Ascent Quotes - Page 2

• Sometimes he caught himself listening to the sound of his own voice. He thought that in her eyes he would ascent to an angelical stature; and, as he attached the fervent nature of his companion more and more closely to him, he heard the strange impersonal voice which he recognised as his own, insisting on the soul's incurable lonliness. We cannot give ourselves, it said: we are our own.

  James Joyce

  Eye, Voice, Giving

  James Joyce (2016). “DUBLINERS (Modern Classics Series): The Sisters, An Encounter, Araby, Eveline, After the Race, Two Gallants, The Boarding House, A Little Cloud, Counterparts, Clay, A Painful Case, Ivy Day in the Committee Room, Mother, Grace & The Dead”, p.85, e-artnow

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• No one grows up. That's one of the sickest lies they ever tell you. People change. People compromise. People get stranded in situations they don't want to be in… and they make the best of it. But don't try to tell me it's some kind of… glorious preordained ascent into emotional maturity. It's not.

  Greg Egan

  Growing Up, Lying, Maturity

  Greg Egan (1995). “Distress: A Novel”, Harper Prism

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• If one introspects and says with humility of heart: "I do not yet know the truth, but I have to find it" , then in time this humility may be rewarded and one may achieve one's ascent. If this happens, the persons attention comes into the center, neither on the left, nor on the right. That is, neither dominated by his conditionings from the past nor the orientations of his ambitious ego. Such a balanced person is very well suited for Self Realization, by which he will know the truth in its absolute form.

  Nirmala Srivastava

  Love, Wisdom, Yoga

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• I call that person the most intelligent who sees the benevolence, the ascent and the ultimate goal.

  Nirmala Srivastava

  Love, Wisdom, Yoga

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• No limits are set to the ascent of man, and to each and everyone the highest stands open. Here it is only your personal choice that decides.

  Martin Buber

  Men, Choices, Limits

  Martin Buber (2013). “Ten Rungs: Collected Hasidic Sayings”, p.41, Routledge

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• We cannot find God without God. We cannot reach God without God. We cannot satisfy God without God - which is another way of saying that all our seeking will fall short unless God starts and finishes the search. The decisive part of our seeking is not our human ascent to God, but His descent to us. Without God's descent there is no human ascent. The secret of the quest lies not in our brilliance but in His grace.

  Os Guinness

  Lying, Fall, Grace

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• Science is a tribute to what we can know, although we are fallible.

  Jacob Bronowski

  Tribute, Knows

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

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• Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error, and is personal.

  Jacob Bronowski

  Science, Errors, Judgment

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

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• It now seems plain to me that that theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one...the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.

  Mark Twain

  Animal, Men, Favors

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• I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the "lower animals" (so called) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me.

  Mark Twain

  Dog, Animal, Men

  Mark Twain (1973). “What Is Man? and Other Philosophical Writings”, p.81, Univ of California Press

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• This mountain is so formed that it is always wearisome when one begins the ascent, but becomes easier the higher one climbs.

  Dante Alighieri

  Mountain, Easier, Higher

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• Crisis is the path to happiness. Decay and disintegration do not spell doom, but ascent and beginning. The powerful forces of a new creation operate in the hush beyond the noise of the day.

  Joseph Goebbels

  Powerful, Noise, Path

  Joseph Goebbels (1987). “Michael: a novel”, Amok Pr

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• The delights of this life are not its own, but our fear of the ascent into a higher life; the torments of this life are not its own, but our self-torment because of that fear.

  Franz Kafka

  Life, Fear, Self

  Franz Kafka (1991). “The Blue Octavo Notebooks”

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• I'm one of those people who lives for the moment. If you concern yourself with what's going to happen a year from now, or five years from now, you defuse the moment. Whatever comes, comes. For this time I enjoy the ascent. I don't worry about anything except getting thinner thighs.

  Oprah Winfrey

  Years, People, Worry

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• Climb the ladder only if it takes you to somewhere high! Some ascents may descend you to low places!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Ladders, May, Lows

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• What first truly stirred my soul was not fear or pain, nor was it pleasure or games; it was the yearning for freedom. I had to gain freedom-but from what, from whom? Little by little, in the course of time, I mounted freedom's rough unaccommodating ascent. To gain freedom first of all from the Turk, that was the initial step; after that, later, this new struggle began: to gain freedom from the inner Turk-from ignorance, malice and envy, from fear and laziness, from dazzling false ideas; and finally from idols, all of them, even the most revered and beloved.

  Nikos Kazantzakis

  Pain, Struggle, Ignorance

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• What is different in capitalist civilization has been two things. First, the process of meritocracy has been proclaimed as an official virtue instead of being merely a de facto reality. The culture has been different. And secondly, the percentage of the world's population for whom such ascent was possible has gone up. But even though it has grown up, meritocratic ascent remains very much the attribute of a minority.

  Immanuel Wallerstein

  Reality, Two, Civilization

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• Merit has rarely risen of itself, but a pebble or a twig is often quite sufficient for it to spring from to the highest ascent. There is usually some baseness before there is any elevation.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Spring, Pebbles, Merit

  Walter Savage Landor (1853). “The Last Fruit Off an Old Tree”, p.291

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• In A Glass of Cider It seemed I was a mite of sediment That waited for the bottom to ferment So I could catch a bubble in ascent. I rode up on one till the bubble burst, And when that left me to sink back reversed I was no worse off than I was at first. I'd catch another bubble if I waited. The thing was to get now and then elated.

  Robert Frost

  Glasses, Cider, Firsts

  Robert Frost (1995). “Collected Poems, Prose & Plays”, Severn House Paperbacks

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• Mathematical study and research are very suggestive of mountaineering. Whymper made several efforts before he climbed the Matterhorn in the 1860's and even then it cost the life of four of his party. Now, however, any tourist can be hauled up for a small cost, and perhaps does not appreciate the difficulty of the original ascent. So in mathematics, it may be found hard to realise the great initial difficulty of making a little step which now seems so natural and obvious, and it may not be surprising if such a step has been found and lost again.

  Louis J. Mordell

  Party, Science, Appreciate

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• Terrorism [is] a biological consequence of the multinationals, just as a day of fever is the reasonable price of an effective vaccine . . . The conflict is between great powers, not between demons and heroes. Unhappily, therefore, is the nation that finds the "heroes" underfoot, especially if they still think in religious terms and involve the population in their bloody ascent to an uninhabited paradise.

  Umberto Eco

  Religious, Hero, Thinking

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• Professor Focke and his technicians standing below grew ever smaller as I continued to rise straight up, 50 metres, 75 metres, 100 metres. Then I gently began to throttle back and the speed of ascent dwindled till I was hovering motionless in midair. This was intoxicating! I thought of the lark, so light and small of wing, hovering over the summer fields. Now man had wrested from him his lovely secret.

  Hanna Reitsch

  Summer, Men, Light

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• The most powerful drive in the ascent of man is his pleasure in his own skill. He loves to do what he does well. And having done it well, he loves to do it better.

  Jacob Bronowski

  Powerful, Men, Skills

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

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• Animals are our younger brothers and sisters, also on the ladder of evolution but a few rungs lower. It is an important part of our responsibilities to help them in their ascent, and not to retard their development by cruel exploitation of their helplessness.

  Hugh Dowding, 1st Baron Dowding

  Brother, Responsibility, Animal

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• The ascent from earth to heaven is not easy.

  Seneca the Younger

  Heaven, Earth, Easy

  "Hercules Furens (The Mad Hercules)". Book by Seneca the Younger (line CCCCXXXVII), 1st century AD.

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