Undertakes Quotes & Sayings

walk away from its treaty obligations by invoking the doctrine of State sovereignty. This was settled by a decision of the Permanent Court of Justice (PCIJ)10 over 80 years ago. SS Wimbledon Case (Britain v Germany) (1923) PCIJ (Series A) No 1, 25 The court declines to see in the conclusion of any treaty by which a State undertakes to perform or refrain from performing a particular act an abandonment of sovereignty. No doubt any convention creating an obligation of this kind places a restriction upon the exercise of the sovereign rights of the State, in the sense that it requires them to be exercised in a certain way. But the right of entering into international engagements is an attribute of State sovereignty. Implementation — Roy Goode

Any man who undertakes to write a play is either a damned fool or a hero, I don't know which. When you write a book, you pull it out of the typewriter and that's that. When you write a play you've got to go on with the producer and the director and the actors and the rehearsals and the ... — Rex Stout

Christianity has therefore retained a strong hold on the public mind in America ... In the United States ... Christianity itself is a fact so irresistibly established, that no one undertakes either to attack or to defend it. — Alexis De Tocqueville

If experience teaches anything, it is that what the community undertakes to do is usually done badly. This is due in part to the temptation to corruption that such enterprises involve, but even more, perhaps, to the lack of personal interest on the part of those engaged in them. — Suzanne La Follette

Let no man think to kill sin with few, easy, or gentle strokes. He who hath once smitten a serpent, if he follow not on his blow until it be slain, may repent that ever he began the quarrel. And so he who undertakes to deal with sin, and pursues it not constantly to the death. — Richard Baxter

Trade is a social act. Whoever undertakes to sell any description of any goods to the public, does what affects the interest of other persons, and of society in general; and thus his conduct, in principal, comes within the jurisdiction of society. — John Stuart Mill

Whatever Nature undertakes, she can only accomplish it in a sequence. She never makes a leap. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

As an individual who undertakes to live by borrowing, soon finds his original means devoured by interest, and next no one left to borrow from - so must it be with a government. — Abraham Lincoln

This is a wise, sane Christian faith: that a man commit himself, his life, and his hopes to God; that God undertakes the special protection of that man; that therefore that man ought not to be afraid of anything. — George MacDonald

It's a rare memoir that can tell a story that seems brand new, but Nina Here Nor There does it. This one-of-a-kind narrator undertakes a quest that is unmistakably timely. But in its yearning for awareness and connection, this book feels timeless. — K.M. Soehnlein

CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better his temporal ones. — Ambrose Bierce

If one undertakes retrospection of the day's events, one must do it regularly at the appointed hour, not fitfully, not doing it today, neglecting to do it tomorrow and the day after and then taking it up again on the fourth day. Such irregular practice is not conducive to the confirmation of the habit of retrospection. — Mahavira

No one undertakes research in physics with the intention of winning a prize. It is the joy of discovering something no one knew before. — Stephen Hawking

But as the priceless treasure too frequently hides at the bottom of well, it needs some courage to dive for it, especially as he that does so will be likely to incur more scorn and obloquy for the mud and water into which he has ventured to plunge, than thanks for the jewel he procures; as like in manner, she who undertakes the cleansing of a careless bachelor's apartment will be liable to more abuse for the dust she raises than commendation for the clearance she effects. — Anne Bronte

It follows that any commander in chief who undertakes to carry out a plan which he considers defective is at fault; he must put forth his reasons, insist on the plan being changed, and finally tender his resignation rather than be the instrument of h — Napoleon Bonaparte

There's no point putting your heart and soul into a part when you know in advance it isn't worth the trouble. I'm not speaking as a dedicated actress. Enthusiasm and hard work are requisites for any job a person undertakes. I tried working just for money once and it made me almost physically ill. — Lizabeth Scott

When God wants to drill a man, And thrill a man, And skill a man, When God wants to mold a man To play the noblest part; When He yearns with all His heart To create so great and bold a man That all the world shall be amazed, Watch His methods, watch His ways! How He ruthlessly perfects Whom He royally elects! How He hammers him and hurts him, And with mighty blows converts him Into trial shapes of clay which Only God understands; While his tortured heart is crying And he lifts beseeching hands! How He bends but never breaks When his good He undertakes; How He uses whom He chooses, And with every purpose fuses him; But every act induces him To try His splendor out - God knows what He's about. SELECTED Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character. GOETHE — Lettie B. Cowman

Whoever devotedly undertakes and performs this most holy journey ... shall have the enjoyment of eternal reward from the repayer of all men. — Pope Eugene III

A person who undertakes to grow a garden at home, by practices that will preserve rather than exploit the economy of the soil, has his mind precisely against what is wrong with us ... What I am saying is that if we apply our minds directly and competently to the needs of the earth, then we will have begun to make fundamental and necessary changes in our minds. We will begin to understand and to mistrust and to change our wasteful economy, which markets not just the produce of earth, but also the earth's ability to produce. — Wendell Berry

Labor, in itself, is neither elevating or otherwise. It is the laborer's privilege to ennoble his work by the aim with which he undertakes it, and by the enthusiasm and faithfulness he puts into it. — Lucy Larcom

Most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould them. — Samuel Johnson

A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge. — Samuel Johnson

Any political party that undertakes to do it will, in God's name, be trampled, as it ought to be trampled, into the dust of condemnation, now and in the future. — Richard Parks Bland

God works with power, and can make the unwilling willing; if He undertakes the conversion of a soul, it will be converted. All the pious workings of our heart towards God are the fruit and consequence of the powerful working of His grace in us. — Thomas Goodwin

It's the sum of the parts that make up the whole, so in my opinion excellence comes from how one undertakes to do something. It all begins with the thought process - which is creative and exalted to produce something out of the ordinary. — Pankaj Patel

The new education must consist essentially in this, that it completely destroys freedom of will in the soil which it undertakes to cultivate, and produces on the contrary strict necessity in the decisions of the will, the opposite being impossible. Such a will can henceforth be relied on with confidence and certainty. — Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Between labor and play stands work. A man is a worker if he is personally interested in the job which society pays him to do; whatfrom the point of view of society is necessary labor is from his point of view voluntary play. Whether a job is to be classified as labor or work depends, not on the job itself, but on the tastes of the individual who undertakes it. The difference does not, for example, coincide with the difference between a manual and a mental job; a gardener or a cobbler may be a worker, a bank clerk a laborer. — W. H. Auden

Unless a man undertakes more than he possibly can do, he will never do all he can do. — Henry Drummond

Greed takes a person to the watering place but gets him back without letting him drink. It undertakes responsibility but does not fulfill it. Often the drinker gets choked before quenching his thirst. The greater the worth of a thing yearned for, the greater is the grief for its loss. Desires blind the eyes of understanding. The destined share would reach him who does not approach it. — Ali Ibn Abi Talib

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives. — Robert A. Heinlein

sacred is the task of the artist when he undertakes to paint the life of the People. Falsification here is far more pernicious than in the more artificial aspects of life. — George Eliot

To me it's still a greater miracle when a fly flies than when a human being undertakes to do so. — Karl Kraus

A commander-in-chief cannot take as an excuse for his mistakes in warfare an order given by his sovereign or his minister, when the person giving the order is absent from the field of operations and is imperfectly aware or wholly unaware of the latest state of affairs. It follows that any commander-in-chief who undertakes to carry out a plan which he considers defective is at fault; he must put forward his reasons, insist on the plan being changed, and finally tender his resignation rather than be the instrument of his army's downfall. — Napoleon Bonaparte

There is genius in persistence. It conquers all opposers. It gives confidence. It annihilates obstacles. Everybody believes in a determined man. People know that when he undertakes a thing, the battle is half won, for his rule is to accomplish whatever he sets out to do. — Orison Swett Marden

Paarfi undertakes a detailed examination on the virtues of brevity:
It would seem, therefore, that if we allow our readers, by virtue of being in the company of the historian, to eavesdrop on this interchange, we will have, in one scene, discharged two obligations; a sacrifice, if we may say so, to the god Brevity, whom all historians, indeed, all who work with the written word, ought to worship. We cannot say too little on this subject. — Steven Brust

We do not ask what hope of gain makes a little bird warble, since we know that it takes delight in singing because it is for that very singing that the bird was made, so there is no need to ask why the human mind undertakes such toil in seeking out these secrets of the heavens ... And just as other animals, and the human body, are sustained by food and drink, so the very spirit of Man, which is something distinct from Man, is nourished, is increased, and in a sense grows up on this diet of knowledge, and is more like the dead than the living if it is touched by no desire for these things. — Johannes Kepler

The 'advancing man' in medicine, who holds to a clear mental image of himself as successful, and who obeys the laws of faith, purpose, and gratitude, will cure every curable case he undertakes. — Wallace D. Wattles

We must not disguise from ourselves that we go to found a city among strangers and enemies, and he who undertakes such an enterprise should be prepared to become master of the country the first day he lands, or failing in this find everything hostile to him. — Thucydides

An entrepreneur assumes the risk and is dedicated and committed to the success of whatever he or she undertakes. — Victor Kiam

If the devil cannot keep you from being saved, if next he fails to make you backslide, then he undertakes to keep you just an average Christian. Here he succeeds with most believers. — Vance Havner

A woman who is self-reliant, positive, optimistic, and undertakes her work with the assurance of success magnetizes her condition. She draws to herself the creative powers of the universe. — Orison Swett Marden

Poetry's medium is the individual chest and throat and mouth of whoever undertakes to say the poem. — Robert Pinsky

If one wishes to form a true estimate of the full grandeur of religion, one must keep in mind what it undertakes to do for men. It gives them information about the source and origin of the universe, it assures them of protection and final happiness, and it guides - by - precepts - backed by the full force of its authority. — Sigmund Freud

Life is easy For the man who is without shame, Impudent as a crow, A vicious gossip, Vain, meddlesome, dissolute. But life is hard For the man who quietly undertakes The way of perfection, With purity, detachment and vigor. He sees light. — Gautama Buddha

Success is not a place at which one arrives but rather the spirit with which one undertakes and continues the journey. — Alex Noble

The moment this House undertakes to legislate upon this subject slavery, it dissolves the Union. Should it be my fortune to have a seat upon this floor, I will abandon it the instant the first decisive step is taken looking towards legislation of this subject. I will go home to preach, and if I can, practice, disunion, and civil war, if needs be. A revolution must ensue, and this republic sink in blood. — James Henry Hammond

Some people there are who, being grown; forget the horrible task of learning to read. It is perhaps the greatest single effort that the human undertakes, and he must do it as a child. — John Steinbeck

Reporters are not scientific. They do not follow scientific methods. They write to sell, not to educate. The scientist is not concerned with what sells. He is concerned with the truth. He undertakes years of painstaking study to arrive at an understanding of intricate natural processes that most people could never presume to comprehend . You would do well to listen to science and ignore the nonsense that is printed in the newspapers. Because I can tell you right now - radium has nothing to do with what's ailing you. — D.W. Gregory

The man of true genius never lives before his time, he never undertakes impossibilities, and always embarks on his enterprise at the suitable place and period. Though he may catch a glimpse of the coming light as it gilds the mountain top long before it reaches the eyes of his contemporaries, and he may hazard a prediction as to the future, he acts with the present. — Joseph Henry

Our position is such that we can be rescued from eternal death and translated into life only by total and unceasing substitution, the substitution which God Himself undertakes on our behalf. — Karl Barth

A valiant man Ought not to undergo, or tempt a danger, But worthily, and by selected ways, He undertakes with reason, not by chance. His valor is the salt t' his other virtues, They're all unseason'd without it. — Ben Jonson

When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional rights it acts lawlessly and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all. — William O. Douglas

See the exquisite contrast of the types of mind! The pragmatist clings to facts and concreteness, observes truth at its work in particular cases, and generalises. Truth, for him, becomes a class-name for all sorts of definite working-values in experience. For the rationalist it remains a pure abstraction, to the bare name of which we must defer. When the pragmatist undertakes to show in detail just why we must defer, the rationalist is unable to recognise the concretes from which his own abstraction is taken. He accuses us of denying truth; whereas we have only sought to trace exactly why people follow it and always ought to follow it. Your typical ultra-abstractions fairly shudders at concreteness: other things equal, he positively prefers the pale and spectral. If the two universes were offered, he would always choose the skinny outline rather than the rich thicket of reality. It is so much purer, clearer, nobler. — William James

In becoming a citizen, one undertakes certain duties and responsibilities. One of the more intangible of those duties and responsibilities is no matter what one's birth and background, to accept the historical past of the new country as one's own. — J.M. Coetzee

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
[Preface to Brissot's Address to His Constituents (1794)] — Edmund Burke

Modern 'public health' initiatives have moved well beyond what could reasonably be classified as public goods. Today, government undertakes all sorts of policies in the name of public health that are aimed at regulating personal behavior. — Radley Balko

Anyone who undertakes the literary grind had better like playing around with words. — Roy Blount Jr.

Faith does not cease being active as it undertakes the process of rigorous thinking. One need not disavow the gifts of intellect in giving thought to their Giver — Thomas C. Oden

The first thing which philosophy undertakes to give is fellow-feeling with all men; in other words, sympathy and sociability. — Seneca.

Whoever undertakes to create soon finds himself engaged in creating himself. — Harold Rosenberg

When a man has displayed talent in some particular path, and left all competitors behind him in it, the world are too apt to give him credit for universality of genius, and to anticipate for him success in all that he undertakes. — Charles Caleb Colton

When the government undertakes or approves a major project such as a dam or highway project, it must make sure the project's impacts, environmental and otherwise, are considered. In many cases, NEPA gives the public its only opportunity to be heard about the project's impact on their community. — Frances Beinecke

In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Secrecy is the keystone to all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy and censorship. When any government or church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man who has been hoodwinked in this fashion; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, whose mind is free. No, not the rack nor the atomic bomb, not anything. You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him. — Robert A. Heinlein

To my mind, an adventure is something a person willingly undertakes. — Nathaniel Philbrick

The Cloud of Unknowing was written by someone who was exceedingly tough-minded in the sense in which William James used the phrase. He was most unsentimental, matter of fact, and down to earth; and he regarded this habit of mind as a prerequisite for the work in which he was engaged. He proceeded upon the belief that when an individual undertakes to bring his life into relation to God, he is embarking upon a serious and demanding task, a task that leaves no leeway for self-deception or illusion. It requires the most rigorous dedication and self-knowledge. The Cloud of Unknowing is therefore a book of strong and earnest thinking. It makes a realistic appraisal of the problems and weaknesses of individual human beings, for it regards man's imperfections as the raw material to be worked with in carrying out the discipline of spiritual development. — Ira Progoff

Men are so constituted that every one undertakes what he sees another successful in, whether he has aptitude for it or not. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

With a single drop of ink for a mirror, the Egyptian sorcerer undertakes to reveal to any chance comer far-reaching visions of the past. This is what I undertake to do for you, reader. — George Eliot

When we struggle for human rights, for freedom, for dignity, when we feel that it is a ministry of the church to concern itself for those who are hungry, for those who have no schools, for those who are deprived, we are not departing from God's promise. He comes to free us from sin, and the church knows that sin's consequences are all such injustices and abuses. The church knows it is saving the world when it undertakes to speak also of such things. — Oscar A. Romero

One may be an excellent pianist, mathematician, gardener, or scientist and still be cranky and jealous, but in the West one can be considered a great moralist and yet not live by one's moral principles. We must simply recall here the Buddhist requirement that a person and his or her teachings be compatible. Ethics is not like any ordinary science. It must arise from the deepest understanding of human qualities, and such understanding comes only when one undertakes the journey of discovery personally. An ethic that is built exclusively on intellectual ideas and that is not buttressed at every point by virtue, genuine wisdom, and compassion has no solid foundation. — Matthieu Ricard

No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet everyone thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government. — Socrates

A person who undertakes the study of Zen and learns concentration and meditation is like a gymnast. You become a gymnast of the mind. — Frederick Lenz

If a superior man undertakes something and tried to lead,
He goes astray.
But if he follows, he finds guidance.
It is favourable to find friends in the West and South,
and quiet perseverance brings good fortune. — Pearl S. Buck

When a man undertakes to create something, he establishes a new heaven, as it were, and from it the work that he desires to create flows into him ... For such is the immensity of man that he is greater than heaven and earth. — Paracelsus

Any court which undertakes by its legal processes to enforce civil liberties needs the support of an enlightened and vigorous public opinion which will be intelligent and discriminating as to what cases really are civil liberties cases and what questions really are involved in those cases. — Robert H. Jackson

Strength of will is the test of a young man's possibilities. Can he will strong enough and hold whatever he undertakes with an iron grip? — Orison Swett Marden

When a man undertakes a job, he has to stick to it till he finishes it. If — Laura Ingalls Wilder

A wedding is a ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable. — Ambrose Bierce

The corporate approach to agriculture or manufacturing or medicine or war increasingly undertakes to help at the risk of harm, sometimes of great harm. And once the risk of harm is appraised as "acceptable," the result often is absurdity: We destroy a village in order to save it; we destroy freedom in order to save it; we destroy the world in order to live in it. — Wendell Berry

The society which projects and undertakes the technological transformation of nature alters the base of domination by gradually replacing personal dependence (of the slave on the master, the serf on the lord of the manor, the lord on the donor of the fief, etc.) with dependence on the "objective order of things" (on economic laws, the market etc.). — Herbert Marcuse

When a man feels throbbing within him the power to do what he undertakes as well as it can possibly be done, this is happiness, this is success. — Orison Swett Marden

The more things a government undertakes to do, the fewer things it can do completely. When the government tries to do everything it must do everything badly. — Henry Hazlitt

So sanctification isn't something we lean back on, as much as it's something we lean into. Rather than being an action only God can do, all by Himself (the way justification and adoption are), sanctification is an endeavor He undertakes in full cooperation and partnership with us. It requires us to exert what you might call "grace-driven effort" - made possible only by the merciful initiative of God, of course, and yet fully employing our human brains, brawn, and body parts as we go. — Matt Chandler

History, which undertakes to record the transactions of the past, for the instruction of future ages, would ill deserve that honourable office if she condescended to plead the cause of tyrants, or to justify the maxims of persecution. — Edward Gibbon

Who should serve the Lord's Supper? Well in the early church, considering Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 11, the host of the home presumably was the host of the meal, and as I have said, really, the Lord is the host at his own table, not any of us. We are all just participants, we are all celebrants. I don't think there is any biblical warrant for the serving of the Lord's Supper to be confined to ministers, but I do think that anyone who undertakes such a sacred task should be trained to do it in a respectful manner. — Ben Witherington III

We must strive for freedom if we strive for self-knowledge. The task of self-knowledge and of further self-development is of such importance and seriousness, it demands such intensity of effort, that to attempt it any old way and amongst other things is impossible. The person who undertakes this task must put it first in his life, which is not so long that he can afford to squander it on trifles. — G.I. Gurdjieff

When trying a case [the famous judge] L. Cassius never failed to inquire "Who gained by it?" Man's character is such that no one undertakes crimes without hope of gain. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

There are books that a writer undertakes because she wants to go on a journey, and there are journeys a writer undertakes because she wants to write a book. — Dani Shapiro

True thinking takes place within a frame of continuous historical development in which progress in understanding is being made ... No constructive thinking that is worth while can be undertaken that sets at nought the intellectual labours of the centuries that are enshrined in tradition, or be undertaken on the arrogant assumption that everything must be thought through de novo as if nothing true had already been done or said. He who undertakes that kind of work will inevitably be determined unconsciously by the assumptions of popular piety which have already been built into his mind. — T.F. Torrance

Whoever undertakes a long journey, if he be wise, makes it his business to find out an agreeable companion. How cautious then should he be, who is to take a journey for life, whose fellow-traveler must not part with him but at the grave; his companion at bed and board and sharer of all the pleasures and fatigues of his journey, as the wife must be to the husband! She is no such sort of ware, that a man can be rid of when he pleases: when once that is purchased, no exchange, no sale, no alienation can be made. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Think of the hero's journey as perceived by Joseph Campbell. The mythical hero, usually an unlikely male, undertakes a physical journey to an unknown land. One the way, he is faced with a series of challenges that he can meet only through his superior physical strength and cunning. If he succeeds in getting through all the barriers, he wins the prize, which he can then take home for the benefit of his people.

Although this model has some application to the experience of women, it is not adequate to describe what a woman must do in order to live beyond the stultifying expectations of the culture in which she's raised. If she has small children, she can't take a trip or move to a new place, and very rarely is she called upon to beat down her opponent with force. Instead, her journey is an inner one where the demons are her demons of the self. Her task as the heroine is to return from her inner journey and share her knowledge, wisdom, and energy with the people around her. — Helen LaKelly Hunt

He who tells a lie is not sensible of how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one. — Alexander Pope