67 Stairs Quotes To Help You Climb

By Norbert Juma

Master quote curator and editor on a mission to inspire

Updated November 14, 2023

Stair quotes can serve as a medium of inspiration for most of us.

That’s why we have created a list of the best quotes about stairs for you to seek the inspiration you are looking for.

Besides offering you quotes, we also share the origin of the word ‘Stair’ and what this word symbolizes.

Since a lot is coming up, there is no point in sticking to the intro.

So, take the next step!

Origin of the word ‘Stair’

The true origin of the word ‘Stair’ isn’t known, as this tool was used even before humans named it.

In old English, the word ‘Stair’ was spelled as ‘stǣger’.

To some, this word originated from the German language.

It is also associated with the Dutch word ‘Steiger,’ which means ‘To Climb.’

To sum up, the term ‘Stair’ might have more than one origin.

However, most of them are related to the word ‘Climb’ in one way or another.

Different types of stairs

Discussed below are the various types of stairs that you might find in both old-styled and modern buildings.

Straight stairs go upward with no change in direction
L-shaped or Quarter-Turn stairs with a 90-degree turn at some point
In U-shaped or Half-Turn stairs, two parallel flights are separated by a landing part
Spiral stairs have a compact design, as the stairs revolve around a pole
Curved stairs have a curved shape. Unlike L-shaped or U-shaped stairs, curved stairs don’t have landings
Bifurcated stairs are the grandest of all types mentioned above. This type of stairs split into two parallel flights (right and left) after reaching the middle part.

What do stairs symbolize?

Since time immemorial, stairs have symbolized achievement, power, and enlightenment.

Hence, stairs always refer to something of a significant nature.

For instance, symbolically, stairs can relate to a journey or a part of a journey.

When a person ascends the stairs, this marks a positive journey.

On the contrary, this act might be considered a negative journey when someone goes down the stairs.

Besides, stairs are also considered a pathway that unites two distinct places.

Take a moment and read through our stairs quotes and sayings.

Top 10 stairs quotes

This section offers you the best stairs quotes that are quite popular among readers.

1. “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” — Langston Hughes

2. “Stairs to success are made of people.” ― Ljupka Cvetanova

3. “All rising to great places is by a winding stair.” — Gautama Buddha

4. “The elevator to success is broken; take the stairs.” — Jenifer Lewis

5. “Failures are the stairs we climb to reach success.” — Roy T. Bennett

6. “Never look backward or you’ll fall down the stairs.” — Rudyard Kipling

7. “There is no elevator to success, you have to take the stairs.” — Zig Ziglar

8. “The best time of love is when one goes up the stairs.” — Georges Clemenceau

9. “I took the stairs and felt like my childhood took the elevator.” — Drew Barrymore

10. “It is not enough to stare up the steps; we must step up the stairs.” — Vance Havner

Stairs quotes with a pinch of wisdom

Usually, quotes have some sort of inspiring elements. However, the stairs quotes listed below are inspiring and serve as a source of wisdom.

11. “You’ll have to use the stairs… one step at a time.” — Joe Girard

12. “In the haunted house of life, art is the only stair that doesn’t creak.” — Tom Robbins

13. “Life tells you to take the elevator, but love tells you to take the stairs.” — David Levithan

14. “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” — Martin Luther King

15. “The world is made of stairs, and there are those who go up and those who go down.” — Ed McBain

16. “We are all on the stairs, my friend; some of us are going down, some us are going up.” — Mehmet Murat Ildan

17. “Faith goes up the stairs that love has built and looks out the windows which hope has opened.” — Charles Spurgeon

18. “You can’t break a bad habit by throwing it out the window. You’ve got to walk it slowly down the stairs.” — Mark Twain

19. “Success is not an accident. It is sheer hard work. There are no short-cuts. You have to take the stairs, and you have to start from the bottom.” — Rita Zahara

20. “Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill.” — Arthur Conan Doyle

Stairs quotes for guidance in life

These stairs quotes have a message for those seeking guidance for a successful life.

21. “We walk through the world, we walk up the stairs to the landing.” — John Michael Stipe

22. “No amount of smiling at a flight of stairs has ever made it turn into a ramp.” — Stella Young

23. “Those stairs won’t know which way they’re going; take drastic steps, kick it to the curb.” — William Steig

24. “The world is like a grand staircase; some are going up, and some are going down.” — Samuel Johnson

25. “When you reach for a star, only angels are there. And it’s not very far, just a step on a stair.” — Kate Bush

26. “Somewhere up the stairs, / Into the fire / May your strength give us strength / May your faith give us faith.” — Bruce Springsteen

27. “And all my cares are laid by, I’ll lay down my soul, my battles are won, I’ll walk dem golden stairs when I die when I die.” — Elvis Presley

28. “It’s like climbing a staircase. I’m on the top of the stairs. I look behind me, and I see the steps. That’s where I was.” — Jeanne Moreau

29. “If the step that I am on becomes the plane upon which I live, I will soon forget that no single step is ever a staircase.” — Craig D. Lounsbrough

30. “To me, a staircase looks like a series of dark and light horizontal stripes, which is exactly how you’d draw a staircase. So I know how the image is going to look on the page.” — G. Willow Wilson

Stairs quotes with a hidden message

The stairs quotes listed in this section have a clear message that will urge you to pause and think.

31. “Every right quote is a golden stair to enlightenment.” — Mehmet Murat Ildan

32. “Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.” — Stephen Fry

33. “I like to run, to go down the stairs, I’m one of those kind of people.” — Jill Clayburgh

34. “Two things are bad for the heart—running up stairs and running down people.” — Bernard Baruch

35. “Halfway down the stairs is a stair where I sit. There isn’t any other stair quite like it.” — A. A. Milne

36. “A man’s health can be judged by which he takes two at a time: pills or stairs.” — Joan Walsh Anglund

37. “I summon to the winding ancient stair; Set all your mind upon the steep ascent.” — William Butler Yeats

38. “A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.” — Mark Twain

39. “A stair not worn hollow by footsteps is, regarded from its own point of view, only a boring something made of wood.” — Franz Kafka

40. “Man, unlike anything organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments.” — John Steinbeck

Some other inspiring stairs quotes

In this section, we have collected some other stairs quotes for your inspiration.

41. “Truth speaks itself, and it does not need any shoulders or stairs.” ― Ehsan Sehgal

42. “You shall find out how salt is the taste of another man’s bread, and how hard is the way up and down another man’s stairs.” — Dante Alighieri

43. “History is only the pattern of silken slippers descending the stairs to the thunder of hobnailed boots climbing upward from below.” — Voltaire

44. “You know how it is when you’re walking up the stairs, and you get to the top, and you think there’s one more step? I’m like that all the time.” — Steven Wright

45. “A man falls down a flight of stairs, and somebody rushes over to him and asks, Did you miss a step? No, he answers, I hit every one of them.” — Milton Berle

46. “Some people are like Slinkies. They aren’t really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to my face when I push them down a flight of stairs.” — Patricia Briggs

47. “Then, at night in my own home, I became a weirdo, a shadow watcher, a freak who wondered what was waiting on the basement stairs.” ― Mandy Nachampassack

48. “In the New Year, never forget to thank to your past years because they enabled you to reach today! Without the stairs of the past, you cannot arrive at the future.” — Mehmet Murat ildan

49. “An escalator can never break; it can only become stairs. You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience.” — Mitch Hedberg

50. “Every minute is a choice. Every time you don’t throw yourself down the stairs, that’s a choice.” — Chuck Palahniuk

Funny stairs and staircase quotes

51. “I love my body. And if I didn’t, I’d get on the Stair Master.” — Jaime Pressly

52. “I trip walking down the stairs, but I can skate them probably.” — Shaun White

53. “When I’m at home alone, I run up the stairs naked. It’s quite funny.” — Louis Tomlinson

54. “One has not lived until one has carried a sixty-pound dog down a sweeping flight of stairs at half-past V in the morning.” — Connie Willis

A few final inspirational stairs quotes to get you moving

55. “In matters of climbing long staircases, how many stairs there are is not as important as how strong a will you have!” ― Mehmet Murat Ildan

56. “We all had to come to work on the balls of our feet and go up the stairs two at a time.” — Yvon Chouinard

57. “Life in itself Is nothing, An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.” — Edna St. Vincent Millay

58. “You gotta have style. It helps you get down the stairs. It helps you get up in the morning. It’s a way of life. Without it, you’re nobody.” ― Diana Vreeland

59. “I came up stairs into the world, for I was born in a cellar.” ― William Congreve

60. “Life for most of us is full of steep stairs to go up and later, shaky stairs to totter down; and very early in the history of stairs must have come the invention of bannisters.” ― Louis Kronenberger

61. “I climbed like a billion stairs… its not like I can take them two at a time.” ― Danny DeVito

62. “I think I will be able to, in the end, rise above the clouds and climb the stairs to heaven, and I will look down on my beautiful life.” ― Yayoi Kusama

63. “Ask dumb questions and listen quietly for the answers. That’s a wisdom stair climber.” ― Greg Gutfeld

64. “A man may take care of a furnace for twenty-five years and still forget to duck his head when he starts going down the cellar stairs.” ― Robert Benchley

65. “The ambitious climb high and perilous stairs, and never care how to come down; the desire of rising hath swallowed up their fear of a fall.” ― Thomas Adams

66. “When you get that nice celebration coming into the dugout and you’re getting your ass hammered by guys, there’s no better feeling than to have that done.” ― Matt Stairs