Taking On Challenge Quotes & Sayings

We got to stop people. We go ahead and we score 100 points every night, but we give up more. Our whole thing was, we know we can score, and we have to start having some kind of fun on the defensive end. Everybody want to play offense. Not too many people want to play defense. Defense is ego, pride, and that's the way we've been coming out, just taking the challenge. Man-on-man first, and having each other's back when a guy gets beat. — Allen Iverson

I want someone who can respectfully challenge me. I know what I believe, so there's no point in my taking on a relationship with someone who thinks like me or laughs at what I laugh at. I enjoy being with someone who can offer me the opposite. — Arielle Kebbel

But I think the American people expect more from us than cries of indignation and attack. The times are too grave, the challenge too urgent, and the stakes too high to permit the customary passions of political debate. We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future. As Winston Churchill said on taking office some twenty years ago: if we open a quarrel between the present and the past, we shall be in danger of losing the future. — John F. Kennedy

I am inspired by working moms. Mothers who somehow balance the demands of their many lives - professional, familial, personal, and interior - and still manage to make time to have fun and invest in themselves! This is a huge challenge that I look forward to taking on. — Daphne Oz

Your Aunt Hermia will not thank you for attempting to poach her maid. Do not look to me for protection," he advised. "I have my hands quite full with one March lady. I could not rise to the challenge of taking on another. — Deanna Raybourn

I really don't like to take the easy way out, if I can help it, on anything I do, I like to really make it a challenge. I don't know how to create by taking the easy routes. I've tried, you know, I've tried to let myself, but I always struggle to compensate. — Jack White

I believe writers need to be chameleons, or like Meryl Streep, who can play all sorts of characters. A good writer should be able to cross gender lines and people of all social classes. So for me, writing from a male point of view would be a great challenge, that I would look forward to taking on. — Marisha Pessl

I'd be totally exhausted by mid-afternoon, and I could barely climb the stairs at home. It was particularly alarming because all my life I'd enjoyed doing all my own stunts in shows, taking on every physical challenge. Yet suddenly, I'd become like a very old man. I knew something was wrong, but I had no idea what. — Michael Crawford

We've got to keep 6 billion people happy without destroying our planet. It's the biggest challenge we've ever faced ... but we're taking it on. — Hank Green

I love taking on challenges. I think one of the funnest things in acting is creating a character - wrapping yourself around a character and bringing him to life. I love a lot of different genres. I'm not a big horror guy by any means but I love the challenge. But the fifties and sixties is where I feel the most comfortable. — Drew Waters

Bob Smith from Brooklyn is a guy who sometimes gets hung with problems and fears. Wolfman Jack is a happy-go-lucky guy who knows how to party. The challenge of my life has been letting more and more of Bob Smith go, becoming the Wolfman on an almost full-time basis, while still taking care of business. — Wolfman Jack

Most intellectual training focuses on analytical skills. Whether in literary criticism or scientific investigation, the academic mind is best at taking things apart. The complementary arts of integration are far less well developed. This problem is at the core of human ecology. As with any interdisciplinary pursuit, it is the bridging across disparate ways of knowing that is the constant challenge. — Richard J. Borden

I cannot fail to note once again that the poor constitute the modern challenge, especially for the well-off of our planet, where millions of people live in inhuman conditions and many are literally dying of hunger. It is not possible to announce God the Father to these brothers and sisters without taking on the responsibility of building a more just society in the name of Christ. — Pope John Paul II

True life balance takes concentration, confidence, self-esteem, a positive mental attitude, and self-control. It's a challenge, for sure, but it's a challenge worth taking on. — Jay Rifenbary

After 'The Hobbit,' I have no idea if things will change. I suspect if I still want to act I will have to put in the hard yards, not rest on my laurels. A lot of it is right place, right time, but I enjoy the challenge, constantly refining my craft, not taking it too seriously but never taking it for granted. — Mark Hadlow

I've always seen myself as a small entity, and it will always stay like that. I'm not changing. But I think the big challenge for me taking on the Dior thing is to see how I can connect that to such a huge institution. — Raf Simons

I can well imagine a lily-livered coward shying away from taking you on. But don't try to tell me that you haven't had your chances. I refuse to believe that every man in Hampshire is blind and stupid. Unless thin English blood is to blame." "You forget I've got thin English blood." He smiled. "There's nothing thin about your blood, lassie. Perhaps that's why it takes a proud Scot to see your true worth. I don't want a milk-and-water miss at my side. I want a woman of strength and fire. A woman like you." Shocked, she struggled to sit up. He'd started out with the familiar teasing, but purpose had resonated through that declaration. "Nobody's ever said anything like that to me before." "I want a wife to share my joys and troubles." His Scottish burr deepened with every word. "I want a wife who meets a challenge with a sparkle in her eyes. I want a wife who gives me a run for my money." Inside — Anna Campbell

Oh really?" Megan said while waggling her eyebrows. "What skills are we talking about and which room are they useful in?" Ella rolled her eyes at her little sister. "Megan, you just single handedly set the women's movement back twenty years." "Oh, Ella, on the contrary. The women's movement involves many theories of women taking back their sexual prowess in the bedroom as a way to challenge the dominant alpha male in the relationship. Seeing women as sexual equals is a very relevant and useful tool for the advancement of the equality for women in all realms of society. — Anie Michaels

Behold our refutation of the error. It is not based on documents of faith, but on the reasons and statements of the philosophers themselves. If then anyone there be who, boastfully taking pride in his supposed wisdom, wishes to challenge what we have written, let him not do it in some corner nor before children who are powerless to decide on such difficult matters. Let him reply openly if he dare. He shall find me there confronting him, and not only my negligible self, but many another whose study is truth. — Thomas Aquinas

Encounters taking the form of challenge-and-response are the most illuminating kind of events a for student of human affairs if he believes, as I believe, that one of the most distinctive characteristics of Man is the he is partially free to make choices ... Encounters are the occasions in human life on which freedom and creativity come into play and on which new things are brought into existence. — Arnold Joseph Toynbee

Do I believe the execution will work out? Les Moonves said yes to Survivor based partly upon my show Eco-Challenge. He liked my way of filming outdoors. It was the first use of helicopters on a documentary with the gyro-stabilized lenses. And a certain beauty of filming, allowing the drops to fall from a leaf into a puddle, allowing a spider to weave a web. Taking the breath to allow that to happen rather than showing scene after scene. — Scott Raab

It's the uncertainty, the challenge and the willingness to put it all on the line that draws a lot of people to climb mountains. That can also apply to a lot of other challenges in life, whether it's running for office, starting a family, going to grad school or taking all of your cash and assets and starting a business. — Mark Udall

So the challenge, as you contemplate your next opportunity to be boring or remarkable, is to answer these two questions: (1) "If I get criticized for this, will I suffer any measurable impact? Will I lose my job, get hit upside the head with a softball bat, or lose important friendships?" If the only side effect of the criticism is that you will feel bad about the criticism, then you have to compare that bad feeling with the benefits you'll get from actually doing something worth doing. Being remarkable is exciting, fun, profitable, and great for your career. Feeling bad wears off.
And then, once you've compared the bad feeling and the benefits, and you've sold yourself on taking the remarkable path, answer this one: (2) How can I create something that critics will criticize? — Seth Godin

Leadership is all about taking people on a journey. The challenge is that most of the time, we are asking people to follow us to places we ourselves have never been. — Andy Stanley

If one looks at it with his bare eyes then one can only see a stream of running water coming down the mountain. But, if one can verily perceive it through the eyes of wisdom then this tiny stream of water has the might of taking on any obstacles; big boulders, trees, anything that comes within its course. And why does it have the might? Because it adjusts its course when faced with any obstacles. Water just flows, naturally. It doesn't see a challenge in the obstacles. It doesn't say to the obstacle "You are in my way. Please move aside so that I can proceed further." No! When faced with an obstacle, it changes its course slightly, but, never stops flowing. Its primary aim is to flow to its destination and not to get embroiled with obstacles. And all this is possible because it has been endowed with this wonderful ability to change course. — Rashmi Rathi

Taking Root

I am no stranger to roots. In third grade, I punctured
a sweet potato's middle with toothpicks, suspended
it halfway in a cup of water until sprout-like whiskers

swam along its bottom. On day nine leaves crowned it.
I scooped out soil with my hands and buried it up
to its neck. I've laid down my own in places

where corn and tomatoes grow in vacant lots,
where cilantro and basil thrive on window sills
and in cities balanced on ancestor's bones.

Roots are hardy travelers, adaptable: they float
on water, cohere to wood, burrow deep beneath
foundations, challenge floorboards.

from Second Skin — Diana Anhalt

If one insists on calling all unsuccessful efforts failures the meaning of failure is really quite benign. When trying anything new or taking on any challenge, unsuccessful efforts are an essential aspect of skill building. — Michael Josephson

Well, yes," she said, looking equal parts amused and bewildered. "But it's the truth! I love my work, and that counts for something, doesn't it?" Those government bureaucrats would trample Sophie to pieces if she couldn't stand up for herself. He walked around the counter until he was standing directly opposite her. "Come on, Sophie! Stand up straight and look me in the eye. Tell me that you are the master and commander of that climate observatory. That there is no one in the state of New York who can operate that office with more efficiency than you. Make me believe it!" "Shhh . . . your grandfather is taking a nap," she said, but she was giggling and at least seemed to be considering his point. It was going to be a challenge to prop her up enough so she could land a position at one of these newfangled observatories, but a fun one. "Let's hear it. Dazzle me with your rhetorical brilliance. — Elizabeth Camden

The scripts for Marco Polo are absolutely, positively fantastic. The challenge of making that show in China has proved to be as formidable as we feared. It's not like making a movie in China where, once you load up and you leave, you're gone. We have to be able to come back and capture something that's going to feel like a major feature film, on a television budget, and do it, hopefully season after season, so we are taking more time than the producers thought. — Chris Albrecht

To live a fulfilling life is an endurance event, and the only way to get to the finish line is to focus on the present, checking from moment to moment that I am still heading in the right direction. The Atlantic taught me that no matter how huge and seemingly impossible the task, anybody can achieve extraordinary things, by simply taking it one stroke at a time. — Roz Savage