted effort was almost startling.”
― Ernest Shackleton, quote from South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917
“Just at daybreak I went over to the 'Endurance' with Wild and Hurley, in order to retrieve some tins of petrol that could be used to boil up milk for the rest of the men. The ship presented a painful spectacle of chaos and wreck. The jib-boom and bowsprit had snapped off during the night and now lay at right angles to the ship, with the chains, martingale, and bob-stay dragging them as the vessel quivered and moved in the grinding pack. The ice had driven over the forecastle and she was well down by the head.”
― Ernest Shackleton, quote from South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917
“A rampart berg 150 ft. high and a quarter of a mile long lay at the edge of the loose pack, and we sailed over a projecting foot of this berg into rolling ocean, stretching”
― Ernest Shackleton, quote from South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917
“The temperature was not strikingly low as temperatures go down here, but the terrific winds penetrate the flimsy fabric of our fragile tents and create so much draught that it is impossible to keep warm within. At supper last night our drinking-water froze over in the tin in the tent before we could drink it. It is curious how thirsty we all are.”
― Ernest Shackleton, quote from South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917
“Finally, it was the Chilian Government that was directly responsible for the rescue of my comrades. This southern Republic was unwearied in its efforts to make a successful rescue, and the gratitude of our whole party is due to them. I especially mention the sympathetic attitude of Admiral Muñoz Hurtado, head of the Chilian Navy, and Captain Luis Pardo, who commanded the Yelcho on our last and successful venture.”
― Ernest Shackleton, quote from South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917
“The moving of the boulders was weary and painful work. We came to know every one of the stones by sight and touch, and I have vivid memories of their angular peculiarities even to-day.”
― Ernest Shackleton, quote from South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917
“All the dogs except eight had been named. I do not know who had been responsible for some of the names, which seemed to represent a variety of tastes. They were as follows Rugby, Upton Bristol, Millhill, Songster, Sandy, Mack, Mercury, Wolf, Amundsen, Hercules, Hackenschmidt, Samson, Sammy, Skipper, Caruso, Sub, Ulysses, Spotty, Bosun, Slobbers, Sadie, Sue, Sally, Jasper, Tim, Sweep, Martin, Splitlip, Luke, Saint, Satan, Chips, Stumps, Snapper, Painful, Bob, Snowball, Jerry, Judge, Sooty, Rufus, Sidelights, Simeon, Swanker, Chirgwin, Steamer, Peter, Fluffy, Steward, Slippery, Elliott, Roy, Noel, Shakespeare, Jamie, Bummer, Smuts, Lupoid, Spider, and Sailor. Some of the names, it will be noticed, had a descriptive flavour.”
― Ernest Shackleton, quote from South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917
“opportunity of winning food and shelter, man can live and even find his laughter ringing true.”
― Ernest Shackleton, quote from South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917
“We had two tins of Virol, which we were keeping for an emergency; but, finding ourselves in need of an oil-lamp to eke out our supply of candles, we emptied one of the tins in the manner that most appealed to us, and fitted it with a wick made by shredding a bit of canvas. When”
― Ernest Shackleton, quote from South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917
Ernest Shackleton
Born place: in Kilkea, Ireland
Born date February 15, 1874
See more on GoodReads
“In those days, I straddled more than a handful of worlds, which is also to say I belonged wholly to none.”
― Suzanne Rindell, quote from Three-Martini Lunch
“Two hungry people should never make friends. If they do, they eat each other up. It is the same with one person who is hungry and another who is full: they cannot be real, real friends because the hungry one will eat the full one. You understand?”
― Helen Oyeyemi, quote from The Icarus Girl
“Now this isn't meant to make anyone feel like college is a waste of time, because for so many people it's not. But don't go because you feel like you have to. If your heart isn't in it, then why spend four years of your life stuck somewhere you don't want to be?”
― Shane Dawson, quote from It Gets Worse: A Collection of Essays
“We are not leaving Deathbringer!” Glory grabbed Fatespeaker. “Point the way and I’ll go by myself. Starflight, get out of here. Get everyone off the island.” Deathbringer? Starflight opened and closed his mouth. He hadn’t realized that rescuing the NightWing assassin was even on Glory’s agenda, let alone that it was important enough to risk an erupting volcano for. But she’s right. He risked everything for us — for her.”
― Tui T. Sutherland, quote from The Dark Secret
“It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.”
― Thomas Paine, quote from The Age of Reason
Mostly Harmless
November 9
Feed
The Bookseller of Ka...
Raised by Wolves
Post OfficeBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
