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“Happiness is not a summit — it’s the view from each small step.”

Last update Sept. 16, 2026. History

Source: A Case of Conscience (1958), Chapter 13 (p. 158)

“Mountain climbing is an analogue of the research process in theoretical physics. In working on a problem in physics one is never assured of a solution, because there are many false leads and pitfalls. Likewise in climbing there is no certainty of attaining the summit; the route is often unknown, or sometimes one attains a false summit. But the important point is that if you reach the top, the view is enormous. There is no comparison between what you see from just below the summit and what you can see from the top. Similarly with finally solving an important problem in physics the view you get is enormous.”

Heinz R. Pagels (1939–1988) American physicist

Source: The Cosmic Code (1982), p. 272

“Each and everyone on Earth can make one small step, which will cumulatively result in a giant leap for mankind towards world peace.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2015

“Just to be on the first step
should make you happy and proud.
To have come this far is no small achievement:
what you have done is a glorious thing.”

Constantine P. Cavafy (1863–1933) Greek poet

The First Step http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=145&cat=1 Collected Poems (1992) Context: Just to be on the first step should make you happy and proud. To have come this far is no small achievement: what you have done is a glorious thing. Even this first step is a long way above the ordinary world. To stand on this step you must be in your own right a member of the city of ideas. And it is a hard, unusual thing to be enrolled as a citizen of that city. Its councils are full of Legislators no charlatan can fool.

“Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success, flat stretches of boring routine and valleys of frustration and failure.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

“The systems view is the emerging contemporary view of organized complexity, one step beyond the Newtonian view of organized simplicity, and two steps beyond the classical world views of divinely ordered or imaginatively envisaged complexity.”

Ervin László (1932) Hungarian musician and philosopher

Source: Introduction to Systems Philosophy (1972), p. 15.

“The step in size from each of these things to the next is roughly the same… twenty powers of ten….”

Freeman Dyson book Infinite in All Directions

Source: Infinite in All Directions (1988), Ch. 2 : Butterflies and Superstrings, p. 18
Context: Imagine, if you can, four things that have very different sizes. First, the entire universe. Second, the planet Earth. Third, the nucleus of an atom. Fourth, a superstring. The step in size from each of these things to the next is roughly the same... twenty powers of ten....

“By viewing Nature, Nature's handmaid Art,
Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow.”

John Dryden Annus Mirabilis

Annus Mirabilis (1667), stanza 155.

“But I'm taking small steps
'Cause I don't know where I'm going
I'm taking small steps
And I don't know what to say.
Small steps,
Trying to pull myself together
And maybe I'll discover
A clue along the way!”

Louis Sachar book Small Steps

Source: Small Steps

“After that I was infused with a pleasant sense of abandon. Our rope was not long enough for us to abseil down the red step, and the idea of climbing down it without support from above was not to be contemplated; therefore we just had to reach the summit.”

Eric Shipton (1907–1977) British explorer

[Eric Shipton, w:Eric Shipton, Illustrations by Biro, That Untravelled World, 1969, 2nd edition, 1977, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 0-340-21609-3]
Shipton was climbing with the novice Bill Tillman on the first ascent of the difficult West Ridge Route up Batian.

“Happiness is not a summit — it’s the view from each small step.”

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