I didn't worry about getting Tenzing to take a photograph of me — as far as I knew, he had never taken a photograph before, and the summit of Everest was hardly the place to show him how." - Meaning and context.">
On the photograph of Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay at the summit of Everest, in "Adventure's End" in The Norton Book of Sports (1992) edited by George Plimpton, p. 86

Tenzing had been waiting patiently, but now, at my request, he unfurled the flags wrapped around his ice–axe and standing at the summit, held them above his head. Clad in all his bulky equipment and with the flags flapping furiously in the wind, he made a dramatic picture, and the thought drifted through my mind that this photograph should be a good one if it came out at all. I didn't worry about getting Tenzing to take a photograph of me — as far as I knew, he had never taken a photograph before, and the summit of Everest was hardly the place to show him how.

— Edmund Hillary

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Tenzing had been waiting patiently, but now, at my request, he unfurled the flags wrapped around his ice–axe and standing at the summit, held them above his head. Clad in all his bulky equipment and with the flags flapping furiously in the wind, he made a dramatic picture, and the thought drifted through my mind that this photograph should be a good one if it came out at all. I didn't worry about getting Tenzing to take a photograph of me — as far as I knew, he had never taken a photograph before, and the summit of Everest was hardly the place to show him how." in the context of "On the photograph of Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay at the summit of Everest, in "Adventure's End" in The Norton Book of Sports (1992) edited by George Plimpton, p. 86" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Edmund Hillary" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Edmund Hillary

About Edmund Hillary

Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest.