Quotes about climb (515 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“You never know what's around the corner. It could be everything. Or it could be nothing. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you've climbed a mountain.”

Tom Hiddleston (1981) English actor, producer and musical performer

Mountain

“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Sometimes credited to Jack Kerouac, from his book The Dharma Bums. It is not a quote by Kerouac. It first appeared as a very brief description of The Dharma Bums in Esquire's list of "The 80 Best Books Every Man Should Read" in 2010: http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/g96/80-books/?slide=71. It was later copied by Kilburn Hall in his list of 30 "Books and Authors Every Man Should Read" which he first posted online in 2012: https://kilburnhall.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/the-books-and-authors-every-man-should-read/
Misattributed

Mountain , Time

“Now, O son of God, set in the valley of true humility, walk in peace without pride of spirit, which, like a precipitous mountain, offers a difficult, or near-impossible, ascent or descent to those who attempt to scale it, and on its summit no building can be built. For a person who tries to climb higher than he can achieve possesses the name of sanctity without substance, because, in name alone without a structure of good works, he glories in a kind of vain joy of the mind.”

Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) Medieval saint, prophetise, mystic and Doctor of Church

Letter to the Monk Guibert, 1176

God , Peace , Mountain , Joy

“One wife is justified to the common men. But the higher you climb the ladder of power and success, the more women you'll meet along the way.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Success , Way , Women , Men

“Getting old is like climbing a mountain; you get a little out of breath, but the view is much better!”

Ingrid Bergman (1915–1982) Film actress from Sweden

Mountain

“It makes no difference how many peaks you reach if there was no pleasure in the climb.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Pleasure

“I don't care what you talkin' 'bout baby.
I don't care what you say.
Don't you come walkin' beggin' back mama.
I don't care anyway.
Time after time I gave you all of my money.
No excuses to make.
Ain't no mountain that I can't climb baby.
All is going my way.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Bad (1987)

Money , Way , Mountain , Time

“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”

Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman

Business

“He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Mountain

“We're at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it's been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

1960s, A Time for Choosing (1964)
Context: As for the peace that we would preserve, I wonder who among us would like to approach the wife or mother whose husband or son has died in South Vietnam and ask them if they think this is a peace that should be maintained indefinitely. Do they mean peace, or do they mean we just want to be left in peace? There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us. We're at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it's been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well I think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers.

War , Way , History , Star

“Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.”

Stephen R. Covey book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Source: The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People (1989), p. 101

For Team , Leadership , Success

“Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Way , Thinking , Time

“The moon and sun are travelers through eternity. Even the years wander on. Whether drifting through life on a boat or climbing toward old age leading a horse, each day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.”

Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet

Life , Age , Travel , Home

“She is so naked and singular
She is the sum of yourself and your dream.
Climb her like a monument, step after step.
She is solid.
As for me, I am a watercolor.
I wash off.

(For My Lover, Returning To His Wife)”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Source: Selected Poems

Dreams , Lovers

“when you can’t climb your way out of such a hole, you tend to crouch down and call it home…”

Nikki Sixx (1958) American musician

Source: The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life Of A Shattered Rock Star

Way , Home

“Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called 'Ego'.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Dogs

“I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: "Go down again - I dwell among the people.”

John Henry Newman (1801–1890) English cleric and cardinal

God , People

“Just remember, Callum when you’re floating up and up in your bubble, that bubbles have a habit of bursting. The higher you climb, the further you have to fall.”

Malorie Blackman Noughts & Crosses

Source: Noughts & Crosses

“In the mountains of truth you will never climb in vain: either you will get up higher today or you will exercise your strength so as to be able to get up higher tomorrow.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

II.293, maxim 358 http://books.google.kz/books?id=Nl-vaAdJD3MC&pg=PA293&dq=%22In+the+mountains+of+truth+you+will+never+climb+in+vain%22&hl=en
Human, All Too Human (1878)

Truth , Mountain

“May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

God , Star

“But to reach…the pinnacle of power, it will be necessary, to climb rugged heights.”

Jose Cecilio del Valle (1777–1996) Honduran politician-

1821

“I climb up, go down again, then climb up once more; between all my studies, as a relaxation I explore every footpath, always curious to see something new.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Quote in Monet's letter from Bordighera (ca. 1884); as cited in: K.E. Sullivan. Monet: Discovering Art, Brockhampton press, London (2004), p. 52
1870 - 1890

Study

“I have felt the swaying of the elephant's shoulders;
and now you want me to climb
on a jackass? Try to be serious.”

Meera Bai Hindu mystic poet

Mīrābāī, in “Christian Mysticism East and West: What the Masters Teach Us “, p. 122

“My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.
6.54
Original German: Meine Sätze erläutern dadurch, dass sie der, welcher mich versteht, am Ende als unsinnig erkennt, wenn er durch sie—auf ihnen—über sie hinausgestiegen ist. (Er muss sozusagen die Leiter wegwerfen, nachdem er auf ihr hinaufgestiegen ist.)
1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)

Way , Understanding

“Some people have found that health is more valuable than wealth. Climbing the ladder of self-interest.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Wealth , People , Health

“He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Learning , Dance , Flying

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Variant: You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Understanding , Personality

“As he was about to climb yet another dune, his heart whispered, "Be aware of the place where you are brought to tears. That's where I am, and thats where your treasure is.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Tear , Heart

“All male friendships are essentially quixotic: they last only so long as each man is willing to polish the shaving-bowl helmet, climb on his donkey, and ride off after the other in pursuit of illusive glory and questionable adventure.”

Michael Chabon book Wonder Boys

Source: Wonder Boys

Friendship , Question

“There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Source: Capital, Vol 1: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production

Science , Chance

“May you find your Tower, Roland, and breach it, and may you climb to the top!”

Stephen King The Dark Tower

Source: The Dark Tower

“On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Truth , Mountain , Training

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

As Quote Investigator explains, allegories about animals doing impossible things have been incredibly popular in the past century. But no, this one isn't from Einstein. (Source: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-climb/.)
Misattributed
Variant: Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

Life , Stupidity , Fish , Tree

“How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top.”

Yvon Chouinard (1938) American mountain climber

Source: Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

Mountain

“Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it.”

Andy Rooney (1919–2011) writer, humorist, television personality

Deep , Happy , Business , Mountain

“Worldly Wisdom

Do not stay in the field!
Nor climb out of sight.
The best view of the world
Is from a medium height.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Source: The Gay Science

Wisdom , World

“This song of the waters is audible to every ear, but there is other music in these hills, by no means audible to all. To hear even a few notes of it you must first live here for a long time, and you must know the speech of hills and rivers. Then on a still night, when the campfire is low and the Pleiades have climbed over rimrocks, sit quietly and listen for a wolf to howl, and think hard of everything you have seen and tried to understand. Then you may hear it—a vast pulsing harmony—its score inscribed on a thousand hills, its notes the lives and deaths of plants and animals, its rhythms spanning the seconds and the centuries.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Chihuahua and Sonora: The Green Lagoons", p. 149.

Death , Music , Understanding , Thinking

“A Path to Equality. - A few hours of mountain climbing turn a rascal and a saint into two pretty similar creatures. Fatigue is the shortest way to Equality and Fraternity--and, in the end, Liberty will surrender to Sleep.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

II.263
Human, All Too Human (1878)

Way , Mountain , Sleep

“Most people think, when they're young, that they're going to the top of their chosen world, and that the climb up is only a formality. Without that faith, I suppose, they might never start. Somewhere on the way they lift their eyes to the summit and know they aren't going to reach it; and happiness then is looking down and enjoying the view they've got, not envying the one they haven't.”

Dick Francis (1920–2010) English jockey and crime writer

Reflex

People , World , Faith , Way

“Star of descending night! fair is thy light in the west! thou liftest thy unshorn head from thy cloud: thy steps are stately on thy hill. What dost thou behold in the plain? The stormy winds are laid. The murmur of the torrent comes from afar. Roaring waves climb the distant rock. The flies of evening are on their feeble wings; the hum of their course is on the field. What dost thou behold, fair light? But thou dost smile and depart. The waves come with joy around thee: they bathe thy lovely hair. Farewell, thou silent beam! Let the light of Ossian's soul arise!”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

"The Songs of Selma"
The Poems of Ossian

Love , Smile , Soul , Star

“"Take my camel, dear," said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.”

Rose Macaulay book The Towers of Trebizond

The Towers of Trebizond (1956), opening words

Animals

“We climb mountains because they are there, and worship God because He is not.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

God , Mountain

“God, being a great abyss, to men his depth reveals
Who climb the highest peak of the eternal hills”

Angelus Silesius (1624–1677) German writer

The Cherubinic Wanderer

Men , God

“The energy to manufacture Art doesn't come merely from the superficial darshan (philosophy) of objects; nor from mere intellect and knowledge; but it comes from those subtle conscience, which finds emotional caressing from divine experience climbing above bestial eyes. The beast merely looks and remains satisfied, but man tries to touch the heart of everything. The superficial understandings do not satisfy him, in the world containing form-relation and conscience he cannot remain satisfied though philosophy. He tries to connect the things seen and experienced in his mind and outer nature with eternal and true and tries to touch them with the help of relation and support of chief reason.”

Laxmi Prasad Devkota (1909–1959) Nepali poet

कला र जीवन (Art and Life)
Art and Life

World , Art , Understanding , Support

“I’ve always hated the danger part of climbing, and it’s great to come down again because it’s safe … But there is something about building up a comradeship — that I still believe is the greatest of all feats — and sharing in the dangers with your company of peers. It’s the intense effort, the giving of everything you’ve got. It’s really a very pleasant sensation.”

Edmund Hillary (1919–2008) New Zealand mountaineer

Statement of 1977 as quoted in "Sir Edmund Hillary, a Pioneering Conquerer of Everest, Dies at 88" in The New York Times (online edition) (10 January 2008) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/world/asia/11cnd-hillary.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all

Hate , Effort , Parting

“"But we've got passengers aboard," our skipper shouted through the darkness. "Prisoners?" the deck called; with a note of curiosity. "Stand by to bring the prisoners aboard." I climbed a rope ladder up the Augusta's side and crawled over the rail, cold, wet, hungry, and tired. The crew pressed forward to see its "prisoners". "Oh, hell," a sailor grunted, "it's only General Bradley."”

Omar Bradley (1893–1981) United States Army field commander during World War II

Source: A Soldier's Story (1951), p. 278.

Hell

“Some German words are so long that they have a perspective. Observe these examples:

Freundschaftsbezeigungen.
Dilletantenaufdringlichkeiten.
Stadtverordnetenversammlungen.
These things are not words, they are alphabetical processions. And they are not rare; one can open a German newspaper any time and see them marching majestically across the page,—and if he has any imagination he can see the banners and hear the music, too. They impart a martial thrill to the meekest subject. I take a great interest in these curiosities. "Whenever I come across a good one, I stuff it and put it in my museum. In this way I have made quite a valuable collection. When I get duplicates, I exchange with other collectors, and thus increase the variety of my stock. Here are some specimens which I lately bought at an auction sale of the effects of a bankrupt bric-a-brac hunter:

Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen.
Alterthumswissenschaften.
Kinderbewahrungsanstalten.
Unabhaengigkeitserklaerungen.
Wiederherstellungsbestrebungen.
Waffenstillstandsunterhandlungen.
Of course when one of these grand mountain ranges goes stretching across the printed page, it adorns and ennobles that literary landscape,—but at the same time it is a great distress to the new student, for it blocks up his way; he cannot crawl under it, or climb over it or tunnel through it. So he resorts to the dictionary for help; but there is no help there. The dictionary must draw the line somewhere,—so it leaves this sort of words out. And it is right, because these long things are hardly legitimate words, but are rather combinations of words, and the inventor of them ought to have been killed.”

Mark Twain book A Tramp Abroad

A Tramp Abroad (1880)

Music , Way , Imagination , Mountain

“Throw down your umbilical noose so I can climb right back.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Heart-Shaped Box.
Song lyrics, In Utero (1993)

“Dragon is the category of primate predator. Predator is a weird category, right? Because there's crocodiles in it, and then there's lions. And they don't have much in common except that they eat you. So it's a functional category. So the dragon is the imagistic representation of the functional category of predator. It's like this: If you're a monkey, then a bird will pick you off, like an eagle. That's the wings. If it wasn't an eagle, then it was a cat (dragon claws), because they climb trees and give you a good chomping. And if it wasn't a cat, then you go down to the ground and a snake would get you, or maybe the snake would climb up the tree. So a dragon is a cat-snake-bird. And that's the thing that you really want to avoid. An the other thing is that it breathes fire, which is interesting because fire was both greatest friend and greatest enemy of humanity.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

Cats , Bird , Tree

“My wife is on a new diet. Coconuts and bananas. She hasn't lost weight, but can she climb a tree.”

Henny Youngman (1906–1998) American comedian

"The Haunted Smile: The Story of Jewish Comedians in America" (2001)

Tree

“I suspect that those of you who pursue more education, or climb the corporate ladder, or enter the arts or sciences or journalism, will still choose a cause you care about in your life and fight like heck to make it happen.
There is a word for this. It’s citizenship. We don’t always talk about this idea much these days, let alone celebrate it. Sometimes, we see it as a virtue from another time – one that’s slipping from a society that celebrates individual ambition; a society awash in instant technology that empowers us to leverage our skills and talents like never before, but just as easily allows us to retreat from the world. And the result is that we sometimes forget the larger bonds we share, as one American family.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Commencement Address at Ohio State University (May 2013)

Life , World , Education , Family

“When there is a big tree small ones climb on its back to reach the sun.”

Chinua Achebe book No Longer at Ease

Source: No Longer at Ease (1960), Chapter 10 (p. 95)

Tree , Sun

“To her British lover about to climb in bed with 80-something Mae: She said that she hoped soon to be able to say what Paul Revere said — 'The British are coming'. This was the last one-liner Mae ever uttered on film.”

Mae West (1893–1980) American actress and sex symbol

Sextette

Hope , Lovers

“Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

Sometimes ascribed to Robert Browning, this is in fact a misquotation from Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621): "They [i.e. ambitious men] may not cease, but as a dog in a wheel, a bird in a cage, or a squirrel in a chain, so Budaeus compares them; they climb and climb still, with much labour, but never make an end, never at the top".
Misattributed

Men , Dogs , Bird

“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.
I promise you, we as a people will get there.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, Election victory speech (November 2008)

People , Hope

“She's the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong.”

Mae West (1893–1980) American actress and sex symbol

#832 in The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said (2006) by Robert Byrne

Girl , Success

“We do not speak. We have gone down along the side of the river — slowly, as if we were climbing — towards the stone seat of the wall. The distances have altered. This seat, for instance, we meet it sooner than we thought we should, like some one in the dark; but it is the seat all right. The rose-tree which grew above it has withered away and become a crown of thorns.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XIX - Ghosts

Tree

“"The bread of the stranger is bitter," says Dante, "and his staircase hard to climb." But who can know what the bitterness of dependence is so well as the poor companion of an old lady of quality?”

Aleksandr Pushkin book The Queen of Spades

II.
The Queen of Spades (1833)

Dependency

““The dominance hierarchy is a mechanism that selects heroes and breeds them. And so then we watch that for six million years. We start to understand what it means to be the hero. We start to tell stories about that, and so then not only are we genetically aiming at that with the dominance hierarchies - the selection mechanism mediated by female choice - but our stories are trying to push us in that direction. And so then we say, 'Well, look, that person is admirable.' We tell a story about him. And then we say, 'This person is admirable,' and we tell a story about him. And at the same time we talk about the people who aren't admirable. And then we start having admirable and non-admirable as categories. And out of that you get something like good and evil. And then you can start to imagine the perfect person. You take ten admirable people and you pull out someone who is meta-admirable. And that's a hero. That becomes a religious figure across time. That becomes a savior or a messiah across time as we conceptualize what the ideal person is. In the West here's how we figured it out: we said that the ideal man is the person that tells the truth. And what that means is that it's the best way of climbing up any possible dominance hierarchy in the way that's most stable and most lasting. That's the conclusion of Western culture."”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

People , Truth , Way , Imagination

“There are believers who by God's grace, have climbed the mountains of full assurance and near communion, their place is with the eagle in his eyrie, high aloft; they are like the strong mountaineer, who has trodden the virgin snow, who has breathed the fresh, free air of the Alpine regions, and therefore his sinews are braced, and his limbs are vigorous; these are they who do great exploits, being mighty men, men of renown.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 18.

Men , God , Mountain , Strong

“Only fool! Only poet!
Merely speaking colorfully,
From fools' masks shouting colorfully,
Climbing about on deceptive word-bridges,
On misleading rainbows,
Between false heavens
Rambling, lurking —
Only fool! Only poet!”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Dionysian-Dithyrambs

Dionysian-Dithyrambs (1888)

Fools , Falseness

“Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

The Wild Swans At Coole, st. 4
The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)

Lovers , Heart

“I am an artist who makes walks. A walk defines the form of the land in space and time beyond the scale of sculpture or the fixed image. Some of my walks are formal (straight, circular, rhythmic) almost ritualised. I have climbed around mountains instead of to the top, I have made walks about slowness, walks about stones and water. I have made walks within a place as opposed to a linear journey; walking without travelling.”

Richard Long (1945) artist

Richard Long (1980), five, six, pick up sticks, seven, eight, lay them straight, London: Anthony D'Offay Gallery
1980s

Travel , Mountain , Water , Time

“The climbing soul, leaving all that she has grasped already as too narrow for her needs, will thus grasp the idea of that magnificence which is exalted far above the heavens. But how can any one reach to this, whose ambitions creep below? … He therefore who keeps away from all bitterness and all the noisome effluvia of the flesh, and raises himself on the aforesaid wings above all low earthly ambitions, or, more than that, above the whole universe itself, will be the man to find that which is alone worth loving, and to become himself as beautiful as the Beauty which he has touched and entered.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

On Virginity, Chapter 11

Love , Beauty , Soul , Idea

“Above the mists on Hatheg-Kla, earth's gods sometimes dance reminiscently; for they know they are safe, and love to come from unknown Kadath in ships of clouds and play in the olden way, as they did when earth was new and men not given to the climbing of inaccessible places.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Fiction, The Other Gods (1921)

Love , Men , God , Way

“I walked to the window and ripped open the blackout blinds. Outside the sun was climbing into the sky. The war in Europe had ended.”

Omar Bradley (1893–1981) United States Army field commander during World War II

Closing words, p. 554.
A Soldier's Story (1951)
Context: A canvas map lay under my helmet with its four silver stars. Only five years before on May 7, as a lieutenant colonel in civilian clothes, I had ridden a bus down Connecticut Avenue to my desk in the old Munitions building. I opened the mapboard and smoothed out the tabs of the 43 divisions now under my command. They stretched across a 640-mile front of the 12th Army Group. With a china-marking pencil, I wrote in the new date: D plus 335. I walked to the window and ripped open the blackout blinds. Outside the sun was climbing into the sky. The war in Europe had ended.

War , Sun

“Success is like a ladder and no one has ever climbed a ladder with their hands in their pockets.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

Success

“We rarely climb to the highest level of our expectations, because the ascension is limited by wisdom and knowledge.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1993

Knowledge , Wisdom

“Socialist ideology, like so many others, has two main dangers. One stems from confused and incomplete readings of foreign texts, and the other from the arrogance and hidden rage of those who, in order to climb up in the world, pretend to be frantic defenders of the helpless so as to have shoulders on which to stand.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)

World , Reading , Rage

“When beset with doubt in troubled times, and those about you will understand if you come unglued, stay the ground, and face the challenge. For when you stand alone to confront life's highest mountains, the next shall be easier to climb.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1972

Mountain , Life , Time , Understanding

“Nine hundred feet below my cave rhododendrons blossomed. I climbed barren mountain-tops. Long tramps led me to desolate valleys studded with translucent lakes... Solitude, solitude! ...Mind and senses develop their sensibility in this contemplative life made up of continual observations and reflections. Does one become a visionary or, rather, is it not that one has been blind until then?”

Alexandra David-Néel (1868–1969) French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist, anarchist and writer

Magic And Mystery In Tibet

Sense , Mountain , Solitude , Life

“To climb steep hills requires a slow pace at first.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

“The world changes around us
but we still linger,
through wars and seasons we run
but we still linger,
it's so tempting
to climb that fence,
to see if you'd finally relent.”

Marian Renta

Music lyrics, Great Deep (2021) —"Linger"

War , Season , World , Change

“Better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb than in the middle of some ladder you don’t, right?”

Dave Eggers book The Circle

Source: The Circle

“Keep climbing,' he told himself.
'Cheeseburgers,' his stomach replied.
'Shut up,' he thought.
'With fries,' his stomach complained.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

“We are all like fireworks. We climb, shine and always go our separate ways and become further apart. But even if that time comes, let's not disappear like a firework, and continue to shine… forever.
-Tōshirō Hitsugaya (Bleach)”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Way , Time

“There’s an undeniable pleasure in stepping into an open-top sports car driven by a beautiful woman. It feels like you’re climbing into a metaphor.”

Hugh Laurie book The Gun Seller

Source: The Gun Seller (1996)

Pleasure , Beauty , Cars , Feeling

“Ray, what you got to do is go climb a mountain…”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums

Mountain

“Your problems are out there. But they're small. They only grow out of proportion when they climb inside your head.”

Melina Marchetta book Looking for Alibrandi

Source: Looking for Alibrandi

Problem

“Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grass and gentians of glacier meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of Nature's darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but Nature's sources never fail. … The petty discomforts that beset the awkward guest, the unskilled camper, are quickly forgotten, while all that is precious remains. Fears vanish as soon as one is fairly free in the wilderness.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

" The Yellowstone National Park http://books.google.com/books?id=smQCAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA509", The Atlantic Monthly, volume LXXXI, number 486 (April 1898) pages 509-522 (at pages 515-516); modified slightly and reprinted in Our National Parks http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/our_national_parks/ (1901), chapter 2: The Yellowstone National Park
1900s, Our National Parks (1901)

Age , Fear , Peace , Mountain

“Miles is… Miles; close to a force of nature, climbing up out of his own pages and escaping subordination to any opinion of mine.”

Lois McMaster Bujold (1949) Science Fiction and fantasy author from the USA

Nature

“Soar, eat ether, see what has never been seen; depart, be lost, but climb.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

“Other crack teams get bat boomerangs and wall-climbing powers; we get Aquatruck.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

“I have no memory of climbing the stairs up to the roof. I don't even know how to get where I am, which is a problem since I'm going to have to get down, ideally in a way that doesn't involve dying.”

Holly Black book White Cat

Source: White Cat

Way , Problem , Memory

“I (Percy) set Nico on guard duty with Beckendorf and the Stoll brothers, figuring he'd be safely out of the way.
…
"What's happening?" Nico demanded, trying to climb up next to me.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

Way

“A part of me will always be unflyable, stuck in the climb.”

Elizabeth Wein book Code Name Verity

Source: Code Name Verity

Parting

“the soul's certainty that the day will have to be not traversed but sort of climbed, vertically, and then that going to sleep again at the end of it will be like falling, again, off something tall and sheer.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest (1996)
Context: These worst mornings with cold floors and hot windows and merciless light—the soul’s certainty that the day will have to be not traversed but sort of climbed, vertically, and then that going to sleep again at the end of it will be like falling, again, off something tall and sheer.

Soul , Sleep