Quotes about climb
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“Fading, fading: strength beyond hope and despair climbing the third stair. Lord, I am not worthy Lord, I am not worthy but speak the word only.”

T.S. Eliot book The Waste Land

Source: The Waste Land and Other Poems

Hope, Despair

“Otis," I said.

"Shhh," he said. "I'm incognito. Call me… Otis."

"I'm not sure that's how incognito works, but okay."

Otis, aka Otis climbed into the chair I'd reserved for Sam.”

Rick Riordan book The Hammer of Thor

Source: The Hammer of Thor

“Her beauty climbed the rolling slope, it came into the room, rustling ghost-like through the curtains…”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book Tender Is the Night

Source: Tender Is the Night

Beauty

“I gotta go to the bathroom," Emby mumbles.
"You should have thought of that before you left," says Hayden, putting on his best mother voice. "How many times do we have to tell you? Always use the potty before climbing into a shipping crate.”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

Time

“Face your fears or they will climb over your back.”

Frank Herbert book Chapterhouse: Dune

Source: Chapterhouse: Dune

Fear

“Merripen, despite his fear of heights, had often climbed a ladder to wash the second floor window for her. He had wanted her view of the outside world to be clear.
He had said the sky should always be blue for her.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Seduce Me at Sunrise

World, Fear

“It be better, I think, to climb out in search of something, instead of hating, what you're leaving.”

Lois Lowry Son

Source: Son

Hate, Search, Thinking

“You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he is willing to climb a little.”

Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) American businessman and philanthropist

“Kilimanjaro is a pretty tricky climb you know, most of it's up until you reach the very very top, and then it tends to slope away rather sharply.”

Graham Chapman (1941–1989) English comedian, writer and actor

“I have a little dog who likes to nap with me.
He climbs on my body and puts his face in my neck.
He is sweeter than soap.
He is more wonderful than a diamond necklace,
which can't even bark…”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Dogs

“Of course I can climb it. I'm practically a progidy in PE," I pointed out. "The question is, can you, Mr Smoker?”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Question

“Sometimes that mountain you've been climbing is just a grain of sand, and what you've been up there searching for forever, is in your hands. When you figure out love is all that matters after all it sure makes everything else seem so small.”

Carrie Underwood (1983) American country music singer

Love, Search, Mountain

“Art has always been the raft onto which we climb to save our sanity. I don't see a different purpose for it now.”

Dorothea Tanning (1910–2012) American artist

Art

“And I watch my words from a long way off.
They are more yours than mine.
They climb on my old suffering like ivy.”

Pablo Neruda book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Source: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Way, Suffering

“Which brings me to the question of why we always 'fall' in love. One falls down steps, off ladders, into rivers and down mountains. If love is so wonderful, why don't we soar in love or climb in love?”

Judith McNaught (1944) American writer

Love, Mountain, Question

“Gabrielle was insulted and didn't even bother to hide it. 'Oh, and I suppose you think your dad was alone when he free-climbed the Kyoto Banking Tower on a windy day last September.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Uncommon Criminals

Thinking

“It was titillating to brush up against the enigma of mortality, to steal a glimpse across its forbidden frontier. Climbing was a magnificient activity, I firmly believed, not in spite of the inherent perils, but precisely because of them.”

Jon Krakauer (1954) American outdoors writer and journalist

Source: Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster

“Evening of a hot day started the little wind to moving among the leaves. The shade climbed up the hills toward the top. On the sand banks the rabbits sat as quietly as little gray, sculptured stones.”

John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men

Source: Of Mice and Men

“Climb the day, Drop your dreams, Possess the day.”

Gail Carson Levine Fairest

Source: Fairest

Dreams

“Jeb climbed the ladder Fang had just lowered and I indulged in a moments fantasy about someone slamming the trapdoor on his head.”-max”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Fang

“… like a grain of sand that gets into an oyster's shell. What if the grain doesn't want to become a pearl? Is it ever asked to climb out quietly and take up its old position as a bit of ocean floor?”

Robin McKinley book The Blue Sword

Source: The Blue Sword

“Back in Khufu's day I knew a magician who parted the Nile just so he could climb to the bottom and retrieve a girl's necklace. Then there was that Israelite fellow, Mickey."
"Moses?"
"Yeah, him.”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

Girl, Parting

“I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.”

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) American folklorist, novelist, short story writer

Way, Search, Reality

“In my childhood I led the life of a sage, when I grew up I started climbing trees”

Philip Roth book The Ghost Writer

Source: The Ghost Writer

Life, Tree, Childhood

“The thing about mountains is that you have to keep on climbing them, and that it's always hard, but there's a view from top every time when you finally get there.”

Nancy Garden book Annie on My Mind

Source: Annie on My Mind

Mountain, Time

“It’s life. You don’t figure it out. You just climb up on the beast and ride.”

Rebecca Wells book Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Source: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Motivational, Back To Work, Life

“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.”

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

Dreams

“It isn't often that Aunt Dahlia, lets her angry passions rise, but when she does, strong men climb trees and pull them up after them.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Source: Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

Men, Tree, Strong, Passion

“Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test that it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

Mountain

“She climbed out of the car, and instantly his entire body wakened to her proximity. he whispered, lifting a hand to touch her cheek.”

Kerrelyn Sparks (1955) American writer

Cars

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.”

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

Mountain

“It's wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky. Behind me and before me is God and I have no fears”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

God, Fear, Mountain

“The primitive in each of us climbs closer to the surface during the night, for the moon sings to it, and the cold void between the stars speaks its language. To that savage self, evil can look lovely in too little light.”

Dean Koontz book False Memory

Source: False Memory

Love, Star, Light, Evil

“Me, I was still in the pygmy hippo in a skirt, singing lusty songs about Solomon's private life and a giant stone back and forth through the air as I climbed out of the quarry at the edge of the site.”

Jonathan Stroud book The Ring of Solomon

Source: The Ring of Solomon

Life, Singing

“I had that trapped feeling, like some sort of a poor insect that you've put inside a downturned glass, and it tries to climb up the sides, and it can't, and it can't, and it can't.”

Cornell Woolrich (1903–1968) American author and screenwriter

Source: Blues of a Lifetime: The Autobiography of Cornell Woolrich

Feeling

“I prayed the monsters would give up. Or that perhaps Philip of Macedonia would climb back to the terrace (do crocodiles climb?) and renew the fight.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Fight

“Entering a novel is like going on a climb in the mountains: you have to learn the rhythm of respiration, acquire the pace; otherwise you stop right away.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

Source: Postscript to the Name of the Rose

Mountain, Learning

“When you're climbing Mount Everest, nothing is easy. You just take one step at a time, never look back and always keep your eyes glued to the top.”

Jacqueline Susann book Valley of the Dolls

Source: Valley of the Dolls

Time

“Books fall open, you fall in. When you climb out again, you're a bit larger than you used to be.”

Gregory Maguire (1954) Novelist

Books

“It's the climbing that makes the man. Getting to the top is an extra reward.”

Robert Lipsyte book The Contender

Source: The Contender

“Good-bye Dr. Steve,' I said, then climbed the stairs and went to the fifth floor to die.”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time

“Win told me that one isn’t improved by being at the top of the mountain, one is improved by the climb.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Married By Morning

Mountain

“Loneliness watches and sights, then climbs into my bed and pulls the covers over… himself, fully dressed, shoes and all. He’s going to make me sleep with him again tonight, i just know it.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Shoe, Sleep, Loneliness

“It isn't for the moment you are struck that you need courage, but for that long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American aviator and author

Faith, Courage

“Out of the red and silver and the long cry of alarm to the poet who survives in all human beings, as the child survives in him; to this poet she threw an unexpected ladder in the middle of the city and ordained, 'Climb!”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Cry

“Now climb, young grasshopper, so your Kung Fu won't be weak.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

“When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they're finished, I climb out.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Mother's Day

“It is a mistake to regard age as a downhill grade toward dissolution. The
reverse is true. As one grows older, one climbs with surprising strides.”

George Sand (1804–1876) French novelist and memoirist; pseudonym of Lucile Aurore Dupin

Age

“Tell him to seek the stars and he will kill himself with climbing.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966

Star

“Always continue the climb. It is possible for you to do whatever you choose, if you first get to know who you are and are willing to work with a power that is greater than ourselves to do it.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet

“She was a girl with a mountain to climb.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Girl, Mountain

“When the past has passed from you at last, let go. Then climb down and begin the rest of your life. With great joy.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Life, Past, Joy

“A poet is a man who puts up a ladder to a star and climbs it while playing a violin.”

Edmond de Goncourt (1822–1896) French writer

Star

“Getting a job scared her but she was determined not to shy away from risk. That’s what life’s all about. Climbing out onto the airplane wing and jumping off.”

Wally Lamb book She's Come Undone

Source: She's Come Undone

Life

“I thought climbing the Devil's Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing. But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.”

Jon Krakauer book Into the Wild

Source: Into the Wild

Life, Dreams, Mountain, Change

“The location was very difficult to get to. I recall rock-climbing a good deal of the way in that long skirt, and I felt terrible for the crew members who had to haul the heavy equipment. For some reason, they couldn't get there by helicopter.”

Madeleine Stowe (1958) American actress

On getting to the location of the last scene in the movie.
Mohican Press interview (2005)

Way

“Keep close to Nature's heart … and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”

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

statement by Muir as remembered by Samuel Hall Young in Alaska Days with John Muir (1915), chapter 7
1910s

Mountain, Nature, Heart

“Climbing uphill, one dollar bill, this town is far.”

John Doe (1954) American singer, songwriter, actor, poet, guitarist and bass player

Song lyrics, Dim Stars, Bright Sky (2002), This Far

“The window-lights, myriads and myriads,
Bloom from the walls like climbing flowers.”

Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) American writer and poet

"Evening: New York"
Flame and Shadow (1920)

Flowers, Light

“The world is rather shot to pieces [end of World War II - 1945], but the spectators climb out of their caves and pretend to have again become normal and customary humans who ask each other's pardon instead of eating one another or sucking each other's blood. The entertaining folly of war evaporates, distinguished boredom sits down again on the dignified old overstuffed chairs... May I report about myself that I have had a truly grotesque time, brim-full with work, Nazi persecutions, bombs, hunger, and again and again work – in spite of everything”

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

a. o. using his bed sheets as canvas for the new paintings
letter to de:Stephan Lackner, Amsterdam, 27 August 1945, as quoted in Max Beckmann, Stephan Lackner, Bonfini Press Corporation, Naefels, Switzerland, 1983, pp. 80 + 86
1940s

Hunger, War, World, Time

“And, growing tired, we turn aside at last,
Remember our secret selves, seek out our towers,
Lay weary hands on the banisters, and climb;
Climbing, each, to his little four-square dream
Of love or lust or beauty or death or crime.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)

Love, Death, Secret, Beauty

“In this way the Soul deliberately labours for growth; deliberately it works at itself, purifying always the lower nature with unceasing effort and with untiring demand; for ever it is comparing itself not with those who are below it but with Those who are above it, ever it is raising its eyes towards Those who have achieved, and not looking downwards towards those who are still only climbing upwards towards the Outer Court.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: https://theosophy.world/sites/default/files/ebooks/Annie%20Besant-In-The-Outer-Court.pdf In the Outer Court, 1895, p. 34

Way, Soul, Nature, Effort

“We would rather be ruined than changed
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.”

W. H. Auden book The Age of Anxiety

Epilogue
The Age of Anxiety (1948)

Change

“Menzies was the first - and maybe the only - national leader of whom it could be safely said that he was capable of rising to the top of almost any ladder he dared to climb.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

The Story of Australia's People: The Rise and Rise of a New Australia (2016)

“On, said the alethiometer. Farther, higher.
So on they climbed.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Source: His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997), Ch. 15 : Bloodmoss

“The crowd of ragged Confederates on the White House lawn had doubled and more since he went in to confer with Lincoln. The trees were full of men who had climbed up so they could see over their comrades. Off in the distance, cannon occasionally still thundered; rifles popped like firecrackers. Lee quietly said to Lincoln, "Will you send out your sentries under flag of truce to bring word of the armistice to those Federal positions still firing upon my men?" "I'll see to it," Lincoln promised. He pointed to the soldiers in gray, who had quieted expectantly when Lee came out. "Looks like you've given me sentries enough, even if their coats are the wrong color." Few men could have joked so with their cause in ruins around them. Respecting the Federal President for his composure, Lee raised his voice: "Soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia, after three years of arduous service, we have achieved that for which we took up arms-" He got no further. With one voice, the men before him screamed out their joy and relief. The unending waves of noise beat at him like a surf from a stormy sea. Battered forage caps and slouch hats flew through the air. Soldiers jumped up and down, pounded on one another's shoulders, danced in clumsy rings, kissed each other's bearded, filthy faces. Lee felt his own eyes grow moist. At last the magnitude of what he had won began to sink in.”

Harry Turtledove book The Guns of the South

Source: The Guns of the South (1992), p. 180

Men, Color, Kiss, Tree

“A properly performed set of leg extensions immediately followed by a properly performed set of leg presses should leave you feeling like you just climbed a tall building with your car tied to your back.”

Arthur Jones (inventor) (1926–2007) American inventor

The New High Intensity Training (2004)

Cars, Feeling

“Reaching the summit of a mountain gives great satisfaction, but nothing for me has been more rewarding in life than the result of our climb on Everest, when we have devoted ourselves to the welfare of our Sherpa friends.”

Edmund Hillary (1919–2008) New Zealand mountaineer

As quoted in Great Climbs: A Celebration of World Mountaineering (1994) by Sir Chris Bonington

Life, Mountain

“Hold the door, say please, say thank you.
Don't steal, don't cheat, and don't lie.
I know you got mountains to climb, but always stay humble and kind.
When the dreams you're dreamin' come to you.
When the work you put in is realized.
Let yourself feel the pride, but always stay humble and kind.”

Tim McGraw (1967) American country singer

Humble and Kind
Song lyrics, Damn Country Music (2015)

Lie, Dreams, Feeling, Mountain

“For John Howard to get to any high moral ground he would have to first climb out of the volcanic hole he's dug for himself over the last decade. You know, it's like one of those deep diamond mined holes in South Africa, you know, they're about a mile underground. He'd have to come a mile up to get to even equilibrium, let alone have any contest in morality with Kevin Rudd.”

Paul Keating (1944) Australian politician, 24th Prime Minister of Australia

ABC Radio interview, March 5, 2007.

“The path which leads to the mount bf ascension does not lie among flowers; and he who travels it must climb the cold hillside, he must have his feet cut by the pointed rocks, he must faint in the dark valley, he must not seldom have his rest at midnight on the desert sand.”

Henry Giles (1809–1882) Irish minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 107.

Lie, Travel, Flowers

“The man of half-grown intelligence, when he observes an object which is bathed in the glow of a seeming beauty, thinks that that object is in its essence beautiful, no matter what it is that so prepossesses him with the pleasure of the eye. He will not go deeper into the subject. But the other, whose mind's eye is clear, and who can inspect such appearances, will neglect those elements which are the material only upon which the Form of Beauty works; to him they will be but the ladder by which he climbs to the prospect of that Intellectual Beauty, in accordance with their share in which all other beauties get their existence and their name.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

On Virginity, Chapter 11

Pleasure, Beauty, Intelligence, Thinking

“She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course, she did. This is the day of the reaping.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, The Hunger Games (2008), p. 3

Dreams

“I started freerunning when I was 16. It just felt like an evolution of what I always wanted to do as a child: be creative, climb on things. It let me apply an adult mentality to that playfulness. Then I was introduced to veganism. And from there, I found out that the biggest percentage of pollution on the planet comes from animal agriculture. Once I discovered that, it became my calling. I think we all have something to contribute; we just have to look at the bigger picture and ask, “With what we’ve been given, what message can we promote that helps the greater good?””

Tim Shieff (1988) American freerunner

"Go veggie to save the planet, says world champion freerunner Tim Shieff" https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/16/go-veggie-to-save-the-planet-says-world-champion-freerunner-tim-shieff, interview with The Guardian (16 June 2015).

Thinking, Help, Animals

“As a four-year-old, my mother told me I was climbing the fence, jumping off and calling myself an 'eppyplane' … I bought books on aeroplanes, I followed everything in the newspapers about aeroplanes. Amy Johnson flew to Australia in 1930 - why couldn't I do something like that?”

Nancy Bird Walton (1915–2009) Australian aviatrix

Nancy Bird Walton in an interview with George Negus on George Negus Tonight, 8 March 2004 http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/aviation/aviatrices/

Books

“I certainly haven't been shopping for any new shoes,
And
I certainly haven't been spreading myself around.
I still only travel by foot, and by foot it's a slow climb.
But I'm good at being uncomfortable, so
I can't stop changing all the time.”

Fiona Apple (1977) singer-songwriter, musician

Extraordinary Machine
Song lyrics, Extraordinary Machine (2005)

Shoe, Travel, Change, Time

“Barack and Michelle Obama arrived on the North Portico just before 10:00 a. m. Laura and I had invited them for a cup of coffee in the Blue Room, just as Bill and Hillary Clinton had done for us eight years earlier. The Obamas were in good spirits and excited about the journey ahead. Meanwhile, in the Situation Room, homeland security aides from both our teams monitored intelligence on a terrorist threat to Washington. It was a stark reminder that evil men still want to harm our country, no matter who is serving as president. After our visit, we climbed into the motorcade for the trip up Pennsylvania Avenue. I thought back to the drive I'd made with Bill Clinton eight years earlier. That day in January 2001, I could never have imagined what would unfold over my time in office. I knew some of the decisions I had made were not popular with many of my fellow citizens. But I felt satisfied that I had been willing to make the hard decisions, and I had always done what I believed was right. At the Capitol, Laura and I took our seats for the Inauguration. I marveled at the peaceful transition of power, one of the defining features of our democracy. The audience was riveted with anticipation for he swearing-in. Barack Obama had campaigned on hope, and that was what he had given many Americans. For our new president, the Inauguration was a thrilling beginning. For Laura and me, it was an end. It was another president's turn, and I was ready to go home.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Source: 2010s, 2010, Decision Points (November 2010), p. 474

Men, Peace, Hope, Democracy

“Those perilous climbings [with her sister Claudia, in the Palo Duro Canyon, 1916] were frightening, but it was wonderful to me and not like anything I had known before. The fright of the day was still with me in the night and I would often dream that the foot of my bed rose straight up into the air — then just as it was to fall I would wake up. Many drawings came from days like that, and later some oil paintings.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

About climbing the Palo Duro Canyon, 1916
1970s, Some Memories of Drawings (1976)

Dreams, Sister, Drawing, Painting

“[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.”

Robert Burton book The Anatomy of Melancholy

Section 2, member 3, subsection 11, Concupiscible Appetite, as Desires, Ambition, Causes.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part I

Men, Dogs, Bird

“I want to say to those who are trying to learn to speak and those who are teaching them: Be of good cheer. Do not think of to-day's failures, but of the success that may come to-morrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere, and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles — a delight in climbing rugged paths, which you would perhaps never know if you did not sometime slip backward — if the road was always smooth and pleasant. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. Sometime, somewhere, somehow we shall find that which we seek. We shall speak, yes, and sing, too, as God intended we should speak and sing.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Address to the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf (8 July 1896)

God, Beauty, Failure, Thinking

“So let us then try to climb the mountain, not by stepping on what is below us, but to pull us up at what is above us, for my part at the stars; amen.”

M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch graphic artist

undated quotes, M.C. Escher Foundation

Mountain, Star, Parting

“There was a time when I should have felt terribly ashamed of not being up-to-date. I lived in a chronic apprehension lest I might, so to speak, miss the last bus, and so find myself stranded and benighted, in a desert of demodedness, while others, more nimble than myself, had already climbed on board, taken their tickets and set out toward those bright but, alas, ever receding goals of Modernity and Sophistication. Now, however, I have grown shameless, I have lost my fears. I can watch unmoved the departure of the last social-cultural bus—the innumerable last buses, which are starting at every instant in all the world’s capitals. I make no effort to board them, and when the noise of each departure has died down, “Thank goodness!” is what I say to myself in the solitude. I find nowadays that I simply don’t want to be up-to-date. I have lost all desire to see and do the things, the seeing and doing of which entitle a man to regard himself as superiorly knowing, sophisticated, unprovincial; I have lost all desire to frequent the places and people that a man simply must frequent, if he is not to be regarded as a poor creature hopelessly out of the swim. “Be up-to-date!” is the categorical imperative of those who scramble for the last bus. But it is an imperative whose cogency I refuse to admit. When it is a question of doing something which I regard as a duty I am as ready as anyone else to put up with discomfort. But being up-to-date and in the swim has ceased, so far as I am concerned, to be a duty. Why should I have my feelings outraged, why should I submit to being bored and disgusted for the sake of somebody else’s categorical imperative? Why? There is no reason. So I simply avoid most of the manifestations of that so-called “life” which my contemporaries seem to be so unaccountably anxious to “see”; I keep out of range of the “art” they think is so vitally necessary to “keep up with”; I flee from those “good times” in the “having” of which they are prepared to spend so lavishly of their energy and cash.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

“Silence is Golden,” p. 55
Do What You Will (1928)

Life, People, World, Fear

“It was always worth everything to get away by himself, climb a bit, and study the heavens.”

Fritz Leiber book The Wanderer

Source: The Wanderer (1964), Chapter 3 (p. 26).

Study

“Here's what I've started thinking: All the wonder of God happens right above our arithmetic and formula. The more I climb outside my pat answers, the more invigorating the view, the more my heart enters into worship.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

God, Thinking, Heart

“When the early morning sun
first pierced the grayness in the sky,
a pickerel rose from his watery home
to climb a pine tree, singing.
And high in the branches, he looked upon
the morning's glowing beauty -
the wind-blown ripples on the lake,
dew-freshened flowers and fields below.”

Aaro Hellaakoski (1893–1952) Finnish writer, poet, geographer and teacher

Aaro Hellaakoski. "The song of the pike hauen laulu." Aina Swan Cutler (trans.) in: Aili Jarvenpa, ‎Michael G. Karni (1989), Sampo, the magic mill: a collection of Finnish-American writing.

Beauty, Home, Flowers, Tree

“They’re everything that’s wrong in this instant-coffee and microwave age. ‘I want it now.’ There used to be that romantic image of going off to Tibet and climbing the mountain to speak to the wise man. And when you got to the top, he could tell you the truths of the universe. Now people wanna take a helicopter to the top—or e-mail him!”

Malcolm Azania book The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad

Source: The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad (2004), Chapter 34 “On Good, Evil, Invisible Hands, and the Wind” (p. 193)

People, Truth, Age, Mountain

“A leg I noticed next, fine as a mote,
"And on this frail eyelash he walked," I said,
"And climbed and walked like any mountain-goat."”

Karl Shapiro (1913–2000) Poet, essayist

"Interludes" III, in From Darkness To Light : A Confession of Faith in the form of an Anthology (1956) edited by Victor Gollancz

Mountain

“I'm just a bum who climbs chimneys.”

Fred Dibnah (1938–2004) English steeplejack and television personality, with a keen interest in mechanical engineering

Unsourced

“Of what she said to me that night—no matter.
The strange thing came next day.
My brain was full of music—something she played me—;
I couldn't remember it all, but phrases of it
Wreathed and wreathed among faint memories,
Seeking for something, trying to tell me something,
Urging to restlessness: verging on grief.
I tried to play the tune, from memory,—
But memory failed: the chords and discords climbed
And found no resolution—only hung there,
And left me morbid... Where, then, had I heard it?...”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)

Music, Memory, Night

“You would probably not say that he was sleeping the sleep of the just, unless you meant the just asleep, but it was certainly the sleep of someone who was not fooling about when he climbed into bed of a night and turned off the light.”

Douglas Adams The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Source: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), Ch. 3

Fools, Sleep, Light, Night

“I, who loved and knew you,
In the city that slew you,
Still hunger on, and thirst, and climb, proud-hearted and alone:

Serpent-fears enfold me,
Syren-visions hold me,
And, like a wave, I gather strength, and gathering
strength, I moan;
Yea, the pale moon beckons,
Still I follow, aching,
And gather strength, only to make a louder moan, in breaking!”

Robert Williams Buchanan (1841–1901) Scottish poet, novelist and dramatist

"To David in Heaven", St. 13.
Undertones (1883)

Love, Hunger, Fear, Heart

“Smooth lies the road to Pluto's gloomy shade,
And hell's black gates for ever stand displayed,
But 'tis a long unconquerable pain,
To climb to these ethereal realms again.”

Christopher Pitt (1699–1748) English poet

Book VI, line 182
The Æneid of Virgil (1740)

Pain, Hell

“There is a fair woman in the west,
who is as bright as sunlight.
She wears a dress of the finest silk
and jewelry shines from her left, her right.
Her face is a charm, so full of grace,
lightly perfuming the breeze.
Climbing upward, she keeps watch for her loved one,
holding her sleeves, she faces the morning sun.
She hovers, she drifts through the sky,
waving her sleeves, she dances,
flies like the wind, like a cloud, in [a] trance.
Every so often, she glances at me,
but for me this beauty is out of reach.
Left alone, I lament my fate.”

Ruan Ji (210–263) One of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove

Poem XIX, translated by Wu Fusheng and Graham Hartill in The Poem of Ruan Ji (2006), p. 39, as reported in Constructing Irregular Theology (2009) by Paul S. Chung, p. 13

Love, Fate, Beauty, Sun

“Once you know about a work of mine you own it. There's no way I can climb inside somebody's head and remove it.”

Lawrence Weiner (1942) American artist

Lawrence Weiner, cited in: Nika Knight. " Slowly Adapting Art: Moving with the Times: Re-installing Originals http://www.oberlin.edu/stupub/ocreview/2007/04/27/arts/Slowly_Adapting_Art_Moving.html," in: The Oberlin Review, April 27, 2007.

Way

“We gave ourselves a hill to climb and we climbed it.”

Phil Brown (footballer) (1959) English association football player and manager

11-Aug-2007, BBC Radio Humberside
You have to give yourselves stretched targets.

“Peace is inside you. Wherever you go, peace goes with you. When you climb on a bus, peace goes with you. When you are fighting, peace goes with you. When you are asleep, peace is within you. When you are frustrated beyond imagination, peace is in you. No matter what you do, there is no place you can go where peace will not come with you. Because it's within you. Through technology, we want to improve our lives. What I am saying is that the real improvement begins with you. I am not saying to sacrifice technology or to sacrifice your responsibilities. Accept your responsibilities, and while accepting those responsibilities, find peace, find joy in your life.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Addressing facutly and guests at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), as part of a program by the National Resource Center for Value Education. New Delhi. (November 7, 2004)
2000s

Life, Peace, Imagination, Joy