Taskmaster Quotes & Sayings

We learn from the hard taskmaster of experience. We discern between good and evil. We differentiate as to the bitter and the sweet. We discover that decisions determine destiny. — Thomas S. Monson

The obedience which God's children yield to Him must be loving obedience. Do not go about the service of God as slaves to their taskmaster's toil, but run in the way of His commands because it is your Father's way. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Not the least of the torments which plague our existence is the constant pressure of time, which never lets us so much as draw breath but pursues us all like a taskmaster with a whip. It ceases to persecute only him it has delivered over to boredom. — Arthur Schopenhauer

We all, like Frodo, carry a Quest, a Task: our daily duties. They come to us, not from us. We are free only to accept or refuse our task- and, implicitly, our Taskmaster. None of us is a free creator or designer of his own life. "None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself" (Rom 14:7). Either God, or fate, or meaningless chance has laid upon each of us a Task, a Quest, which we would not have chosen for ourselves. We are all Hobbits who love our Shire, or security, our creature comforts, whether these are pipeweed, mushrooms, five meals a day, and local gossip, or Starbucks coffees, recreational sex, and politics. But something, some authority not named in The Lord of the Rings (but named in the Silmarillion), has decreed that a Quest should interrupt this delightful Epicurean garden and send us on an odyssey. We are plucked out of our Hobbit holes and plunked down onto a Road. — Peter Kreeft

But without wisdom, imagination is a cruel taskmaster. — William Paul Young

Hesitation is a cruel taskmaster; it breeds weakness the same way filth breeds germs. — Ray Dacolias

Dreams are powerful. It is possible to so attach our emotions to them that a dream can become a taskmaster we serve, rather than an assignment or goal we steward. — Dutch Sheets

The Roman Road is the greatest monument ever raised to human liberty by a noble and generous people. It runs across mountain, marsh and river. It is built broad, straight and firm. It joins city with city and nation with nation. It is tens of thousands of miles long, and always thronged with grateful travellers. And while the Great Pyramid, a few hundred feet high and wide, awes sight-seers to silence - though it is only the rifled tomb of an ignoble corpse and a monument of oppression and misery, so that no doubt in viewing it you may still seem to hear the crack of the taskmaster's whip and the squeals and groans of the poor workmen struggling to set a huge block of stone into position - — Robert Graves

There is a noticeable general difference between the sciences and mathematics on the one hand, and the humanities and social sciences on the other. It's a first approximation, but one that is real. In the former, the factors of integrity tend to dominate more over the factors of ideology. It's not that scientists are more honest people. It's just that nature is a harsh taskmaster. You can lie or distort the story of the French Revolution as long as you like, and nothing will happen. Propose a false theory in chemistry, and it'll be refuted tomorrow. — Noam Chomsky

And truly it demands something god like in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others! — Ralph Waldo Emerson

God is the hardest taskmaster I have known on this earth, and he tries you through and through. And when you find that your faith is failing or your body is failing you, and you are sinking, he comes to your assistance somehow or other and proves to you that you must not lose your faith and that he is always at your beck and call, but on his terms, not on your terms. So I have found. I cannot really recall a single instance when, at the eleventh hour, he has forsaken me. — Mahatma Gandhi

In our desire to have government become our benefactor and sustainer, we have allowed it to become our taskmaster and overlord. As a result, we have become little more than well-fed, well-entertained slaves to the state. Freedom, as envisioned by our forefathers, is gone. — Chuck Baldwin

But you shouldn't have let her. That's the only way with these fanciful women that chaw high
innocent or guilty. She'd have come round in time. We all do! Custom does it! It's all the same in the end! However, I think she's fond of her man still
whatever he med be of her. You were too quick about her. I shouldn't have let her go! I should have kept her chained on
her spirit for kicking would have been broke soon enough! There's nothing like bondage and a stone-deaf taskmaster for taming us women. Besides, you've got the laws on your side. Moses knew. — Thomas Hardy

The Law of Unconditional Loving is a tough taskmaster. Once we taste the fruits of unconditional loving, we cannot go backward, we cannot become "unaware" ever again. — Greg Anderson

All men, if they work not as in the great taskmaster's eye, will work wrong, and work unhappily for themselves and for you. — Thomas Carlyle

Writing isn't an easy taskmaster. Sentences left unfinished never continue as well as they had begun. New ideas bend the main arch of the text, and it never again sits perfectly true. Anyway, — Magda Szabo

If time were to take on human form, would she be your taskmaster or freedom fighter? — Richie Norton

Because a man is placed in charge of a club does not make it necessary for him to be a taskmaster or a tyrant. In my opinion, he ought to be as lenient with his club as circumstances allow, and the less he interferes with the personal liberties of the men, the better. — Joe Tinker

The world is just as harsh a taskmaster as any other lord, and in the end it's a lord without mercy. — Sigrid Undset

But without wisdom, imagination is like a cruel taskmaster. — Wm. Paul Young

Yessir, it's a hard taskmaster, that guilt. I say, feel it, and wriggle a little bit if you have to, but then put it away. Get on with what you can change. — LaVyrle Spencer

Walt had a seat-of-the-pants approach on what he wanted musically. We kind of 'read' the boss and had a very high batting average, but there were occasions when he felt we had just written the wrong piece for the situation he wanted. We invariably listened to what he wanted - he was very descriptive in what he wanted and we could read him. We'd go back to the drawing board and work out what he wanted. He was a great inspiration, but a tough taskmaster. — Richard Sherman

Simplicity is a strict taskmaster. — Mason Cooley

A tragic mistake that is often made is to assume that the will of God is bound to be something very dull and uninviting, if not positively unpleasant. Consciously or not some persons look upon God as a hard taskmaster, or a severe parent ... The truth is that the will of God for us always means greater freedom, greater self-expression, newer and brighter experience, wider opportunity of service to others-life more abundant. — Emmet Fox

The very flag of freedom that waves over our heads is formed from material cultivated by slaves, on soil moistened with their blood drawn from them by the whip of a republican taskmaster! — Elijah Parish Lovejoy

Clearly, one primary purpose of our existence upon the earth is to obtain a body of flesh and bones. We have also been given the gift of agency. In a thousand ways we are privileged to choose for ourselves. Here we learn from the hard taskmaster of experience. We discern between good and evil. We differentiate as to the bitter and the sweet. We discover that there are consequences attached to our actions. — Thomas S. Monson

And a sensible work strategy might be: surrender to the task but not to the taskmaster, become absorbed in the work itself but never absorb the work ethos. — Michael Foley

Frivolity is a stern taskmaster. — Bill Griffith

And what of the masses in this intellectual's paradise? They have found in the intellectual the most formidable taskmaster in history. No other regime has treated the masses so callously as raw material, to be experimented on and manipulated at will; and never before have so many lives been wasted so recklessly in war and in peace. On top of all this, the Communist intelligentsia has been using force in a wholly novel manner. The traditional master uses force to exact obedience and lets it go at that. Not so the intellectual. Because of his professed faith in the power of words and the irresistibility of the truths which supposedly shape his course, he cannot be satisfied with mere obedience. He tries to obtain by force a response that is usually obtained by the most perfect persuasion, and he uses Terror as a fearful instrument to extract faith and fervor from crushed souls. — Eric Hoffer

will appoint Peace as your overseer and Righteousness as your taskmaster. — Anonymous

I often went entire days without speaking - unable to get a word in over my inner taskmaster, who never shut up: You fat, disgusting slob, you'll never be thin enough, good enough, smart enough, tough or talented enough. — Aimee Liu

An empty belly makes a stern taskmaster.~Victor Radcliff — Harry Turtledove

Pain is itself a god: the taskmaster of life. Pain cracks the whip, and all that lives will move. To live is to be a slave to pain. — Matthew Woodring Stover

I'm a taskmaster. I was brought up that way, and I'm sure I imposed that on my kids. — Hume Cronyn

Whether it's a letter, song lyrics, part of a novel, or instructions on how to fix a kitchen sink, it's writing. You keep your craft honed, you acquire the discipline to finish things. You turn into a self-taskmaster. — Jimmy Buffett

Secular entertaining is a terrible bondage. Its source is human pride. Demanding perfection, fostering the urge to impress, it is a rigorous taskmaster which enslaves. In contrast, Scriptural hospitality is a freedom which liberates. — Karen Burton Mains

Micky was a hard taskmaster. He could be very unkind. He was out to judge people, I think pretty quickly, and once he'd made a decision, he never altered it. If he didn't like you for one reason or another, it was best to leave. On the other hand, with the people he liked and respected, he was wonderful and was very loyal. He was one of those people who liked to be challenged. He liked people to stand up to him, and most people ran away. — Christopher Challis

Pleasure is a difficult taskmaster, ' Trenton observed thoughtfully, 'and one that people do not mind submitting to. Most don't even realize that it is their master. Once they are enslaved to pleasure, it deceives them into believing that they control their own lives. — Erika Mathews

But whatever the consensus on the EMH, I know of no serious academic, professional money manager, trained security analyst, or intelligent individual investor who would disagree with the thrust of EMH: The stock market itself is a demanding taskmaster. It sets a high hurdle that few investors can leap. — John C. Bogle

No little part of the torment of existence lies in this, that Time is continually pressing upon us, never letting us take breath, but always coming after us, like a taskmaster with a whip. If at any moment Time stays his hand, it is only when we are delivered over to the misery of boredom. — Arthur Schopenhauer