Ladder Climb Quotes & Sayings

I thought you were going to - you're standing under my window. Aren't you supposed to climb up here or something?"
"My ladder's at home. — Elizabeth Scott

Don't just climb the ladder of success - a ladder that leads, after all, to higher and higher levels of stress and burnout - but chart a new path to success, remaking it in a way that includes not just the conventional metrics of money and power, but a third metric that includes well-being, wisdom, wonder and giving, so that the goal is not just to succeed but to thrive. — Arianna Huffington

You can't climb up to the second floor without a ladder. When you set your aim too high and don't fulfill it, then your enthusiasm turns to bitterness. Try for a goal that's reasonable, and then gradually raise it. — Emil Zatopek

Climb the ladder to success escalator style — The Notorious B.I.G.

At the Serima Mission, in Victoria Province, I am shown around by an enchantingly pretty African nun called Sister Balbina ... She cannot be more than 25, and has the most delightful figure. How poignant that she should have dedicated her life in this way.
When we come to the bell tower, I ask her to climb up the ladder in front of me.It was rather a caddish request, I suppose, but I had often wondered. Black petticoats and pink knickers. To think I had to come all this way to find out. — Auberon Waugh

In retrospect, this seems to summarize all the insanity of that time. Guy is standing on top of a burning building. Helicopter arrives, hovers, drops a rope ladder. Climb up! the man leaning out of the helicopter's door shouts. Guy on top of burning building responds, Give me two weeks to think about it. — Stephen King

Many people view leadership the same way they view success, hoping to go as far as they can, to climb the ladder, to achieve the highest position possible for their talent. But contrary to conventional thinking, I believe the bottom line in leadership isn't how far we advance ourselves but how far we advance others. That is achieved by serving others and adding value to their lives. — John C. Maxwell

Chaos isn't a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail, and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some are given a chance to climb, but refuse. They cling to the realm, or love, or the gods ... illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is. But they'll never know this. Not until it's too late. — George R R Martin

Don't climb a single rung up the entitlement ladder. Demanding something you haven't truly earned is a great way to get stuck in the land of Learning for decades, even an entire lifetime. Kick those ladders over and keep on walking. — Jon Acuff

When you take out individual initiative, individual responsibility, and the hope that every individual is born with, to better their lives, to climb the economic ladder, to pursue happiness, that is, in fact, a neoslavery. — Niger Innis

Imagine if your kids had to carry a ladder to climb an apartheid wall to get to school everyday. — Omar Suleiman

She worried that maybe they'd been dating too long to end up together. It was like when you tried to jump off the high dive and if you did it right away, you were fine. But if you stood there looking down, thinking of all the bad things that could happen, you were doomed. You would just climb back down the ladder to the safety of the ground. — Jennifer Close

Jesus let the disciples know that they were striving in the wrong direction. They were trying to climb up a ladder that they instead should be climbing down. — Jennifer L. Lane

And so, as they climb the ladder of achievement, I'd simply say, remember what Barbara Bush told those girls at Wellesley: "What happens in your house is more important than what happens in the White House." — George H. W. Bush

As they ran to the barn and began the careful climb up the steep ladder, Lily realized she had accidentally put on snow boots in her hurry. When they reached the top, the quiet hush of the still hayloft gave them that whisper-in-the-library feeling. — Kate Willis

For the Christian mystics, detachment meant to leave attachment so that God could enter you and take over completely and you could climb the ladder to their heaven. Kind of crazy, but what the hell? — Gerald Stern

Truth is a matter of direct apprehension-you can't climb a ladder of mental concepts to it. — Lawrence Durrell

I was leaving this small Arizona town in a few weeks, and I felt less like someone preparing to climb a career ladder than a buzzing electron about to achieve escape velocity, flinging out into a strange and sparkling universe. — Paul Kalanithi

Trant's deep need to climb ever upward, crushing anyone in his path, the qualities, while making Trant an interesting associate at times, at others made him decidedly predictable and boring. After all, a ladder contained a single directional path. Someone like Trant rarely tried the twisting vines, tree branches, and handholds to the side. — Anne Mallory

This is why, if I may be forgiven a digression, I believe it is time for the black race to forget about rhetoric and instead show what we are capable of doing. The testing will surely go on for the next generation and the next, but each time we meet the test, we'll climb another rung of the ladder until finally we arrive at parity, having earned our place rather than pleading or demanding that it be given to us. — Yvonne S. Thornton

I said "show me the ladder, that I may climb up to heaven '
He said "your head is the ladder, bring your head down under your feet — Rumi

Love is the shortcut to meditation. Above thought is love, and within and below thought is love. Love is a ladder that we can climb through thought. — Frederick Lenz

I often would think about how we have built our society, and when you describe it out loud, it sounds rather insane. The idea of being funnelled through a conventional life progression of education, work, career, marriage, kids, divorce, retirement and then death doesn't seem that inspiring to me.
Then we're told we have to struggle to make a living, sacrifice enjoyment to have a family, delay our happiness until we're retired, fight the next person for a job, climb the ladder of success to get an even more stressful job,
spend more money than we earn, go into debt, live in fear of being blown up by some terrorist and then have TV passed off as the only way to escape it all. And when all of this gets too much and you can't keep up, you get prescribed antidepressants and made to feel like you've failed. — Josh Langley

With regard to philosophical metaphysics, I always see increasing numbers who have attained to the negative goal, but as yet few who climb a few rungs backwards; one ought to look out, perhaps, over the last steps of the ladder, but not try to stand upon them. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Maybe there is a way to climb above everything, some special ladder or insight, some optical vantage point that allows a clear, unobstructed view of things. — Emily Fridlund

The foot of the heavenly ladder, which we have got to mount in order to reach the higher regions, has to be fixed firmly in every-day life, so that everybody may be able to climb up it along with us. When people then find that they have got climbed up higher and higher into a marvelous, magical world, they will feel that that realm, too, belongs to their ordinary, every-day life, and is, merely, the wonderful and most glorious part thereof. — E.T.A. Hoffmann

There is no use whatever trying to help people who do not help themselves. You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he is willing to climb himself. — Andrew Carnegie

Being a team player will help you climb the ladder of success. Furthermore, a successful team player can rise to the level of team leader in the future. — Vishwas Chavan

It's like when you climb a ladder. When you get to the fourth rung, you may think you are on the highest step and cannot go higher, so you hold on to the fourth rung. But in fact there is a fifth rung; if you want to get to it, you have to be willing to abandon the fourth rung. Ideas and perceptions should be abandoned all the time, to make room for better ideas and truer perceptions. This is why we must always ask ourselves, "Am I sure? — Thich Nhat Hanh

The ladder of success is there waiting for you ... you just have to realize it and reach towards and climb as high as you can you will surely be successful. — Noor Ahmad

In beautiful things St. Francis saw Beauty itself, and through His vestiges imprinted on creation he followed his Beloved everywhere, making from all things a ladder by which he could climb up and embrace Him who is utterly desirable. — Bonaventure

Climb above the pack but leave the ladder in place for others to follow — Dean Cavanagh

I put a lot of emphasis on how to treat people. The reason for this is simple. The real success of our personal lives and careers can best be measured by the relationships we have with the people most dear to us - our family, friends, and coworkers. If we fail in this aspect of our lives, no matter how vast our worldly possessions or how high on the corporate ladder we climb, we will have achieved very little. — Mary Kay Ash

If I have to climb to heaven on a ladder, I shall decline the invitation. — Mercedes McCambridge

The traditional metaphor for careers is a ladder, but I no longer think that metaphor holds. It doesn't make sense in a less hierarchical world ... Build your skills, not your resume. Evaluate what you can do, not the title they're going to give you. Do real work. Take a sales quota, a line role, an ops job, don't plan too much, and don't expect a direct climb. If I had mapped out my career when I was sitting where you are, I would have missed my career. — Sheryl Sandberg

When I see a barrier, I cry and I curse, and then I get a ladder and climb over it. — John H. Johnson

Just remember, you can't climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Anybody can be a victim, and anybody can flog themselves. Big fucking deal. But you put one foot on a ladder and climb to the next rung. Then you've done something. Then you've made a difference. And then what happens matters. Otherwise, it's just old news, and nobody wants to hear about it. — Tami Hoag

With rope-ladders learned I to reach many a window, with nimble legs did I climb high masts: to sit on high masts of perception seemed to me no small bliss; To flicker like small flames on high masts: a small light, certainly, but a great comfort to cast-away sailors and shipwrecked ones!
By diverse ways and wendings did I arrive at my truth; not by one ladder did I mount to the height where mine eye roveth into my remoteness. And unwillingly only did I ask my way - that was always counter to my taste! Rather did I question and test the ways themselves.
A testing and a questioning hath been all my travelling: and verily, one must also learn to answer such questioning! That, however - is my taste: Neither a good nor a bad taste, but my taste, of which I have no longer either shame or secrecy.
"This is now my way - where is yours?" Thus did I answer those who asked me "the way." For "the way" - it doth not exist! — Friedrich Nietzsche

morality is the change that falls from your pockets when you climb up the ladder. — Alaya Dawn Johnson

You cannot climb the ladder of success dressed in the costume of failure. — Zig Ziglar

And as we work together, we will build a better America! As we work together, we will bring the middle class to thrive again! As we work together, we will make sure that everybody has the ladder of opportunity to climb! — Thomas Perez

Those who are able to climb up the ladder will find ways to pull it up after them, or selectively lower it down to allow their friends, allies, and kin to scramble up. In other words: 'Who says meritocracy says oligarchy.' — Chris Hayes

Don't be afraid to start at the bottom of the ladder. And have the courage to climb to the top. — Rosenthal

I think of me and Melanie when we were younger, on the high dive at the pool in Mexico. We would always hold hands as we jumped, but by the time we swam back up to the surface, we'd have let go. No matter how we tried, once we started swimming, we always let go. But after we bobbed to the surface, we'd climb out of the pool, clamber up the high-dive ladder, clasp hands, and do it again.
We're swimming separately now. I get that. Maybe it's just what you have to do to keep above water. But who knows? Maybe one day, we'll climb out, grab hands, and jumo again. — Gayle Forman

Life is a movie, pick your own role, Climb your own ladder or you dig your own hole. — J. Cole

So I began, feeling as if I was some elf in a Grim fairy tale climbing the corporate ladder of darkest whimsy, yet somewhere at the top lies the treasure of a pure maiden's heart. Therefore it was my duty to do whatever it might take to win that pure maiden's heart by returning that treasure to her hand. By the way, Spicoli, in the movie Fast Times at Ridge Mont High, said that people on ludes shouldn't drive, that being shortly after crashing a car while he was high on ludes. Therefore, I will say this in advance, people still half drunk and stoned probably shouldn't climb trees either. — Andrew James Pritchard

Our words were a shaky ladder; all I could do was climb, uncertain if I was about to surmount a glorious peak or fall and smash myself on the rocks below. — Deva Fagan

You can't climb the ladder of success with you hands in your pockets — Anonymous

One can't be on the topmost rung of a ladder from before, it takes time to reach it, to climb it, one at a time. We struggle so that in this process of climbing we can learn, so that we can limit our impatience and grow stronger than we ever imagined to be.
We struggle so that once we learn, we can preach about it to others who consider this act of struggling, spiteful. — Chirag Tulsiani

There cannot be a new religion. Religion is a continuous living process within us which is our sustenance. It's like a ladder on which we climb, leaving one by one, step by step - but not leaving the ladder. All others are required. — Nirmala Srivastava

All lives are so divided: a step back; a plunge; and then, in desperation and despair, a little climb up God's ladder. — Mary Roberts Rinehart

The rich are thus not just more powerful than the poor, they also have moral authority over the poor and with it the moral responsibility to tell the poor how to live: build self-discipline, work hard, climb the economic ladder, and so become self-reliant. M — George Lakoff

When you got a dream,
you don't just climb half way up the ladder,
you climb all the way to the top — Cher Lloyd

Beneath my dress is a ladder of desire,
that I climb tonight and each night after that. — Zoe Brigley

Climb up the ladder one step at a time, moving gracefully to the rhythm of your own heart.
- from the essay, On The Side of Time, Amazed. — Joanne Crisner Alcayaga

Maybe you are in the Abyss of Emotional Bankruptcy looking for a way out, looking for the next rung in the ladder on your climb to the Peak of Happiness, or you may even be at the Peak of Happiness already, looking for a way to stay there. Wherever you are in life, this book is designed to give you the tools necessary to help you achieve your goals. — Ken Poirot

...if you do the job no one wants, you might eventually get the job everybody wants. But you have to be willing to climb the ladder, starting with the bottom rung. — Mark Batterson

May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung. May you stay forever young. — Bob Dylan

Space is about 100 kilometers away. That's far away - I wouldn't want to climb a ladder to get there - but it isn't that far away. If you're in Sacramento, Seattle, Canberra, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Phnom Penh, Cairo, Beijing, central Japan, central Sri Lanka, or Portland, space is closer than the sea. — Randall Munroe

The pulpit is never to be the ladder by which ambition is to climb — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Who is it? Who walks under the trees of the quay? Who is quite lost? Who is past saving? Over whose grave does the grass grow? Dreams have arrived, upstream they came. They came, they climb up the walls of the quay on a ladder. One stops makes conversation with them, they know a number of things, but what they don't know is where they come from. It is quite warm this autumn evening. They turn toward the river and raise their arms. Why do you raise your amrs instead of clasping us in them? — Franz Kafka

If you find your opponent in a strong position costly to force, you should leave him a line of retreat as the quickest way of loosening his resistance. It should, equally, be a principle of policy, especially in war, to provide your opponent with a ladder by which he can climb down. — B.H. Liddell Hart

The biggest challenge in New Orleans has been to find workers who can climb a ladder after lunch. — Harry Anderson

You cannot push any one up a ladder unless he be willing to climb a little himself. — Andrew Carnegie

As Republicans, our first concern is for those waiting tonight to begin or resume the climb up life's ladder. — Mitch Daniels

If you can't bear to have your face stepped on, don't try to climb the ladder of success. — Evan Esar

In today's time, no other 'charity' is acceptable or practical than the 'wisdom' that can transform the human life... Meaning the knowledge which can teach a man to climb the ladder of success. — Deep Trivedi

By resolving the problems of others you climb life's ladder of success. — Sunday Adelaja

A man must make of his life a ladder that he never ceases to climb
if you're not rising, you are slipping down the rungs, my friend. — John Shirley

When I was a child, my society lifted me up - though education primarily, as well as through other kinds of cultural stimulation. It wasn't just my parents or my religious community. The entire society lifted me up to the bottom rung of the ladder. Then they said, "Girl, it's up to you whether or not you climb." I don't have a problem with that. I think that is the best way to go about living. — Marianne Williamson

The text says that when the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, _he_ loved her. God was saying, 'I am the real bridegroom. I am the husband of the husbandless. I am the father of the fatherless.' This is the God who saves by grace. The gods of moralistic religions favor the successful and the overachievers. THe are the ones who climb the moral ladder up to heaven. But the God of the Bible is the one who comes down into this world to accomplish a salvation and give us a grace we could never attain ourselves. — Timothy Keller

There were periods of my life when a lot of people didn't believe in me. I still had faith in myself. I really had to ask myself life questions. Where do I see myself in five years? Create a ladder for yourself, and walk up the steps. Climb that ladder. — Fergie

I'm not trying to climb a ladder - I'm casting a bit of a net. — Neil Patrick Harris

As fire does not give birth to snow, so those who seek honor here will not enjoy it in heaven ... As those who climb a rotten ladder are in danger, so all honor, glory, and power are opposed to humility. — John Climacus

I got stuck up a tree when I was about seven, and my dad had to come and get the ladder to get me down. I loved to climb all the way up to the top. I must have been a koala in my past life. — Miranda Kerr

Petyr 'Littlefinger' Baelish: The realm. Do you know what the realm is? It's the thousand blades of Aegon's enemies, a story we agree to tell each other over and over, until we forget that it's a lie.

Lord Varys: But what do we have left, once we abandon the lie? Chaos? A gaping pit waiting to swallow us all.

Petyr 'Littlefinger' Baelish: Chaos isn't a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some, are given a chance to climb. They refuse, they cling to the realm or the gods or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is. — George R R Martin

I did Star 80, which was a magnificent experience as well, but still, I was at the height of my career at the beginning. Then I had to jump down the ladder and climb back up again, which I didn't understand. That was very hard. — Mariel Hemingway

My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them
as steps
to climb up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the whole world aright. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

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! — Anais Nin

Ways of loving from a distance, mating without even touching-Amor platonicus! The ladder of love one is expected to climb higher and higher, elating the Self and the Other. Plato clearly regards any actual physical contact as corrupt and ignoble because he thinks the true goal of Eros is beauty. Is there no beauty in sex? Not according to Plato. He is after 'more sublime pursuits.' But if you ask me, I think Plato's problem, like those of many others, was that he never got splendidly laid. — Elif Shafak

All that matters in life," the grey man went on, "is to climb the ladder of success, amount to something, own things. When a person climbs higher than the rest, amounts to more, owns more things, everything else comes automatically: friendship, love, respect, et cetera ... "
"Isn't there anyone who loves you?" Momo whispered. — Michael Ende

No man can climb the ladder of success without first placing his foot on the bottom rung. — James Cash Penney

He's from a generation that never even expected to get midway up the ladder so when he got there he was too stunned to dare climb higher. That's the problem with midway. Up is everything and down just means all the white people want to party on your street on Sunday night to feel realness. Midway is nowhere. — Marlon James

Try the impossible. Don't start low down because that's where you are now. Climb those rungs quickly before they take the ladder away. If you're afraid, say a prayer, but carry on. — Paulo Coelho

I don't ever remember them telling us or teaching us that the only way we could be more successful is if other people were less successful. They never inculcated the belief that somehow, in order for us to climb the ladder, other people have to come down from the ladder. — Marco Rubio

I had to discover very quickly that class origins cannot be erased, regardless of whether we climb up or down the sociocultural ladder. — Elena Ferrante

The middle-class ladder has rungs that no longer exist for many trying to climb higher. Instead, for too many, in too many places, their chore is simply trying to hang on. — Mike Barnicle

I often say songwriting is like trying to climb down a ladder at night. You put your foot on the next rung and test it out and make sure it holds and then you reach for the next one. — Crowder

Don't just GO through life, GROW through it. For Life comes to you only once ... never to return! Climb the Ladder of Life, step by step-RVM — R.v.m.

It is easy to climb the ladder of success if one is working on issues and aeas which are not frequented by the masses, provided one is ready to face challenges. — Vishwas Chavan

I'm not saying he's stingy. But sometimes when you're too careful it just turns into a different kind of carelessness. It's not that either. He's from a generation that never expected to get midway up the ladder so when he got there he was too stunned to dare to climb higher. — Marlon James

The cry for love and communion and for recognition that rises from the hearts of people in need reveals the fountain of love in us and our capacity to give life. At the same time, it can reveal our hardness of heart and are fears. Their cry is so demanding, and we are frequently seduced by wealth, power and the values of our societies. We want to climb the ladder of human promotion; we want to be recognized for our efficiency, power and virtue. The cry of the poor is threatening to the rich person within us.
We are sometimes prepared to give money and a little time, but we are frightened to give our hearts, to enter into a personal relationship of love and communion with them. For if we do so, we shall have to die to all our selfishness and to all the hardness of our heart. — Jean Vanier

But this - this is a ladder to climb to the stars." Lee's eyes shone. "You can never lose that. It cuts the feet from under weakness and cowardliness and laziness. — John Steinbeck

What sucked was that her room was on the fourth floor of a four-story house because she hated walking past every other room on her way in and out. She was like a latter-day Rapunzel except her hair was only a few inches below her shoulders, slightly fried, not all that blond, and furthermore, who the hell was ever going to climb up to give her a hand? The guy in the wheelchair from school?
What she - and Rapunzel, frankly - needed was a decent ladder. — Francine Pascal

Bring anger and pride under your feet,
turn them into a ladder and climb higher. — Rumi

It is easier to fall off of a ladder than to climb one. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Don't just climb the ladder, chart a new path. — Arianna Huffington

My father told me never to take my foot off a ladder to kick at someone who was kicking at me. When I did that, I would no longer be climbing. While they are kicking, my father told me, I should keep stepping. They can kick only one time. If I continued to climb, they would be left behind. In trying to hurt me, to impede my progress, they would get left behind because they allowed themselves to get sidetracked from their agenda. — Steve Harvey

Some people try to climb the ladder of success, while others try to jump on it — Josh Stern