The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.
Well has it been said that man is the only animal that naturally looks upwards; every other animal naturally looks down. That looking upward and going upward and seeking perfection are what is called salvation; and the sooner a man begins to go higher, the sooner he raises himself towards this idea of truth as salvation.
You don't need directions, just point yourself to the top and go!
On the pitch if I could summarise 2018 in one word it would be progress.
Ethical religion can be real only to those who are engaged in ceaseless efforts at moral improvement. By moving upward we acquire faith in an upward movement, without limit.
This seems to be the law of progress in everything we do; it moves along a spiral rather than a perpendicular; we seem to be actually going out of the way, and yet it turns out that we were really moving upward all the time.
He entered the elevator and together they moved closer to god
Further up and further in!
We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps.
Prayer for me is an updward leap of the heart
Step by step, one by one, higher and higher. Step by step, rung by rung, climbing Jacob's ladder.
Our life runs down in sending up the clock. The brook runs down in sending up our life. The sun runs down in sending up the brook. And there is something sending up the sun. It is this backward motion toward the source, Against the stream, that most we see ourselves in, The tribute of the current to the source. It is from this in nature we are from. It is most us.
The world is like a ladder: some go up and some go down.
Almost all of us have an elevator or two in our lives somewhere. We wait for them, we ride on them. We're annoyed by the wait but pleased with the lift.
The Christian life is very much like climbing a hill of ice. You cannot slide up, nay, you have to cut every step with an ice axe; only with incessant labor in cutting and chipping can you make any progress... If you want to know how to backslide, leave off going forward. Cease going upward and you will go downward of necessity. You can never stand still.
Using the Africanist model, each generation should take the family name to a higher place. My father's folks were sharecroppers in South Carolina. He went to Harlem. They were still poor, but they moved up. If my parents didn't do this and offer me this background, I wouldn't be here.
The bar raises as you go.
The dust's for crawling, heaven's for flying, Wherefore, O Soul, whose wings are grown, Soar upward to the sun!
When you have been lucky enough to move up the ladder, all you see, really, is the slide back down. You don't see the further steps upwards.
Any upward movement is movement for us all.
Gravity disappears again, and we rise up off the floor like spooks from a grave. It's like the Rapture in here every thirty seconds.
It is no longer clear which way is up even if one wants to rise.
If you're only ten feet above, then you're better than when you're on the ground.
One thing is certain: the call of Christ is always a promotion. Were Christ to call a king from his throne to preach the gospel to some tribe of aborigines, that king would be elevated above anything he had known before. Any movement toward Christ is ascent, and any direction away from Him is down.
I like the idea of taking off like a bird.
