kick down the ladder

Serfdom, like cannibalism and polygamy, are the steps by which human society rose to its present status: to abuse them is ignorantly to kick down the ladder.

From To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II A Personal Narrative by Sir Richard Francis Burton

The Fathers made me a Catholic, and I am not going to kick down the ladder by which I ascended into the Church.

From Occasional Papers Selected from the Guardian, the Times, and the Saturday Review, 1846-1890 by R. W. (Richard William) Church

American economic history betrays the pioneer helping to kick down the ladder which he himself had raised toward equal opportunity for all.

From Definitions: Essays in Contemporary Criticism by Henry Seidel Canby

And that was all right, said the other, but why kick down the ladder by which you had climbed—and especially when you had perhaps not entirely finished climbing?

From Jimmie Higgins by Upton Sinclair

Let us not kick down the ladder by which we mounted, nor refuse to acknowledge what our fathers felt in their hour of trial.

From The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan