Undercut Quotes & Sayings

Here are my strong reservations about the wave of computer networks. They isolate us from one another and cheapen the meaning of actual experience. They work against literacy and creativity. They undercut our schools and libraries. — Clifford Stoll

I have lunch, flirt with some local grandmothers, undercut my flirting by crotching myself on the corner of a table as I leave.
The Great Divider — George Saunders

It strikes me that whatever advantages there are to being a boy
getting to stay out late and having other people wash your clothes and bring you plates of stuff
get undercut by having to play football. — Mary Karr

Once you open that door to a values conversation, it's going to undercut a right-wing economic agenda, which values wealth over work and favors the rich over the poor, or resorts to war as the first resort and not the last. — Jim Wallis

He thought women were every bit as intelligent as men, every bit as capable of figuring out how long it would take for train A to crash into train B if the two were moving toward each other at an average speed of C. They were as capable of rational thought; they just didn't appear to be as interested in it. They were happy to apply rational argument to defend what they already believed but unlikely to be swayed by it, not if it conflicted with inclination or, worse, intuition, not if it undercut a cherished opinion or nettled their self-esteem. So many times, when Nate had been arguing with a woman, a point was reached when it became clear that no argument would alter her thinking. Her position was one she "felt" to be true; it was, as a result, impermeable. — Adelle Waldman

At a time when the insurgents are saying that time is working against them, my Democratic colleagues are introducing a measure to set a timetable for withdrawal in Iraq that will undercut the momentum that the insurgents themselves say we have built in Iraq. — Kit Bond

As Atwood concludes after a random and informal sampling, men and women differ markedly in the 'scope of their threatenability': 'Why do men feel threatened by woman?' I asked a male friend of mine ... '[M]en are bigger, most of the time ... and they have on the average a lot more money and power.' 'They're afraid women will laugh at them,' he said. 'Undercut their world view.' Then I asked some women students in a quickie poetry seminar I was giving, 'Why do women feel threatened by men?' 'They're afraid of being killed,' they said'. — Shuli Barzilai

This small encounter had a disproportionately large effect on me. I saw myself in relief, separate and distinct from the others in the class, and even though he didn't speak to me in that way for a long time, I began to regard Professor Rose as a secret ally. This transformation took place gradually, and I can't say whether it existed solely in my mind or whether he was responsible for it. I know that I started to look forward to seeing him on Tuesdays, that his face was pleasing, his severity undercut by humor, and that I read the assigned books with new zeal. — Siri Hustvedt

As the first woman to win Album of the Year at the Grammys twice, I want to say to all the young women out there, there are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame.But if you just focus on the work and you don't let those people sidetrack you, someday, when you get where you are going, you will look around and you will know that it was you and the people who love you who put you there. And that will be the greatest feeling in the world. Thank you for this moment. — Taylor Swift

Whatever efforts for peace President Gorbachev had in mind, they were pretty substantially undercut very swiftly by Saddam Hussein. — John Major

The Republican tax cut threatens to undercut both veterans health care and the veterans educational benefits that have been recognized for decades as not only the long-standing obligation of the Nation to its veterans, but also as the best recruiting incentives we can offer to keep our armed forces strong and sharp. — Lane Evans

It is the Constitution of the United States that has been undermined, undercut, and is under attack. It is the American people's liberties that is in jeopardy. That is why I wrote 'Losing America.' — Robert Byrd

This may play well in certain extreme right- and left-wing political circles. But such unrest exacts a huge price on U.S. credibility abroad in all the challenging arenas summarized here, and in others yet to emerge. Political cannibalism at home will severely undercut the authority and credibility of America's role in the world. It will exacerbate U.S. efforts to manage a range of existing security issues and new ones yet unimagined. — Graham T. Allison

Trade wars aren't started by countries appealing to respected, independent trade authorities. Rather, trade wars begin when one country decides to violate international trade rules to undercut another country's industries. — Ron Wyden

It makes me sad that corporations and media and Hollywood conspire to make people feel terrible about their bodies from the second they wake up, so I sort of try to subversively undercut that. — Rob Delaney

Dear Charls. Whatever will you do with your own Kemptian silk? It will spoil on the road.' 'We aren't carrying any Kemptian silk,' said the Prince. It took a moment for those words to be understood, and then Makon's expression changed. 'Oh, did you think we were? I'm afraid you undercut yourself for no reason.' A look of fury had appeared on Makon's face. The Prince said, 'A little healthy competition.' Dinner — C.S. Pacat

Even when you have skilled, motivated, hard-working people, the wrong team structure can undercut their efforts instead of catapulting them to success. A poor team structure can increase development time, reduce quality, damage morale, increase turnover, and ultimately lead to project cancellation. — Steve McConnell

As Americans, we have the right to decide who lives within our borders, and we can't let unscrupulous employers to undercut honest business owners by exploiting cheap labor. — Hank Johnson

Joseph Goebbels had artfully accomplished what all good propagandists must, convincing the world that their version of reality was reasonable and their opponents' version biased. In doing that, Goebbels had not only created a compelling vision of the new Germany but also undercut the Nazis' opponents in the West - whether they were American Jews in New York City or members of Parliament in London or anxious Parisians - making all of them seem shrill, hysterical, and misinformed. As thousands of Americans returned home from the games that fall, many of them felt as one quoted in a German propaganda publication did: "As for this man Hitler. . . . Well I believe we should all like to take him back to America with us and have him organize there just as he has done in Germany. — Daniel James Brown

So it is precisely our allergy to repetition in worship that has undercut the counterformative power of Christian worship - because all kinds of secular liturgies shamelessly affirm the good of repetition. — James K.A. Smith

I've already heard from some military commanders who feel they've been undercut by the vice president of the United States, and there's a lot of justification for their view. — John McCain

Forgiving ourselves for all the woulda-shoulda-couldas in life, and sometimes forgiving others for actions that we feel undercut or undermine our good, can be very challenging. But forgiveness of the past and mistakes, our own mistakes as well as the mistakes of others, is imperative if we are to dwell fully in the present and experience the miracles that are only available to the forgiving and loving mind. — Marianne Williamson

It is clear from a common sense viewing of the program that coarse language is a part of the culture of the individuals being portrayed. To accurately reflect their viewpoint and emotions about blues music requires airing of certain material that, if prohibited, would undercut the ability of the filmmaker to convey the reality of the subject of the documentary. — Jonathan Adelstein

But obviously as television began, it so undercut movies that he was trying to think of a way to combine seeing these special things, and the fact that people were just captivated by the magic box. — Bob Balaban

Analysis of the story will sometimes undercut our antepredicative grasp of it). — James K.A. Smith

In our instinctive attachments, our fear of change, and our wish for certainty and permanence, we may undercut the impermanence which is our greatest strength, our most fundamental identity. Without impermanence, there is no process. The nature of life is change. All hope is based on process. — Rachel Naomi Remen

I presumed the president was being truthful until a series of events undercut that confidence. — Bob Graham

An anarchist is like an undercover agent who plays the game of Reason in order to undercut the authority of Reason (Truth, Honesty, Justice and so on). — Paul Karl Feyerabend

If we conclude that people can get to heaven apart from faith in Christ, then this would mean there is something else they can do to get to heaven. Such a conclusion would not only undercut the proven truth we saw in Romans; it would also be tantamount to saying to Jesus, Thank you for what you did on the cross, but we could have gotten to God another way. — David Platt

Rohan looked down at her, his eyes shadowed and catlike. "You'll be safer inside the vehicle."
"I have you for protection, do I not?" she pointed out.
"Sweetheart," he said with a softness that undercut the noise of the crowd, "I may be the one you most need protection from. — Lisa Kleypas

Be able to analyze statistics, which can be used to support or undercut almost any argument. — Marilyn Vos Savant

McChrystal never should have been hired for this job given the outrageous cover-up he participated in after the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman. He was lucky to keep the job after his 'Seven Days in May' stunt in London last year when he openly lobbied and undercut the president on the surge.
But with the latest sassing, and the continued Sisyphean nature of the surge he urged, McChrystal should offer his resignation. He should try subordination for a change. — Maureen Dowd

We cannot win this war on terror if people are undercutting us. And one way to undercut us is to empower Iran. — Lindsey Graham

Make no mistake about the character of mystics. To undercut your consciousness has always been their only purpose throughout the ages - and power, the power to rule you by force, has always been their only lust (John Galt) — Ayn Rand

Airlines go in the long run at the competition to reason. For the passenger the competition is good, because each competitor tries to undercut the other one. — Niki Lauda

By characterizing the use of illegal drugs as quasi-legal, state-sanctioned, Saturday afternoon fun, legalizers destabilize the societal norm that drug use is dangerous. They undercut the goals of stopping the initiation of drug use to prevent addiction ... Children entering drug abuse treatment routinely report that they heard that 'pot is medicine' and, therefore, believed it to be good for them. — Andrea Barthwell

There are kinds of human problems which really do seem, as our tidy expressions would have it, to "come to a head" and "demand to be dealt with." But there are also problems, often just as serious, which come to nothing that we can recognize or openly deal with. Some long-lived, insidious problems simply slip us off to one side of ourselves. Some gently rob us of just enough energy or faith so that days which once took place on a horizontal plane become an endless series of uphill slogs. And some - like high water working year after year at the roots of a riverside tree - quietly undercut our trust or our hope, our sense of place, or of humor, our ability to empathize, or to feel enthused, and we don't sense impending danger, we don't feel the damage at all, till one day, to our amazement, we find ourselves crashing to the ground. — David James Duncan

The ecology of the valley was complex beyond our understanding, and it began to die as we went on manipulating it in ever more frantic ways. As it went dead and empty of the old life it became a place where no one wanted to live. In our right minds we want to seek out places that reek of complexity. Our drive to industrialize soured and undercut the intimacies that drew most people to country life in the first place. — William Kittredge

The U.S. couldn't play a military role in different areas like Iraq and Afghanistan without huge quantities of oil. So a shortage or disruption in oil would not only damage the U.S. economy; it would undercut American military supremacy. — Michael Klare

The systems that could lift the majority out of poverty are undercut at every turn. Precisely because everyone takes a shortcut, nothing works and, for this reason, the only way to get anything done is to take another shortcut. — Teju Cole

He was able to prove that the South had surrendered ninety-seven million acres to erosion (an area larger than the two Carolinas and Georgia); it had squandered the chances of millions of people by tolerating poverty and illiteracy; and it had ignored human potential by refusing to provide technological training, or even basic services, to its people. The overwhelming power of Odum's data undercut (what Odum himself called) Gone with the Wind nostalgia - the collective self-image elite southerners had cultivated. — Nancy Isenberg

I had become wiser, I tried to find out what irony really is, and discovered that some ancient writer on poetry had spoken of "Ironia, which we call the drye mock." And I cannot think of a better term for it: The drye mock. Not sarcasm, which is like vinegar, or cynicism, which is so often the voice of disappointed idealism, but a delicate casting of cool and illuminating light on life, and thus an enlargement. The ironist is not bitter, he does not seek to undercut everything that seems worthy or serious, he scorns the cheap scoring-off of the wisecracker. He stands, so to speak, somewhat at one side, observes and speaks with a moderation which is occasionally embellished with a flash of controlled exaggeration. He speaks from a certain depth, and thus he is not of the same nature as the wit, who so often speaks from the tongue and no deeper. The wit's desire is to be funny; the ironist is only funny as a secondary achievement. — Robertson Davies

Everyone's default state is this pleasantry state. My goal in the show is to undercut that as quickly as possible. If you really do let it sit, it's sometimes amazing what comes out of people. — Nathan Fielder

I like doom and gloom with a sense of humour. Maybe it's a Scottish thing, we like to undercut indulgence with a laugh. — Shirley Henderson

Charge less, but charge. Otherwise, you will not be taken seriously, and you do your fellow artists no favours if you undercut the market. — Elizabeth Aston

He'd known the headland was undercut from years of waves and weather, but he hadn't expected to trigger its complete collapse. Shoving the wall over had been merely an attempt to complicate the situation. He'd never imagined ... this. — Mary Jo Putney

We also never undercut representatives' prices. A representative will always be able to sell the discounts in our core business, which are not offered at retail. So it's never more advantageous to buy there. — Andrea Jung

And now," Hunt continued evenly, "you've thrown her over to St. Vincent's sympathetic care. God knows he'll probably rob her of her virtue before they even reach the manor."
Marcus glanced at him sharply, his smoldering ire undercut by sudden worry. "He wouldn't."
"Why not?"
"She's not his preferred style."
Hunt laughed gently. "Does St. Vincent have a preferred style? I've never noticed any similarities between the objects of his pursuit, other than the fact that they are all women. Dark, fair, plump, slender ... he's remarkably unprejudiced in his affairs."
"Damn it all to hell," Marcus said beneath his breath, experiencing, for the first time in his life, the gnawing sting of jealousy. — Lisa Kleypas

The guinea earned by doctors for a delivery was a significant part of their income. The threat of being undercut by trained midwives had to be resisted. — Jennifer Worth

Under Hudgins, Virginia law presumed blacks were slaves, denoting their status as objects even when, in fact, they were free.84 Judge Tucker undercut even the provisions in the statute that contemplated some mixed-race individuals as free, because they descended from either a white woman or a free black or mulatto female. Judges throughout the 19th century followed Judge Tucker's lead, creating presumptions of enslavement and other devices for limiting black freedom. These cases reinforced a subordinate role for blacks in American society, and in so doing, created a superior role for whites. This social construct of white privilege is unmistakably seen in the words of one South Carolina judge in 1836: "A — F. Michael Higginbotham

Placing economic activity in the context of the whole earth requires attention to the question of scale. Bigger is obviously not better, so the optimum scale of human economy in relation to the total economy becomes basically a question of sustainability. When the effects of the economy on the environment undercut the possibility of its own continuance, the scale is too large. — John B. Cobb