Ascent Quotes - Page 6

• There is wonder and a certain wicked pleasure in these giddy ascents and terrible falls, especially as they happen to other people.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Fall, People, Wicked

  John Kenneth Galbraith (2017). “Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went”, p.5, Princeton University Press

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• Despair is good. Despair can be the nadir of one life and the starting point of an ascent into another, better one.

  Dean Koontz

  Despair, Nadir, Starting

  Dean Koontz (2007). “Velocity: A Novel”, p.417, Bantam

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• How much time, creative energy, and emotion do we expend resisting change because we assume growth must always be painful? Much personal growth is uncomfortable, but it's worse to thwart the ascent of your authenticity.

  Sarah Ban Breathnach

  Inspirational, Creative, Growth

  Sarah Ban Breathnach (2012). “Simple Abundance”, Random House

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• It is an impressive truth that sometimes in the very lowest forms of duty, less than which would rank a man as a villain, there is, nevertheless the sublimest ascent of self-sacrifice. To do less would class you as an object of eternal scorn, to do so much presumes the grandeur of heroism.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Sacrifice, Men, Self

  Thomas De Quincey (1854). “De Quincey's works”, p.125

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• As I express my gratitude, I become more deeply aware of it. And the greater my awareness, the greater my need to express it. What happens here is a spiraling ascent, a process of growth in ever expanding circles around a steady center.

  David Steindl-Rast

  Gratitude, Circles, Growth

  David Steindl-Rast (1984). “Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer: An Approach to Life in Fullness”, p.49, Paulist Press

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• Arts, crafts and sciences uplift the world of being, and are conducive to its exaltation. Knowledge is as wings to man's life, and a ladder for his ascent. Its acquisition is incumbent upon everyone.

  Bahá'u'lláh

  Uplifting, Art, Educational

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• On eyes that watch as well as eyes that weep
  Descends the solemn mystery of sleep,
  Toiling and climbing to the very close,
  The weary Body, longing for repose,
  On the gained level of the day's ascent,
  Halts for the night and pitches there its tent.

  Abraham Coles

  Sleep, Eye, Night

  Abraham Coles (1866). “The Microcosm: A Poem, Read Before the Medical Society of New Jersey at Its Centenary Anniversary: with the Address Delivered as President, Jan. 24, 1866”, p.48

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• The solitary ascent of the Dru had the immediate effect of expanding the horizons of my ideas about mountaineering. It made me aware of possibilities well in advance of the times, which were characterized by very restricted methods. This was how the superb pyramid of K2 surfaced once more in the list of my projects. But I chose K2 as a way for giving concrete form to my new concept of mountaineering: to climb the second highest mountain in the world solo, alpine style, and without oxygen.

  Walter Bonatti

  Oxygen, Ideas, Pyramids

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• A first ascent is a creation in the same sense as is a painting or a song

  Royal Robbins

  Song, Firsts, Painting

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• The ascent of money has been essential to the ascent of man.

  Niall Ferguson

  Men, Essentials, Has Beens

  Niall Ferguson (2008). “The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World”, p.9, Penguin

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• The largest single step in the ascent of man is the change from nomad to village agriculture.

  Jacob Bronowski

  Men, Agriculture, Village

  Jacob Bronowski (1976). “The ascent of man”

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• The ascent to greatness, however steep and dangerous, may entertain an active spirit with the consciousness and exercise of its own power: but the possession of a throne could never yet afford a lasting satisfaction to an ambitious mind.

  Edward Gibbon

  Exercise, Greatness, Mind

  Edward Gibbon (1821). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.149

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• Honour is
  Virtue's allowed ascent: honour that clasps
  All perfect justice in her arms; that craves
  No more respect than that she gives; that does
  Nothing but what she'll suffer.

  Philip Massinger

  Giving, Perfect, Justice

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• Surround yourself with those who won’t compete but will revel in your success and see your ascent as a reflection of their own possibilities.

  T. D. Jakes

  Reflection, Possibility, Surround Yourself

  Twitter post from Jul 15, 2013

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• The descent beckons as the ascent beckoned

  William Carlos Williams

  Descent

  William Carlos Williams, A. Walton Litz, Christopher MacGowan (1991). “The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams: 1939-1962”, p.245, New Directions Publishing

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• Not only during the ascent, but also during the descent my willpower is dulled. The longer I climb the less important the goal
  seems to me, the more indifferent I become to myself. My attention
  has diminished, my memory is weakened. My mental fatigue is now
  greater than the bodily. It is so pleasant to sit doing nothing - and therefore so dangerous. Death through exhaustion is like death
  through freezing - a pleasant one.

  Reinhold Messner

  Memories, Goal, Important

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• The path to Heaven is narrow, rough and full of wearisome and trying ascents, nor can it be trodden without great toil; and therefore wrong is their way, gross their error, and assured their ruin who, after the testimony of so many thousands of saints, will not learn where to settle their footing.

  Robert Southwell

  Errors, Heaven, Trying

  Saint Robert Southwell (1822). “Mary Magdalen's Funeral Tears: The Triumphs Over Death; and An Epistle of Comfort”, p.144

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• Morality is a mountain which we cannot climb by our own efforts; and if we could we should only perish in the ice and unbreathable air of the summit, lacking those wings with which the rest of the journey has to be accomplished. For it is from there that the real ascent begins. The ropes and axes are 'done away' and the rest is a matter of flying.

  C. S. Lewis

  Real, Journey, Air

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.122, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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