Heaven is not reached at 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. [ J. G. Holland, Pseudonym: Timothy Titcomb ]

Whose sun-bright summit mingles with the sky. [ Campbell ]

One abides not long on the summit of fortune. [ Proverb ]

Its summit stretches as far into the upper ether as its root into the nether deep.

High positions are like the summit of high, steep rocks: eagles and reptiles alone can reach them. [ Mme. Necker ]

So, on the eastern summit, clad in gray, morn, like a horseman girt for travel, comes, and from his tower of mist night's watchman hurries down. [ H. K. White ]

The summit charms us, the steps to it do not; with the heights before our eyes, we like to linger in the plain. It is only a part of art that can be taught; but the artist needs the whole. He who is only half instructed speaks much and is always wrong; who knows it wholly is content with acting and speaks seldom or late. [ Goethe ]

This is my seventieth birthday, and I wonder if you all rise to the size of that proposition, realizing all the significance of that phrase, seventieth birthday. The seventieth birthday! It is the time of life when you arrive at a new and awful dignity; when you may throw aside the decent reserves which have oppressed you for a generation and stand unafraid and unabashed upon your seven-terraced summit and look down and teach--unrebuked. You can tell the world how you got there. It is what they all do. You shall never get tired of telling by what delicate arts and deep moralities you climbed up to that great place. You will explain the process and dwell on the particulars with senile rapture. I have been anxious to explain my own system this long time, and now at last I have the right. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]