“There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones; it all depends on how you use them.”

“To be free is to learn, to test yourself constantly, to gamble. It is not safe. I had learnt to use my fears as stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks, and”

Robyn Davidson (1950) Australian writer

“You can't know what it is like for us now--you will always be one step behind.

Be thankful for that.

You can't know what it was like for us then--you will always be one step ahead.

Be thankful for that, too.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

“The best way to treat obstacles is to use them as stepping-stones. Laugh at them, tread on them, and let them lead you to something better.”

Enid Blyton (1897–1968) author

“What you have to love about drinking is, every swallow is an irrevocable decision. You charging ahead, in control if the game. It’s the same with pills, sedatives and painkillers, every swallow us a first definite step down some road.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

“The road ahead of you is long, dark, and, I very much fear, bloodstained. I also very much fear that you will take us all down that road. But you must live to reach the end of it.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

“The block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak becomes a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

“perhaps all our loves are merely hints and symbols; vagabond-language scrawled on gate-posts and paving-stones along the weary road that others have tramped before us; perhaps you and I are types and this sadness which sometimes falls between us springs from disappointment in our search, each straining through and beyond the other, snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow which turns the corner always a pace or two ahead of us.”

Evelyn Waugh book Brideshead Revisited

“Death is only a step towards …/ In this celebration of love/ Death is a stepping stone/ Towards the fullness/ Towards which all of us/ Consciously and unconsciously long for.”

Kuruvilla Pandikattu (1957) Indian philosopher