Who first said Onward and Upward?

Answer 1

It isn't clear from the source material available when it was first used. Frances Anne Kemble (born in 1809) could be the originator. She wrote these lines:

"A sacred burden is this life ye bear:

Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly,

Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly.

Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin,

But onward, upward, till the goal ye win."

or Abraham Lincoln (also born in 1809) ... on one site it claims that he said "onward and upward," in a speech in 1859, but I can't find the context.

or James Lowell (born in 1819) wrote this:

"They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth."

... or they all could have been influenced by a common saying of the time, originated by someone else.

____

Mary Church Terrell (born 1863) is often referred to. She said this:

"And so, lifting as we climb, onward and upward we go, struggling and striving, and hoping that the buds and blossoms of our desires will burst into glorious fruition ere long. With courage, born of success achieved in the past, with a keen sense of the responsibility which we shall continue to assume, we look forward to a future large with promise and hope. Seeking no favors because of our color, nor patronage because of our needs, we knock at the bar of justice, asking an equal chance."

C.S. Lewis (born 1898) is sometimes cited as well for a quotation:

"Onward and Upward! To Narnia and the North!"

Answer 2

dr. tenma from Astro Boy, everyone knows that.