The descent beckons as the ascent beckoned

The ascent of any route begins, in dreams at least, the autumn before. Our minds ring, involuntarily, with the alluring names of mountains, aiguilles,…

— Gaston Rebuffat

Without shedding of blood there is no anything. Everything, it seems to me, has to be purchased by selfsacrifice. Our race has marked every…

— Lucy Maud Montgomery

No one should deny the danger of the descent, but it can be risked. No one need risk it, but it is certain that…

— Carl Jung

The member of a culture ... purposely avoids the relationship of intimacy; he wants the object somehow depicted and fictionalized. ... He is embarrassed…

— Richard M. Weaver

The real goal of a spiritual tradition should not be ascent, but openness, vulnerability, and this does not require great experiences but, on the…

— Morris Berman

As I express my gratitude, I become more deeply aware of it. And the greater my awareness, the greater my need to express it.…

— David Steindl-Rast

The growth of all the plants of the garden from seeds and roots keep us mindful, in accordance with of the Parable of the…

— John Stokes

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

I at once commenced the ascent through a shower of arrows.

— George Crook

Sometimes, when I get a good picture, it feels like I have taken another nervous step into increasingly rarified air. Each good-news picture, no…

— Sally Mann

The ascent to greatness, however steep and dangerous, may entertain an active spirit with the consciousness and exercise of its own power: but the…

— Edward Gibbon

“Any movement toward Christ is ascent, and any direction away from Him is down.”

— A.W. Tozer

How much time, creative energy, and emotion do we expend resisting change because we assume growth must always be painful? Much personal growth is…

— Sarah Ban Breathnach

The strategy of semantic ascent is that it carries the discussion into a domain where both parties are better agreed on the objects (viz.,…

— Willard Van Orman Quine

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

— Dean Koontz