“Survival can be summed up in three words – never give up. That’s the heart of it really. Just keep trying.”
― Bear Grylls
“The rules of survival never change, whether you’re in a desert or in an arena.”
― Bear Grylls
“A man’s pride can be his downfall, and he needs to learn when to turn to others for support and guidance.”
― Bear Grylls
“To get ready to climb Everest, I did a lot of hill running with a daypack on and a lot of underwater swimming. I would swim a couple of lengths underwater and then a couple above. It gets your body going with limited oxygen.”
― Bear Grylls
“As a young boy, scouting gave me a confidence and camaraderie that is hard to find in modern life.”
― Bear Grylls
“Being brave isn’t the absence of fear. Being brave is having that fear but finding a way through it.”
― Bear Grylls
“Our fate is determined by how far we are prepared to push ourselves to stay alive – the decisions we make to survive. We must do whatever it takes to endure and make it through alive.”
― Bear Grylls
“To me, adventure has always been to me the connections and bounds you create with people when you’re there. And you can have that anywhere.”
― Bear Grylls
“Accidents on big mountains happen when people’s ambitions cloud their good judgment. Good climbing is about climbing with heart and with instinct, not ambition and pride.”
― Bear Grylls
“Survival is not about being fearless. It’s about making a decision, getting on and doing it, because I want to see my kids again, or whatever the reason might be.”
― Bear Grylls
“That feeling when you’re so cold you’d give anything to be warm – I’ve had it before, literally huddled around a candle flame on an ice sheet.”
― Bear Grylls
“And Jesus, the heart of the Christian faith is the wildest, most radical guy you’d ever come across.”
― Bear Grylls
“Look, sometimes, no matter how hard you try, sometimes you need a bit of luck.”
― Bear Grylls
“But the wild is unpredictable, stuff does happen, and it’s always when you’re least expecting it.”
― Bear Grylls
“I’ve had so many injuries in my life that it’s ridiculous.”
― Bear Grylls
“In the British Special Air Service, combat fitness is all about running.”
― Bear Grylls
“Well, wolves will pretty rarely hunt. You’re vulnerable if you’re on your own or injured. But for lone wolves, get up high, show them that you’re not injured, face ’em off, be authoritarian with it, and look ’em in the eye.”
― Bear Grylls
“You don’t often see Bear Grylls in a suit.”
― Bear Grylls
“Textbook survival tells you to stay put. Stop. Wait for rescue. Don’t take any risks. But there’d been a whole host of survival shows like that and I didn’t really want to do that.”
― Bear Grylls
“I am not fearless. I get scared plenty. But I have also learned how to channel that emotion to sharpen me.”
― Bear Grylls
“My faith is an important part of my life and over the years I’ve learnt that it takes a proud man to say he doesn’t need anything. It has been a quiet strength and a backbone through a lot of difficult times.”
― Bear Grylls
“The special forces gave me the self-confidence to do some extraordinary things in my life. Climbing Everest then cemented my belief in myself.”
― Bear Grylls
“My favorite moments? Where it’s all going swimmingly, the sun’s out and I’ve got a fire going and a nice snake on the barbecue.”
― Bear Grylls
“You only get one chance at life and you have to grab it boldly.”
― Bear Grylls
“Christianity is not about religion. It’s about faith, about being held, about being forgiven. It’s about finding joy and finding home.”
― Bear Grylls
“The hardest thing about my job isn’t the snake bites or the crocodiles, it’s being away from my children. I have a really religious satellite phone call every day back to the boys, wherever we are, whatever time zone, to say goodnight.”
― Bear Grylls
“Nobody wants to end up super rich and famous – but divorced. I’m always clear on that and try to stay on the right side of the line.”
― Bear Grylls
“The appeal of the wild for me is its unpredictability. You have to develop an awareness, react fast, be resourceful and come up with a plan and act on it.”
― Bear Grylls
“I joined the Army at 19 as a soldier and spent about four and a half years with them. Then I broke my back in a freefall parachuting accident and spent a year in rehabilitation back in the U.K.”
― Bear Grylls
“My work is all about adventure and teamwork in some of the most inhospitable jungles, mountains and deserts on the planet. If you aren’t able to look after yourself and each other, then people die.”
― Bear Grylls
“Adventure should be 80 percent ‘I think this is manageable,’ but it’s good to have that last 20 percent where you’re right outside your comfort zone. Still safe, but outside your comfort zone.”
― Bear Grylls
“You’re not human if you don’t feel fear. But I’ve learnt to treat fear as an emotion that sharpens me. It’s there to give me that edge for what I have to do.”
― Bear Grylls
“Nobody else is stupid enough to get themselves into the straits that I get into.”
― Bear Grylls
“The line between life or death is determined by what we are willing to do.”
― Bear Grylls
“I loved climbing because of the freedom, and having time and space. I remember coming off Everest for the last time, thinking of Dad and wishing that he could have seen what I saw. He would have loved it.”
― Bear Grylls
“Some of the greatest survivors have been women. Look at the courage so many women have shown after surviving earthquakes in the rubble for days on end.”
― Bear Grylls
“I have held healthy respects of bears along with assorted crocodiles, snakes and lots of other animals. You know, bears are dangerous, you have to be super careful.”
― Bear Grylls
“I always wanted to be Robin Hood or John the Baptist when I was growing up.”
― Bear Grylls
“I exercise about 40 minutes a day, and I’ll run one day and do circuit training the next day. I live in an area where there are brilliant hills and mountains, so I get a good hill run with my dog. At home, I’ll do the circuit training with old weights, along with pull-ups in the trees and that sort of stuff.”
― Bear Grylls
“When I’m filming, survival requires movement. You need your energy, and you’ve got to eat the bad stuff, and survival food is rarely pretty, but you kind of do it. I get in that zone, and I eat the nasty stuff, but I’m not like that when I’m back home.”
― Bear Grylls
“One killer exercise that’s really great is pull-ups with your legs out level. That’s my favourite. It’s such functional core strength, and that’s why I can climb up trees and down vines.”
― Bear Grylls
“Weather can kill you so fast. The first priority of survival is getting protection from the extreme weather.”
― Bear Grylls
“The extremes of jungles, mountains, and deserts are inherently dangerous places.”
― Bear Grylls
“Sometimes it’s hard for us to believe, really believe, that God cares and wants good things for us and doesn’t just want us to go off and give everything up and become missionaries in Burundi.”
― Bear Grylls
“It’s unresolved conflict in my life that I have a lovely family and a risky job.”
― Bear Grylls
“Exercise helps my back. If I don’t exercise, that’s when it starts to hurt. The pain is a good motivator to run and exercise.”
― Bear Grylls
“I come from a line of self-motivated, determined folk – not grand, not high society, but no-nonsense, family-minded go-getters.”
― Bear Grylls
“Life’s full of lots of dream-stealers always telling you you need to do something more sensible. I think it doesn’t matter what your dream is, just fight the dream-stealers and hold onto it.”
― Bear Grylls
“I’m terrified of walking into a room full of people. Sitting down at a dinner table with 15 strangers brings me out in a sweat.”
― Bear Grylls
“When I’m in ‘Man vs. Wild’ mode, it’s not pleasure. Every sensor is firing and I’m on reserve power all the time and I’m digging deep – and that’s the magic of it as well, and that’s raw and it’s great.”
― Bear Grylls
“I never wanted to do TV. I just did what I was trained to do through the Special Forces, and I’ve been doing that from a very young age.”
― Bear Grylls
“I love making healthy lean foods delicious – that’s an art!”
― Bear Grylls
“The rewards of the wild and the rewards of the survivor go to those who can dig deep, and, ultimately, to the guy who can stay alive.”
― Bear Grylls
“Americans are cool; if you show just a chink of vulnerability, they respond so much. They’ll pat you on the arm and say, ‘Hey kid, you’re all right.’ Brits will respond but they are much more cynical.”
― Bear Grylls
“As for my diet, I try to eat lean, clean and healthy – nothing too surprising. And I avoid too much meat or dairy because they slow you down.”
― Bear Grylls
“I find skydiving really hard. I broke my back while skydiving when I was in the military, and for 18 months all my nightmares were about falling.”
― Bear Grylls
“I’ve never really had a TV career. I’ve been a soldier and a climber.”
― Bear Grylls
“I said ‘no’ to the ‘Born Survivor’ producer three times because I’ve never aspired to be a TV man.”
― Bear Grylls
“I love Ray Mears. He’s brilliant. He’s so rude about me in the press, it’s outrageous!”
― Bear Grylls
“I love home cooking, and I’m not a great one for fast food.”
― Bear Grylls
“I try and eat really healthy when I’m home, but I certainly don’t eat worms and snakes.”
― Bear Grylls
“I think viewers quite like it when I’m suffering or eating or drinking something horrible or really up against it in some quicksand or whatever.”
― Bear Grylls
“Faith is personal if it’s to be real.”
― Bear Grylls
“Survival requires us to leave our prejudices at home. It’s about doing whatever it takes – and ultimately those with the biggest heart will win.”
― Bear Grylls
“I always had a really natural faith as a kid. Where I knew God existed and it felt very free and pretty wild and natural, and it wasn’t religious.”
― Bear Grylls
“I hang out all the time with kids and young scouts and I never meet kids who don’t want adventure.”
― Bear Grylls
“I was christened Edward. My sister gave me the name Bear when I was a week old and it has stuck.”
― Bear Grylls
“I’ve fallen down crevasses, been bitten by snakes, been knocked unconscious, had various limbs broken and once, a heavy camera came plunging down which very nearly decapitated me.”
― Bear Grylls
“My faith isn’t very churchy, it’s a pretty personal, intimate thing and has been a huge source of strength in moments of life and death.”
― Bear Grylls
“All my life the only thing I’ve been good at has been climbing and throwing myself off big things.”
― Bear Grylls
“I do see a lot of the hard end of ecology, and my feeling is that we live on a super-exciting planet but a super-fragile one.”
― Bear Grylls
“I think it’s fun running with dogs. They’re always so fit and fast.”
― Bear Grylls
“I was always brought up to have a cup of tea at halfway up a rock face.”
― Bear Grylls
“The SAS Reserve tends to be made up of former paratroopers and commandos who still want a challenge, but it is open to civilians.”
― Bear Grylls
“I had many opportunities to get behind products in the past, and I was always careful to evaluate all of them. I will not put my name to shoddy items.”
― Bear Grylls
“The truth is, I need 10 lifetimes to scratch the surface of the things I’d love to do.”
― Bear Grylls
“You can’t live someone else’s expectations in life. It’s a recipe for disaster.”
― Bear Grylls
“It breaks my heart that my father never knew my children. He should have been around for another 25 years.”
― Bear Grylls
“I’ve eaten sheep’s eyes, the still hot meat from a zebra killed by a lion, and maggots which give you 70 calories to the ounce.”
― Bear Grylls
“I don’t thrive on stress. I love lying on the deck on our houseboat reading a book.”
― Bear Grylls
“For me, my training is a key part of my work as so often my life has depended on being able to move fast and haul myself up and out of something fast!”
― Bear Grylls
“I don’t like expeditions where it is a total lottery whether you live or die. You have to keep those sort of good luck cards for rare occasions!”
― Bear Grylls
“I train five days a week hard – but it is short and sharp – 30 to 40 minutes of functional and pretty dynamic body-strength circuits, then I do a good yoga session on the sixth day, then I rest.”
― Bear Grylls
“Life has taught me to be very cautious of a man with a dream, especially a man who has teetered on the edge of life. It gives a fire and recklessness inside that is hard to quantify.”
― Bear Grylls
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