„It simply cannot be compared to anything but itself. Snow on top of it is unlike almonds, small clouds beside it are unlike  my aunt’s light pillows after a thorough cleaning job, its protruding black front is unlike lion’s mane, its ghostly outlines are unlike Dante’s vision in the third Canto of the Purgatory. The whole thing as a whole is exactly like Matterhorn, except that it is impossible to imagine that such a thing can exist.

The mountain and mountaineering are just symbols. Every human being worthy of this name must have a Matterhorn that he or she wants to climb at whatever cost. Beauty does not belong to Matterhorn, no matter how picturesquely it is illuminated by the Moon. It belongs to our Matterhorns that compel us to perform something authentically human: struggling. Not for life, for that’s exactly what we have in common with animals, but for something above our mere existence. It is a struggle imposed on us not by the necessities of life but by our human nature: passion.” (Istvan Benedek, Vagabondage in the Alps,1963)