Quotes about summit (136 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“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

“The philosopher places himself at the summit of thought; from there he views what the world has been and what it must become. He is not just an observer, he is an actor; he is an actor of the highest kind in a moral world because it is his opinion of what the world must become that regulates society.”

Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825) French early socialist theorist

Le philosophe se place au sommet de la pensée; de là il envisage ce qu'a été le monde et ce qu'il doit devenir. Il n'est pas seulement observateur, il est acteur; il est acteur du premier genre dans le monde moral, car ce sont ses opinions sur, car ce sont ses opinions sur ce que le monde doit devenir qui règlent la société humaine.
Science de l'homme: Physiologie religieuse (1858), p. 437

World

“There are many paths leading to the top of Mount Fuji, but there is only one summit — love.”

Morihei Ueshiba (1883–1969) founder of aikido

Morihei Ueshiba, as quoted in You Can Save the Earth: 7 Reasons Why and 7 Simple Ways, a Philosophy for the Future (2008) by Hatherleigh, Sean K. Smith, and Andrew Flach, p. 92
Context: Each and every master, regardless of the era or the place, heard the call and attained harmony with heaven and earth. There are many paths leading to the top of Mount Fuji, but there is only one summit — love.

Love

“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

“Yes, from the mountain of eternity we shall look down, and behold the whole plain spread before us. Down here we get lost and confused in the devious valleys that run off from the rdots of the hills everywhere, and we cannot make out where the streams are going, and what there is behind that low shoulder of the hill yonder. But when we get to the summit peak and look down, it will all shape itself into one consistent whole, and we shall see it all at once.
None can comprehend eternity but the eternal God.”

Thomas Boston (1676–1732) Scottish church leader, theologian and philosopher

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 212.
Secondary Sources

God , Mountain

“Rarely do we arrive at the summit of truth without running into extremes; we have frequently to exhaust the part of error, and even of folly, before we work our way up to the noble goal of tranquil wisdom.”

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright

Prefatory Remarks
The Philosophical Letters

Wisdom , Truth , Way , Error

“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

“To be free, as I then knew myself to be, is to realize that all conquest is vain, even the conquest of self, which is the last act of egotism. To be joyous is to carry the ego to its last summit and to deliver it triumphantly. To know peace is total: it is the moment after, when the surrenderer is complete, when there is no longer even the consciounsness of surrender. Peace is at the centre and when it is attainded the voice issues forth in praise and benediction. Then the voice carries far and wide, to the outermost limits of the universe. Then it heals, because it brings light and the warmth of compassion.”

Henry Miller book The Colossus of Maroussi

The Colossus of Maroussi (1941)

Peace , Light , Universe

“Our media make crisis chatter out of news and fill our minds with anxious phantoms of the real thing — a summit in Helsinki, a treaty in Egypt, a constitutional crisis in India, a vote in the U. N., the financial collapse of New York. We can't avoid being politicized (a word as murky as the condition which it describes) because it is necessary after all to know what is going on. Worse yet, what is going on will not let us alone. Neither the facts nor the deformations, the insidious platitudes of the media (tormenting because the underlying realities are so large and so terrible), can be screened out. The study of literature itself is heavily "politicized."”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

To Jerusalem and Back: A Personal Account (1976) [Viking/Penguin, 1998, ISBN 0-141-18075-7], p. 21
General sources

Literature , Reality , Study

“In late June, my mother moved out of the Summit Town Homes and bought a house in West Hills. It was the first time my mother bought a house, as she had only rented in the past. The house had recently undergone a renovation, so it was practically brand new. The house had a swimming pool and was located in a nice enough area, though I would have still preferred it if my mother had gotten married to a wealthy man and moved into a mansion. I still continued to pester her to do this, and she still stubbornly refused. I will always resent my mother for refusing to do this. If not for her sake, she should have done it for mine. Joining a family of great wealth would have truly saved my life. I would have a high enough status to attract beautiful girlfriends and live above all of my enemies. All of my horrific troubles would have been eased instantly. It is very selfish of my mother to not consider this.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Perspective on incelness

Life , Family , Beauty , Home

“Spiritual power is the eternal guide, in this life and the life after, for man ranks supreme among all creatures. Led forward by spiritual power, man can reach the summit destined for him by the Great Creator.”

Haile Selassie (1892–1975) Emperor of Ethiopia

On the Nomination of Archbishop Basilios (19 January 1951)

Life

“The undulation of these infinite numbers of mountains, whose snowy summits make them look as if covered by foam, recalled to my remembrance the surface of a storm-beaten ocean. If I looked towards the west, the ocean lay before me in all its majestic grandeur, a continuation as it were, of these fleecy hilltops. Where the earth ended and the sea began it was impossible for the eye to distinguish.

I soon felt that strange and mysterious sensation which is awakened in the mind when looking down from lofty hilltops, and now I was able to do so without any feeling of nervousness, having fortunately hardened myself to that kind of sublime contemplation. I wholly forgot who I was, and where I was. I became intoxicated with a sense of lofty sublimity, without thought of the abysses into which my daring was soon about to plunge me.”

Jules Verne book A Journey to the Center of the Earth

<p>Les ondulations de ces montagnes infinies, que leurs couches de neige semblaient rendre écumantes, rappelaient à mon souvenir la surface d'une mer agitée. Si je me retournais vers l'ouest, l'Océan s'y développait dans sa majestueuse étendue, comme une continuation de ces sommets moutonneux. Où finissait la terre, où commençaient les flots, mon oeil le distinguait à peine.</p><p>Je me plongeais ainsi dans cette prestigieuse extase que donnent les hautes cimes, et cette fois, sans vertige, car je m'accoutumais enfin à ces sublimes contemplations. Mes regards éblouis se baignaient dans la transparente irradiation des rayons solaires, j'oubliais qui j'étais, où j'étais, pour vivre de la vie des elfes ou des sylphes, imaginaires habitants de la mythologie scandinave; je m'enivrais de la volupté des hauteurs, sans songer aux abîmes dans lesquels ma destinée allait me plonger avant peu.</p>
Source: Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Ch. XVI: Boldly down the crater

Feeling , Mountain , Sense , Sea

“In this way, then, by the renewal of the ceaseless working of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in us, in its various stages of progress, shall we be able at some future time perhaps, although with difficulty, to behold the holy and the blessed life, in which (as it is only after many struggles that we are able to reach it) we ought so to continue, that no satiety of that blessedness should ever seize us; but the more we perceive its blessedness, the more should be increased and intensified within us the longing for the same, while we ever more eagerly and freely receive and hold fast the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But if satiety should ever take hold of any one of those who stand on the highest and perfect summit of attainment, I do not think that such an one would suddenly be deposed from his position and fall away, but that he must decline gradually and little by little, so that it may sometimes happen that if a brief lapsus take place, and the individual quickly repent and return to himself, he may not utterly fall away, but may retrace his steps, and return to his former place, and again make good that which had been lost by his negligence.”

Origen (185–254) Christian scholar in Alexandria

On First Principles, Bk. 1, ch. 3; par. 8
On First Principles

Life , Way , Thinking , Time

“Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is, I dunno. If the Eiffel Tower were now representing the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man's share of that age; and anybody would perceive that the skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would, I dunno.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Was the World Made for Man? (1903): also p. 106, What is man?: and other philosophical writings, Volume 19 of Works, 1993, Mark Twain, Paul Baender, University of California Press

Age , World , Painting

“Spying a young plane tree with long stem and countless branches and summit aspiring to heaven.”
Primaevam visu platanum, cui longa propago innumeraeque manus et iturus in aethera vertex.

Statius Silvae

iii, line 39 (tr. J. H. Mozley)
Silvae, Book II

Tree

“I never take offence at any genuine effort to wrest the truth or deduce a rational set of values from the confused phenomena of the external world. It never occurs to me to look for personal factors in the age-long battle for truth. I assume that all hands are really trying to achieve the same main object—the discovery of sound facts and the rejection of fallacies—and it strikes me as only a minor matter that different strivers may happen to see a different perspective now and then. And in matters of mere preference, as distinguished from those involving the question of truth versus fallacy, I do not see any ground whatever for acrimonious feeling. Knowing the capriciousness and complexity of the various biological and psychological factors determining likes, dislikes, interests, indifferences, and so on, one can only be astonished that any two persons have even approximately similar tastes. To resent another's different likes and interests is the summit of illogical absurdity. It is very easy to distinguish a sincere, impersonal difference of opinion and tastes from the arbitrary, ill-motivated, and irrational belittlement which springs from a hostile desire to push another down and which constitutes real offensiveness. I have no tolerance for such real offensiveness—but I greatly enjoy debating questions of truth and value with persons as sincere and devoid of malice as I am. Such debate is really a highly valuable—almost indispensable—ingredient of life; because it enables us to test our own opinions and amend them if we find them in any way erroneous or unjustified.”

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

Letter to Robert E. Howard (7 November 1932), in Selected Letters 1932-1934 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 102
Non-Fiction, Letters

Life , Hostility , Truth , Age

“It was too late to take risks now. I asked Tenzing to belay me strongly, and I started cutting a cautious line of steps up the ridge. Peering from side to side and thrusting with my ice axe, I tried to discover a possible cornice, but everything seemed solid and firm. I waved Tenzing up to me. A few more whacks of the ice–ax, a few very weary steps, and we were on the summit of Everest.”

Edmund Hillary (1919–2008) New Zealand mountaineer

"Adventure's End" in The Norton Book of Sports (1992) edited by George Plimpton, p. 85
Context: It was too late to take risks now. I asked Tenzing to belay me strongly, and I started cutting a cautious line of steps up the ridge. Peering from side to side and thrusting with my ice axe, I tried to discover a possible cornice, but everything seemed solid and firm. I waved Tenzing up to me. A few more whacks of the ice–ax, a few very weary steps, and we were on the summit of Everest.
It was 11:30 AM. My first sensation was one of relief — relief that the long grind was over, that the summit had been reached before our oxygen supplies had dropped to a critical level; and relief that in the end the mountain had been kind to us in having a pleasantly rounded cone for its summit instead of a fearsome and unapproachable cornice. But mixed with the relief was a vague sense of astonishment that I should have been the lucky one to attain the ambition of so many brave and determined climbers. I seemed difficult to grasp that we'd got there. I was too tired and too conscious of the long way down to safety really to feel any great elation. But as the fact of our success thrust itself more clearly into my mind, I felt a quiet glow of satisfaction spread through my body — a satisfaction less vociferous but more powerful than I had ever felt on a mountain top before. I turned and looked at Tenzing. Even beneath his oxygen mask and the icicles hanging form his hair, I could see his infectious grin of sheer delight. I held out my hand, and in silence we shook in good Anglo-Saxon fashion. But this was not enough for Tenzing, and impulsively he threw his arm around my shoulders and we thumped each other on the back in mutual congratulations.

“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

Life , Failure , Success , Happiness

“A dispassionate white sun shone at the summit of the sky. I wanted to hone myself on it till I grew saintly and thin and essential as the blade of a knife.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Sun

“where would the shout of love begin, if not from the summit of sacrifice?”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Love

“Stop and consider! life is but a day;
A fragile dew-drop on its perilous way
From a tree’s summit.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

" Sleep and Poetry http://www.bartleby.com/126/31.html", st. 5
Poems (1817)
Source: The Complete Poems

Life , Way , Tree

“It is not that we love to be alone, but that we love to soar, and when we do soar, the company grows thinner and thinner until there is none at all. …We are not the less to aim at the summits though the multitude does not ascend them.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Love

“Remain true to yourself, but move ever upward toward greater consciousness and greater love! At the summit you will find yourselves united with all those who, from every direction, have made the same ascent. For everything that rises must converge.”

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest

Love

“Life always gets harder towards the summit - the cold increases, responsibility increases”

Barbara Taylor Bradford A Woman of Substance

Source: A Woman of Substance

Life

“You think this is going to work? This peaceful summit thing?”
“Sure,” I said. After a second, I added, “Probably.”
“Probably?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“We’re down to maybe now?”
I shrugged. “We’ll see.”

Jim Butcher Cold Days

Source: Cold Days

Peace , Thinking

“There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.”

Jack London book Call of the Wild

Source: The Call of the Wild

Life , Forgetting

“Heaven is not gained by a single bound,
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies;
And we mount to its summit round by round.”

Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819–1881) Novelist, poet, editor

Variant: Heaven is not gained by a single bound,
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies;
And we mount to its summit round by round.
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 564.

“Here it is night: I stay at the Summit Temple.
Here I can touch the stars with my hand.
I dare not speak aloud in the silence
For fear of disturbing the dwellers of Heaven.”

Li Bai (701–762) Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty poetry period

"The Summit Temple" (夜宿山寺), in The White Pony: An Anthology of Chinese Poetry from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (1947), p. 173

Fear , Star , Silence , Night

“Catholics in our age when confronted with dogma do not react or yield; they stay neutral, and receive it as one news item among others, as if it were a simple formality. It is as if they lacked the background needed in order to understand. It was the highest point of the Holy Year, the summit to be attained on that morning of All Saints. The prize, the great reward of those who had followed it in faith and fervor. The Pontiff's words flew over the square with a swish of wings, as if a multitude of doves had been released. One had only to close his eyes and let himself be carried away in an ecstasy of light. Instead, it became a perfect example of the contradiction inherent in our age, when man has learned to fly with his body only to forget the great flights of the soul. The people in Saint Peter's square looked like birds with severed wings.”

Aldo Palazzeschi book Roma

Page 182, "1950"
Roma (1953)

People , Age , Faith , Soul

“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

“Finally, let me explain why this De la Rosa World Summit is the last Neo-Tech summit -- and why that may be the best news. But, first, I want to hail whom I believe to be the most genuinely-happy spirit in today’s anticivilization -- a beautiful person who brings to us her happiness made from the love of life as we travel toward the Civilization of the Universe. Let us emblazon our own spirits by remembering this lovely beam of light -- this enduring beacon of joy, this amazingly-wonderful person -- our free-spirit Summit impresario, Rosa María Wallace. …What a woman!”

Frank R. Wallace (1932–2006) Philosopher, author, entrepreneur

Keynote Address for The Neo-Tech 2003 World Summit. Pax Neo-Tech. http://www.neo-tech.com/neotech/pax-b1/a3.php

Love , Life , World , Beauty

“What is peace? Balance three iron skewers tip to tip, one upon the other; at the summit, emplace and egg, so that it too poises static in mid-air, and there you have the condition of peace in this world of men.”

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), Madouc (1989), Chapter 4, section 3 (p. 750)

Men , World , Peace

“Wonderful but true! Shall future progeny of men believe, when crops grow again and this desert shall once more be green, that cities and peoples are buried below and that an ancestral countryside vanished in a common doom? Nor does the summit yet cease its deadly thrust.”
Mira fides! credetne virum ventura propago, cum segetes iterum, cum iam haec deserta virebunt, infra urbes populosque premi proavitaque tanto rura abiisse mari? necdum letale minari cessat apex.

Statius Silvae

iv, line 81
Silvae, Book IV

Men , People , Future

“These same interior, enlightened persons Have the love of God before them in their inward vision Whenever they want, as drawing or calling in towards unity. For they see and feel that the Father with the Son by means of the Holy Spirit stand embraced with all the elect and are brought back with eternal love into the unity of their nature. This unity is constantly drawing or calling in all that has been born out of it naturally or by grace. And therefore these enlightened people are lifted up with free mind above reason to a bare vision devoid of images (The imageless place of spirit vision). There lives the eternal invitation of God’s unity, and with imageless naked understanding they go beyond all works and all practices and all things to the summit of their spirit. There their naked understanding is penetrated with eternal clarity as the air is penetrated by the light of the sun. The bare elevated will is transformed and penetrated with fathomless love just as iron is penetrated by the fire. And the bare elevated memory finds itself caught and established In a fathomless absence of images. Thus the created image is united threefold wise above reason to its eternal image, Which is the source of its being and of its life.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Little Book of Enlightenment (c. 1364)

Love , Life , God , People

“From the summit of power men no longer turn their eyes upward, but begin to look about them. Aspiration sees only one side of every question; possession, many.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

Literary Essays, vol. II (1870–1890), New England Two Centuries Ago

Men , Question

“This book represents the crown and summit of everything I have to say that anyone who doesn’t know me personally may care to listen to. I’ve written a guide to the Qur’an and a biography of Muhammad, and with this book, the case is complete—that is, the case that there are elements within Islam that pose a challenge to free societies, and that free people need to pay attention to this fact before it is, quite literally, too late. It is necessary for me to repeat yet again that this does not mean that every individual Muslim, or any given Muslim, embodies that challenge and is posing it individually, but as this book makes clear, the Islamic jihad imperative remains regardless of whether or not any Muslim individual decides to take it up.”

Robert Spencer (1962) American author and blogger

The history of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS (2018)

People , Books , Personality

“Now we were standing close to the summit's rim, gazing out into the endless East.”

Friedrich Hölderlin book Hyperion

Hyperion

“O power of Love, O wondrous mystery!
How is my dark illumined by thy light,
That maketh morning of my gloomy night,
Setting my soul from Sorrow's bondage free
With swift-sent revelation! Yea, I see
Beyond the limitation of my sight
And senses, comprehending now, aright,
Today's proportion to eternity.
Through thee, my faith in God is made me sure,
My searching eyes have pierced the misty veil;
The pain and anguish which stern Sorrow brings
Through thee become more easy to endure.
Love-strong I mount, and heaven's high summit scale;
Through thee, my soul has spread her folded wings.”

Katrina Trask (1853–1922) American writer

Love

Love , God , Pain , Faith

“Pseudo‑events do, of course, increase our illusion of grasp on the world, what some have called the American illusion of omnipotence. Perhaps, we come to think, the world’s problems can really be settled by “statements,” by “Summit” meetings, by a competition of “prestige,” by overshadowing images, and by political quiz shows.”

Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American historian

Source: The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), p. 44.

World , Problem , Thinking

“No one can be saved without divine light. Divine light causes us to begin and to make progress, and it leads us to the summit of perfection. Therefore if you want to begin and to receive this divine light, pray. If you have begun to make progress and want this light to be intensified within you, pray. And if you have reached the summit of perfection, and want to be superillumined so as to remain in that state, pray.”

Angela of Foligno (1248–1309) Italian saint

Source: The Memorial and Instructions, p. 234

Light , Perfection

“On the 60th anniversary of the Korean War, I remain grateful to America for having participated in the war. At that time, the Republic of Korea was one of the most impoverished countries, with an annual per capita income of less than $40. In 2009, my country became a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Development Assistance Committee, the first aid recipient to become a donor and in only one generation. The Republic of Korea is engaged in peacekeeping missions in 14 countries to promote global peace. It will host the G-20 summit in November, and in 2012 the second nuclear security summit.”

Lee Myung-bak (1941) 10th President of South Korea

A Note of Thanks (2010)

War , Peace , Time , Country

“Almost all of today's rich countries used tariff protection and subsidies to develop their industries. Interestingly, Britain and the USA, the two countries that are supposed to have reached the summit of the world economy through their free-market, free-trade policy, are actually the ones that had most aggressively used protection and subsidies.”

Ha-Joon Chang (1963) Economist

"Kicking Away the Ladder" http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue15/Chang15.htm, post-autistic economics review, issue no. 15, 1 September 2002, article 3

World , Country

“Sir Walter Scott was the Luther of literature. He reformed and he regenerated. To say that he founded a new school is not saying the whole truth; for there is something narrow in the idea of a school, and his influence has been universal. Indeed, there is no such thing as a school in literature; each great writer is his own original, and "none but himself can be his parallel." We hear of the school of Dryden and of Pope, but where and what are their imitators? Parnassus is the very reverse of Mont Blanc. There the summit is gained by treading closely in the steps of the guides; but in the first, the height is only to be reached by a pathway of our own. The influence of a genius like Scott's is shown by the fresh and new spirit he pours into literature.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Truth , School , Literature , Idea

““Spelling is not an artificial skin of verbal expression, it is a deep structure that is revealed in the spelled image." by Smita Nair Jain at The first Global Alumni Leadership Summit organized by the Indian Institute of Management - Bangalore Alumni Association 2015””

Smita Nair Jain (1969) Indian Author, screenwriter and playback singer

“And there you In a new embrace, with a new torrent of eternal love: all the elect, angels and men, from the last to the first are embraced It is a living and fruitful unity, which is the source and the fount of all life All creatures are there without themselves as in their eternal origin, One essence and one life with God These enlightened people are lifted up with free mind above reason…To the summit of their spirit Their naked understanding is penetrated with eternal clarity as the air is penetrated by the light of the sun. The bare elevated will is transformed and penetrated with fathomless love, just as iron is penetrated by the fire [God] gives Himself in the soul’s essence…Where the soul’s powers are unified…And undergo God’s transformation in simplicity. In this place all is full and overflowing, for the spirit feels itself as one truth and one richness. And one unity with God All spirits thus raised up Melt away and are annihilated by reason of enjoyment in God’s essence They fall away from themselves and are lost in a bottomless unknowingWith God they will ebb and flow, and will always be in repose…They are drunk with love and have passed away into God in a dark luminosity must accept that the Persons yield and lose themselves whirling in essential love, that is, in enjoyable unity; nevertheless, they always remain according to their personal properties In the working of the Trinity. You may thus understand that the divine nature is eternally at rest and without mode according to the simplicity of its essence. It is why all that God has chosen and enfolded with eternal personal love, he has possessed essentially, enjoyably in unity, with essential love.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Little Book of Enlightenment (c. 1364)

Love , Life , Men , God

“While upon the subject of plants I may here mention a few of the more striking vegetable productions of Borneo. The wonderful Pitcher-plants, forming the genus Nepenthes of botanists, here reach their greatest development. Every mountain-top abounds with them, running along the ground, or climbing over shrubs and stunted trees; their elegant pitchers hanging in every direction. Some of these are long and slender, resembling in form the beautiful Philippine lace-sponge (Euplectella), which has now become so common; others are broad and short. Their colours are green, variously tinted and mottled with red or purple. The finest yet known were obtained on the summit of Kini-balou, in North-west Borneo. One of the broad sort, Nepenthes rajah, will hold two quarts of water in its pitcher. Another, Nepenthes Edwardsiania, has a narrow pitcher twenty inches long; while the plant itself grows to a length of twenty feet.”

Alfred Russel Wallace book The Malay Archipelago

The Malay Archipelago (1869)

Beauty , Mountain , Tree , Water

“Who would attain to summits still and fair,
Must nerve himself through valleys of despair.”

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

Climbing
Poetry quotes, New Thought Pastels (1913)

Despair

“Among its [Boresko's] curiosities is a high rock, which overhangs a fearful precipice, whose bottom is just as much below the surface of the surrounding country as the summit of the rock is above the surface. From its summit the rock presents the most enchanting views that the country affords… The atmosphere exerts, however, a medical influence. While inhaling it, each person possesses in imagination whatever he desires at the moment: riches, health, power, or even a lady's love. The place is appropriately termed the pinnacle of hope. …Hither come …all persons who wish to cheat the present moment of its anguish by pleasant anticipations of the future. Occasionally, however, a peculiar madness seizes the visiters, and they jump from the delightful pinnacle into the abyss below, whose noxious vapours prostrate all the energies of life, and reverse all the reveries of hope.”

Alexander Bryan Johnson (1786–1867) United States philosopher and banker

The Philosophical Emperor, a Political Experiment, or, The Progress of a False Position: (1841)

Love , Life , Health , Fear

“At one time in my life I used to look out of my bedroom window and see in the distance that stupendous mountain pile, Kinchengunga, one of the highest peaks in the Himalayas. It looked so close, almost as if a day's walking would bring me to its foot but I knew that it would take at least twelve weeks hard trekking to get an able bodied climber there, and then there would be the terrific climb to its summit — a feat seldom accomplished. So it is with knowledge. That which is worth having is seldom of easy attainment and in itself only constitutes a foundation for more knowledge.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: The Unfinished Autobiography (1951), Chapter II, Part 1

Life , Mountain , Knowledge , Time

““Spelling is relevant knowledge." by Smita Nair Jain at The first Global Alumni Leadership Summit organized by the Indian Institute of Management - Bangalore Alumni Association 2015””

Smita Nair Jain (1969) Indian Author, screenwriter and playback singer

Knowledge

“The whole history of negotiation with the Soviet Union teaches us that if you do something they want without insisting on something in return, the Soviets do not regard it as a kindness to be reciprocated, but as a weakness to be exploited. There is a lot of fashionable nonsense talked about how we misunderstand Communism, misrepresent Communism, see Communists under every bed. An attempt is being made, it seems, to create an atmosphere where truth and commonsense on these matters is actively discouraged. I believe the people of this country understand better the truth of the matter than those who try to mislead them. We must work for a real relaxation of tension, but in our negotiations with the Eastern bloc we must not accept words or gestures as a substitute for genuine detente. No flood of words emanating from a summit conference will mean anything unless it is accompanied by some positive action by which the Soviet leaders show that their ingrained attitudes are really beginning to change.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Chelsea Conservative Association (26 July 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102750
Leader of the Opposition

People , Truth , History , Communication

“He wandered for a long time along the canals and over the bridges... Steam rose from one boat where men were heating their tea water. He shouted to them and asked them to give him some tea. They asked who he was and he said that he was from Iceland, where Hell is. They invited him out to the boat and gave him something to drink and questioned him about Mount Hekla. He said that he was born and raised at the foot of the mountain and for that reason was called van Hekkenfeld. They asked whether a man could see down into Hell from the summit of Hekla, through the swarm of noxious birds that hovers eternally, shrieking and quarreling, over the crater. He said no, but added that he'd once caught one of these birds with a hooked pole that he'd brought with him up onto the mountain; they were similar to ravens, he said, except for their claws and beaks, which were iron. They asked whether such birds could be eaten and he laughed at their foolishness, but said on the other hand that one could use the claws for hooks and the beak for a pick.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part I: Iceland's Bell

Men , Mountain , Hell , Drink

“Who is it climbs the summit of the road?
Only the beggar bumming his dark load.
Who was it cried to see the falling star?
Only the landless soldier lost in war.
And did a thousand years go by in vain?
And does another thousand start again?”

Alun Lewis (1915–1944) Welsh poet

"The Mahratta Ghats", line 22; p. 44.
Ha! Ha! Among the Trumpets (1945)

War , Star

“For those of you who tried, but didn't make it,
Settle down — it's never what you think.
The summit doesn't differ from the deep, dark valley,
And the valley doesn't differ from the kitchen sink.”

Zooey Deschanel (1980) American actress, musician, and singer-songwriter

"This Is Not a Test".
She & Him : Volume One (2008)

Thinking

“How great is the difference between The hidden child and the secret friend! For the friend makes only loving, Living but measured ascents toward God. But the child presses on to lose its own life upon the summits, in that simplicity which knoweth not itself.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

Evelyn Underhill Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness (1912), p. 433
The Sparkling Stone (c. 1340)

Love , Life , God , Secret

“We aspire to a new world order, one based on justice, fairness and peace; one that will replace the unjust and unequal system of prevailing today, in which, as the final summit declaration states: "Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few powers whose wasteful economies are maintained by the exploitation of workers as well as by the transfer and plunder of of the natural and other resources of the peoples of Africa, Latin America, Asia and other regions of the world."”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

On Behalf of the Movement of Nonaligned Countries (1979)

People , World , Peace , Justice

“Nations touch at their summits.”

Walter Bagehot book The English Constitution

No. IV, The House of Lords, p. 120
The English Constitution (1867)

“In February, India and Pakistan agreed to restart peace talks on all issues. In May, Indian parliamentarians visited Islamabad to advance the cause of peace. In July, Foreign Minister Rabbani Khar visited New Delhi. A month later, MPs from both countries met in India to continue deliberations. In September, Pakistani and Indian railway officials met to help boost connectivity and trade," he said at the eight-member regional summit that opened here in Addu. And in the past few days, Pakistan improved trade links by deciding to grant India the status of Most Favoured Nation. Today, the Pakistani and Indian Prime Ministers met in the lovely setting of the Shangri La in the Maldives.”

Mohamed Nasheed (1967) Maldivian politician, 4th president of the Maldives

In his address delivered at the inaugural session of the 17th SAARC Summit, the President expressed his hope that both the countries [India and Pakistan] can work to resolve their core issues, quoted on HaveeruOnline, "Indo-Pak relations improving: President Nasheed" http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/38636, November 20, 2011.

Love , Peace , Past , Help

“Aspiration, practiced as a familiar, respectful and loving conversation with God, is such an excellent method, that, by means of it, one soon arrives at the summit of all perfection, and falls in love with Love.”

John of St. Samson (1571–1636)

From The Goad, the Flames, the Arrows and the Mirror of the love of God
Variant: Aspiration, practiced as a familiar, respectful and loving conversation with God, is such an excellent method, that, by means of it, one soon arrives at the summit of all perfection, and falls in love with Love.

Love , God , Perfection

“To live classically and to realize antiquity practically within oneself is the summit and goal of philology.”

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) German poet, critic and scholar

Philosophical Fragments, P. Firchow, trans. (1991) § 147

“Our planet, the Earth, is, as far as we know, unique in the universe. It contains life. Even in its most barren stretches, there are animals. Around the equator, where those two essentials for life, sunshine and moisture, are most abundant, great forests grow. And here plants and animals proliferate in such numbers that we still have not even named all the different species. Here, animals and plants, insects and birds, mammals and man live together in intimate and complex communities, each dependent on one another. Two thirds of the surface of this unique planet are covered by water, and it was here indeed that life began. From the oceans, it has spread even to the summits of the highest mountains as animals and plants have responded to the changing face of the Earth.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

Opening narration
The Living Planet (1984)

Life , Mountain , Communication , Bird

“I am sure I do not know why the beauty of Monte Carlo should not satisfy more than it does. The bluest of all seas is nowhere bluer than when you see it between the marble balustrades of the long white terrace before the casino, palms are nowhere greener than in that high garden which the mountain screen from every unkind breath, no colours could be more rich and various than those of the red and purple Alps that tower up behind the town, on whose summit such violent thunderstorms gather and break. But for me, at least, there was not at all the pleasure I had anticipated in this dazzling white and blue, these feathery palms and ragged Alps. …I had a continual restless feeling that there was nothing at all real about Monte Carlo; that the sea was too blue to be wet, the casino too white to be anything but pasteboard, and that from their very greenness the palms must be cotton. … in atmosphere and spirit the entire kingdom of Monaco is an extension of the casino.”

Willa Cather (1873–1947) American writer and novelist

Source: Willa Cather in Europe (1956), Ch. 14 (16 September 1902)

Pleasure , Beauty , Feeling , Mountain

“When I look at the man at the head of the French monarchy, surrounded as he is with all the pomp of power, and all the pride of victory, distributing kingdoms to his family, and principalities to his followers; seeming, as he sits upon his throne, to have reached the summit of human ambition, the pinnacle of earthly happiness; and when I follow him into his closet, or to his bed, and contemplate the anguish with which his solitude must be tortured, by recollections of the blood he has spilt, and the oppressions he has committed.”

Samuel Romilly (1757–1818) British politician

Slave Trade Bill speech (1807)

Family , Solitude , Victory , Happiness

“Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called by the Masai "Ngàje Ngài," the House of God. Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

"The Snows of Kilimanjaro," first published in Esquire (August 1936); later published in The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories (1938)

God , Mountain , Housing

“We must review oil deregulation law and study the following: Removing VAT, lowering tariff, re-imposing price ceilings and prohibiting price manipulation. We should also spend on research and development to find alternate and indigenous sources of energy. The summit will not accomplish anything other than to highlight the ignorance and incompetence of energy officials who need to call a summit just to find out what’s going on.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

The Philippine Star http://www.philstar.com:8080/headlines/37151/chiz-backs-scrapping-oil-tariff
2008, Statement: on Energy Summit

Law , Study

“And at that point, too, in Buddhist India as in Babylon, in Rome as in our own cities, a man's choice of the woman who is to be, not mother of his children as amongst peasants and primitives, but his own "companion for life", becomes a problem of mentalities. The Ibsen marriage appears, the "higher spiritual affinity" in which both parties are "free"—free, that is, as intelligences, free from the plantlike urge of the blood to continue itself, and it becomes possible for a Shaw to say "that unless Woman repudiates her womanliness, her duty to her husband, to her children, to society, to the law, and to everyone but herself, she cannot emancipate herself." The primary woman, the peasant woman, is mother. The whole vocation towards which she has yearned from childhood is included in that one word. But now emerges the Ibsen woman, the comrade, the heroine of a whole megalopolitan literature from Northern drama to Parisian novel. Instead of children, she has soul-conflicts; marriage is a craft-art for the achievement of "mutual understanding"….
At this level all Civilizations enter upon a stage, which lasts for centuries, of appalling depopulation. The whole pyramid of cultural man vanishes. It crumbles from the summit, first the world-cities, then the provincial forms, and finally the land itself, whose best blood has incontinently poured into the towns, merely to bolster them up awhile. At the last, only the primitive blood remains, alive, but robbed of its strongest and most promising elements. This residue is the Fellah type.
If anything has demonstrated the fact that Causality has nothing to do with history, it is the familiar "decline" of the Classical, which accomplished itself long before the irruption of Germanic migrants. The Imperium enjoyed the completest peace; it was rich and highly developed; it was well organized; and it possessed in its emperors from Nerva to Marcus Aurelius a series of rulers such as the Caesarism of no other Civilization can show. And yet the population dwindled, quickly and wholesale. The desperate marriage-and-children laws of Augustus—amongst them the Lex de maritandis ordinibus, which dismayed Roman society more than the destruction of Varus's legions—the wholesale adoptions, the incessant plantation of soldiers of barbarian origin to fill the depleted country-side, the immense food-charities of Nerva and Trajan for the children of poor parents—nothing availed to check the process.”

Oswald Spengler book The Decline of the West

Vol. II, Alfred A. Knopf, 1928, pp. 104–06 https://archive.org/stream/Decline-Of-The-West-Oswald-Spengler/Decline_Of_The_West#page/n573/mode/2up/search/depopulation
The Decline of the West (1918, 1923)

Life , Marriage , Children , World

“Paul consistently proclaimed that the church of Jesus Christ is not so much an organization as an organism, a mystical body. I will present the church accordingly as a living thing, whose purpose is to gather the whole world into the praise of God. And the central act of the church, its “source and summit” in the words of Vatican II, is the Liturgy, the ritualized praise of God. I will therefore walk through the gestures, songs, movements, and theology of the Liturgy. The entire purpose of the Liturgy and the church is to make saints, to make people holy. This is why Catholicism takes the saints, in all their wild diversity, with such seriousness and why it presents them to us with such enthusiasm.”

Robert Barron (bishop) (1959) priest of the Roman Catholic Church, author, scholar and Catholic evangelist.

Father Barron, Robert. Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith (Kindle Locations 116-118). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

God , People , World , Christ

“Shakespeare, no mere child of nature; no automaton of genius; no passive vehicle of inspiration possessed by the spirit, not possessing it; first studied patiently, meditated deeply, understood minutely, till knowledge became habitual and intuitive, wedded itself to his habitual feelings, and at length gave birth to that stupendous power by which he stands alone, with no equal or second in his own class; to that power which seated him on one of the two glorysmitten summits of the poetic mountain, with Milton аs his compeer, not rival. While the former darts himself forth, and passes into all the forms of human character and passion, the one Proteus of the fire and the flood; the other attracts all forms and things to himself, into the unity of his own Ideal. All things and modes of action shape themselves anew in the being of Milton; while Shakspeare becomes all things, yet for ever remaining himself.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge book Biographia Literaria

Source: Biographia Literaria (1817), Ch. XV

Feeling , Mountain , Birth , Nature

“When the afiairs of this tract was settled, the royal army marched, in the year 592 h., (1196 a. d.) "towards Galewar (Gwalior), and invested that fort, which is the pearl of the necklace of the castles of Hind, the summit of which the nimble-footed wind from below cannot reach, and on the bastion of which the rapid clouds have never cast their shade, and which the swift imagination has never surmounted, and at the height of which the celestial sphere is dazzled."…In compliance with the divine injunction of holy war, they drew out the bloodthirsty sword before the faces of the enemies of religion…Solankh Pal who had raised the standard of infidelity, and perdition, and prided himself on his countless army and elephants, and who expanded the fist^ of oppression from the hiding place of deceit, and who had lighted the flame of turbulence and rebellion, and who had fixed the root of sedition and enmity firm in his heart, and in the courtyard of whose breast the shrub of tyranny and commotion had shot forth its branches, when he saw the power and majesty of the army of Islam," he became alarmed and dispirited. " Wherever he looked, he saw the road of flight blocked up."”

Muhammad of Ghor (1160–1206) Ghurid Sultan

He therefore " sued for pardon, and placed the ring of servitude in his ear," and agreed to pay tribute...
About the capture of Gwalior. Hasan Nizami. Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 227-228 Also quoted in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.

War , Religion , Imagination , Light

“Monday was a dark day in American history. Tuning in to see the results of a much-maligned summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, Americans were treated to one of the most disgusting sights imaginable: the chief executive of the United States of America licking the boots of a murderous dictator. … He stood on the world stage and sided with a man who has murdered dissidents and interfered with global democracy multiple times, and cast his lot with him over the country he’s supposed to serve. Donald Trump aided and abetted a foreign adversary.”

Jared Yates Sexton (1981)

About the 2018 Russia–United States summit, That was treason, Donald Trump. We all saw it https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-that-was-treason-donald-trump-we-all-saw-it/ (July 16, 2018), The Globe and Mail.

World , Democracy , Imagination , Time

“The twentieth century had dispensed with the formal declaration of war and introduced the fifth column, sabotage, cold war, and war by proxy, but that was only the beginning. Summit meetings for disarmament pursued mutual understanding and a balance of power but were also held to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy. The world of the war-or-peace alternative became a world in which war was peace and peace war.”

Stanisław Lem book Peace on Earth

Peace on Earth (1987), tr. Elinor Ford (1994) from Pokój na Ziemi, Ch. 2

War , World , Peace , Understanding

“When I first enjoyed this superb view, one glowing April day, from the summit of the Pacheco Pass, the Central Valley, but little trampled or ploughed as yet, was one furred, rich sheet of golden compositae, and the luminous wall of the mountains shone in all its glory. Then it seemed to me the Sierra should be called not the Nevada, or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light. And after ten years spent in the heart of it, rejoicing and wondering, bathing in its glorious floods of light, seeing the sunbursts of morning among the icy peaks, the noonday radiance on the trees and rocks and snow, the flush of alpenglow, and a thousand dashing waterfalls with their marvelous abundance of irised spray, it still seems to be above all others the Range of Light.”

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

Source: 1890s, The Mountains of California (1894), chapter 1: The Sierra Nevada

Mountain , Tree , Light , Heart

“There is certainly some chill and arid knowledge to be found upon the summits of formal and laborious science; but it is all round about you, and for the trouble of looking, that you will acquire the warm and palpitating facts of life.”

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer

An Apology for Idlers.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)

Life , Knowledge , Science

“And have no doubt, the real purpose of the Earth Summit is to transfer your hard-earned cash to others who mostly have governments with even less of a clue how to conduct their affairs than we do.”

Bernard Ingham (1932) British journalist

Article on Nuclear's Presentational Problem from the World Nuclear Association http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/2002/ingham.htm's web site

“The view we enjoyed from the summit [of Mount Rainier] could hardly be surpassed in sublimity and grandeur; but one feels far from home so high in the sky, so much so that one is inclined to guess that, apart from the acquisition of knowledge and the exhilaration of climbing, more pleasure is to be found at the foot of the mountains than on their tops. Doubly happy, however, is the man to whom lofty mountain tops are within reach, for the lights that shine there illumine all that lies below.”

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

"Washington and the Puget Sound" in Picturesque California (1888-1890); reprinted in Steep Trails (1918), chapter 20
1880s

Pleasure , Feeling , Home , Mountain

“It has been well said … that there are steps on the way to the summit of Dietetic Reform, and, if only one step be taken, yet that single step will be not without importance and without influence in the world. The step, which leaves for ever behind it the barbarism of slaughtering our fellow-beings, the Mammals and Birds, is, it is superfluous to add, the most important and most influential of all.”

Howard Williams (humanitarian) (1837–1931) English humanitarian

The Ethics of Diet, Preface http://www.ivu.org/history/williams/preface.html from the 1st edition, 1883.

World , Way , Bird

“We all share the same vision for our children. It is one of the things that binds us together. Let this Summit give extra strength and purpose to the great cause of education.”

Laisenia Qarase (1941) Prime Minister of Fiji

Opening address to the Education Summit, Suva, 31 August 2005

Children , Education

“The first thoughts, which gave rise to his Principia, he had, when he retired from Cambridge in 1666 on account of the plague. As he sat alone in a garden, he fell into a speculation on the power of gravity; that as this power is not found sensibly diminished at the remotest distance from the centre of the earth to which we can rise, neither at the tops of the loftiest buildings, nor even on the summits of the highest mountains, it appeared to him reasonable to conclude that this power must extend much further than was usually thought: why not as high as the moon? said he to himself.”

Henry Pemberton (1694–1771) British doctor

As cited in: Pierre Bayle, ‎John Peter Bernard, ‎John Lockman (1738), A general dictionary, historical and critical http://books.google.com/books?id=UWhZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA783, p. 783;
Preface to View of Newton's Philosophy, (1728)

Mountain , Appearance

“On the morning of January 11th, 1860, I passed, for the eighth time, through the Golden Gate… As the shores of California faded in the distance, and the summits of the Coast Range sank under the blue horizon, I bade farewell — yes, I do not doubt, forever — to those scenes which, however changed or unchanged, must always posses an ineffable interest for me.”

Richard Henry Dana Jr. (1815–1882) United States author and lawyer

Twenty-Four Years After (1869)

Change , Time

“The world can no more have two summits than a circumference can have two centres.”

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest

Epilogue, In Expectation of the Parousia, p. 154
The Divine Milieu (1960)

World

“Concern for this or that limited good can sometimes lead to the summit… But this occurs in a roundabout way. Moral ends … are distinct from any excesses they occasion. States of glory and moments of sacredness surpass results intentionally sought.”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

Source: On Nietzsche (1945), p. xx

Way

“The groups are not unified under any single authoritiy but rather relate to each other in a network structure. Social forums, affinity groups, and other forms of democratic decision-making are the basis of the movements, and they manage to act together based on what they have in common. … These globalization protest movements are obviously limited in many regards. First of all, although their vision and desire is global in scope, they have thus far only involved significant numbers in North America and Europe. Second, so long, as they remain merely protests movements, traveling from one summit meeting to the next, they will be incapable of becoming a foundational struggle and of articulating an alternative to social relations. These limitations may only be temporary obstacles, and the movements may discover ways to overcome them.”

Antonio Negri book Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

86-87
Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

Way , Travel , Decision

“O that we may all be living in such a state of preparedness, that, when summoned to depart, we may ascend the summit whence faith looks forth on all that Jesus hath suffered and done, and exclaiming, " We have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord," lie down with Moses on Pisgah, to awake with Moses in paradise.”

Henry Melvill (1798–1871) British academic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 181.

Lie , Faith , Suffering , Waiting

“"We (Muslims) are actually very strong. 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them." - Oct. 16, 2003, in speech to a summit of 57 Islamic countries.”

Mahathir bin Mohamad (1925) Prime Minister of Malaysia

People , World , Strong , Fight

“It is not yet the Millennium. We have not yet reached these pure heights of civilization, the ascent to which is the Good Fight. But are we no nearer the summit because we do not stand upon it? Has the Good Fight gained nothing by the war? If you sail from Boston to Calcutta, when you are off Madagascar you are not yet in India, but you have rounded the Cape of Good Hope, you are not yet in India, but at least you are outside Boston Light. I do not say the country is yet beyond Boston Light, but if not, it is only because Boston Light is the sun of liberty that shines all over the world.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1860s, The Good Fight (1865)

War , World , Hope , Light

“Learn the ABC of science before you try to ascend to its summit.”

Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936) Russian physiologist

Bequest to the Academic Youth of Soviet Russia (1936).

Learning , Science

““In spite of the ruins and death, where every illusion has ended, the strength of my dreams is so strong, that exaltation is reborn from everything, and my hands are never empty." by Smita Nair Jain at The first Global Alumni Leadership Summit organized by the Indian Institute of Management - Bangalore Alumni Association 2015””

Smita Nair Jain (1969) Indian Author, screenwriter and playback singer

Death , Dreams , Strong

“Eagle of the land, extensive thy glance.
I would have requested an active courser
Of vigorous trot, the price of the spoil of Taliesin.
One is the violent course on the bottom and the summit,
One is the gift of a baron to a lord.
One is the herd of stags in their fight.
One is the wolf not covetous of broom,
One is the country where a son is born,
And of one form and one sound is the battle-place of warriors.”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Spoils of Taliesin, a Song to Urien

Wolf , Fight , Country

“This country [India] has the best future. When it reached its summit, it was bound to come down. It has taken 2000 years. Yet, this is the only country which has not been destroyed in the world. All other civilizations have gone…. This is the only country whose civilization has survived to this day. Whether it is Egypt, Babylon or Sumeria, there is absolutely no indication of that in those countries at present.”

Morarji Desai (1896–1995) Former Indian Finance Minister, Freedom Fighters, Former prime minister

Morarji Desai speaks about life and celibacy

World , Future , Country

“And here, facing this supreme religious sacrifice, we reach the summit of the tragedy, the very heart of it — the sacrifice of our own individual consciousness upon the alter of the perfected Human Consciousness, of the Divine Consciousness. But is there really a tragedy? …if we could succeed in understanding and feeling that we were going to enrich Christ, should we hesitate for a moment in surrendering ourselves to Him? Would the stream that flows into the sea, and feels in the freshness of its waters the bitterness of the salt of the ocean, wish to flow back to its source? would it wish to return to the cloud which drew it life from the sea? is it not joy to feel itself absorbed?”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), X : Religion, the Mythology of the Beyond and the Apocatastasis

Life , Feeling , Understanding , Water

“Life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.”

Jack London Index:London - White Fang, 1906.djvu

White Fang (1906)

Life

“Tagovailoa trying to.. make up for it. Fires to the endzone, TOUCHDOWN! ALABAMA WINS! The Crimson Tide will not be denied! True freshman, to true freshman: Tagovailoa to DeVonta Smith. Alabama breaks Georgia hearts. Nick Saban back on the summit, where he has caught "The Bear" with his sixth national championship. 'Bama has won 5 in nine years.”

Chris Fowler

Fowler calling Alabama's game winning 41 yard touchdown catch by freshman receiver DeVonta Smith from quarterback and fellow freshman Tua Tagovailoa in overtime to beat the Georgia Bulldogs in the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship in Atlanta, Georgia.
2010s

Heart

“Khomeini was one of some 200 Ayatollahs and never considered by others as "supreme" in anything. His limited knowledge of theology and history and his inability to master Persian and Arabic at a high level meant he would never attain the summit within the Shi’ite clerical hierarchy. Khomeini was a politician and owed his place in the Iranian panorama to the success of his political movement against various rivals and adversaries.
Khamenei’s knowledge of theology and history is certainly superior to that of Khomeini. He also has a better command of both Persian and Arabic. Had Khamenei built a career within the Shi’ite clerical hierarchy he would have had a good chance of reaching higher rungs of the ladder than Khomeini.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Iran after Khamenei: the Debate Starts http://english.aawsat.com/2017/03/article55369052/iran-khamenei-debate-starts, Ashraq Al-Awsat (March 10, 2017)

History , Knowledge , Chance , Success

“And I'm not going to apologize for it, I'm just quoting Emanuel. It's in the news. I think the news is that he's out there calling Obama's number one supporters effing retards. So now there's going to be a meeting. There's going to be a retard summit at the White House, much like the beer summit between Obama and Gates and that cop in Cambridge.”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

Rush Limbaugh: ‘There’s Going to Be a Retard Summit at the White House’
New York
2010-02-03
Chris
Rovzar
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/02/rush_limbaugh_theres_going_to.html

Quotes , Beer , Support , Thinking

“A man may climb Everest for himself, but at the summit he plants his country's flag.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (14 October 1988) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=107352
Third term as Prime Minister
Variant: A man may climb Everest for himself, but at the summit he plants his country's flag.

Country

“Gradually, very gradually, we saw the great mountain sides and glaciers and aretes, now one fragment and now another through the floating rifts, until far higher in the sky than imagination had dared to suggest the white summit of Everest appeared.”

George Mallory (1886–1924) British mountaineer

Mount Everest, The Reconnaissance (1921), Chapter XII: The Northern Approach, "The Reconnaissance of the Mountain", p. 186

Imagination , Mountain , Appearance

“Streams of ideals that originated in the summit of our past, flowing underground in the depth of India’s soul, the ideals of simplicity of life, clarity of spiritual vision, purity of heart, harmony with the universe and consciousness of the infinite personality in all creation and the urge to bring these to the surface of our daily use and purification.”

Zakir Hussain (politician) (1897–1969) 3rd President of India

Source: Uniqueness of Zakir Husain and His Contributions (1997), p. 25.

Life , Soul , Universe , Past

“When God made the world he made the big plain just for the cavalry. It was firm, or would be when the sun had dried off the night's rain, and it was mostly level. The sabres could fall like scythes in the corn. The Arapiles, Greater and Lesser, God made for the gunners. From their summits, conveniently made flat so that the artillery could have a stable platform, the guns could dominate the plain. God had made nothing for the infantry, except a soil easily dug into graves, but the infantry were used to that.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Narrator, p. 234
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

God , World , Sun , Night

“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.

Idea , Support , Sense

“There have been summits of civilization at which heretics like Socrates, who was killed because he was wiser than his neighbors, have not been tortured, but ordered to kill themselves in the most painless manner known to their judges. But from that summit there was a speedy relapse into our present savagery.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Preface; Cruelty's Excuses
1930s, On the Rocks (1933)