What goes up ....

Posted by Masakim on February 20, 2003

In Reply to: Everything that rises posted by R. Berg on February 20, 2003

: : Does anyone know the meaning or origin behind the phrase "everything that rises"?

: : Thank you.

: I haven't heard it used in a context that would suggest it has a special meaning. The closest thing I know of is the saying "What goes up must come down."

The antisircraft guns always took a shot for luck. What goes up must come down, and one can be killed quite as neatly by a fragment of his own shrapnel as by the enemy's. (A.Pottle, _Stretchers_, 1929)

In the larger meanings of the curve, gravity would occupy the place of mortality (what goes up must come down) and wind resistance would be the resistance of the medium. (N. Mailer, _The Naked and the Dead_, 1948)