Undertakings Quotes & Sayings

Their work was done and their undertakings were successful, while the people all said, 'We are as we are, of ourselves! — Lao-Tzu

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings. — Samuel Johnson

In the great undertakings, there is glory, even in failure. — Lee Iacocca

A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men who, even if their action be honest and intended for the public interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings in which their own money is involved and who necessarily, by very reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom. — Woodrow Wilson

Leonardo, with his profound knowledge of art, commenced various undertakings, many of which he never completed, because it appeared to him that the hand could never give due perfection to the object or purpose which he had in his thoughts, or beheld in his imagination - since in his mind he frequently formed some difficult conception, so subtle and so wonderful that no hands, however excellent or able, could ever give it expression — Sherwin B. Nuland

The ... provisional government unwaveringly believes that it can solve all the present problems together with the broad masses of Ethiopia. However, we can do this only if all the people come out in unison to implement our planned undertakings. — Meles Zenawi

Clearly it is not reason that has failed. What has failed-as it has always failed-is the attempt to achieve certainty, to reach an absolute, to find the course of human events to a final end. It is not reason that has promised to eliminate risk in human undertakings; it is the emotional needs of men. — Allen Wheelis

No great work can be achieved by humbug. It is through love, a passion for truth, and tremendous energy, that all undertakings are accomplished. — Swami Vivekananda

It is a very hard undertaking to seek to please everybody. — Publilius Syrus

I am certain that a solution of the general problem of peace must rest on broad and basic understanding on the part of its peoples. Great single endeavors like a League of Nations, a United Nations, and undertakings of that character, are of great importance and in fact absolutely necessary, but they must be treated as steps toward the desired end. — George C. Marshall

The search for Reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings, for it destroys the world in which you live. — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

As in walking it is your great care not to run your foot upon a nail, or to tread awry, and strain your leg; so let it be in all the affairs of human life, not to hurt your mind or offend your judgment. And this rule, if observed carefully in all your deportment, will be a mighty security to you in your undertakings. — Epictetus

It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression. — Eric Hoffer

Therefore, people desirous of attaining happiness, must as a first step be just and honourable, and never offend nor hurt anyone. Then, and then only, can God send them peace and success in all their undertakings, and then only can they be happy without the smallest struggle or effort to attain this natural happiness. — Aimee Dostoyevsky

Thus Arthur achieved the adventure of the sword that day and entered into his birthright of royalty. Wherefore, may God grant His Grace unto you all that ye too may likewise succeed in your undertakings. For any man may be a king in that life in which he is placed if so he may draw forth the sword of success from out of the iron of circumstance. Wherefore when your time of assay cometh, I do hope it may be with you as it was with Arthur that day, and that ye too may achieve success with entire satisfaction unto yourself and to your great glory and perfect happiness. — Howard Pyle

The awakened sages call a person wise when all his undertakings are free from anxiety about results; all his selfish desires have been consumed in the fire of knowledge. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

The ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus taught his students that what happens to them is not as important as what they believe happens to them. In this engaging and provocative book, Eldon Taylor provides his readers with specific ways in which their beliefs can lead to success or failure in their life undertakings. Each chapter provides nuggets of wisdom as well as road maps for guiding them toward greater self-understanding, balance, responsibility, and compassion. — Stanley Krippner

Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings. — Cormac McCarthy

Few moments are more pleasing than those in which the mind is concerting measures for a new undertaking. — Samuel Johnson

This was the argument put forward during the War when the expenditure on the army and navy had to be met; and this was the argument put forward in Germany and Austria after the War when a part of the population had to be provided with cheap food, the losses on the operation of the railways and other public undertakings met, and reparations payments made. The assistance of inflation is invoked whenever a government is unwilling to increase taxation or unable to raise a loan; that is the truth of the matter. — Ludwig Von Mises

My Son, thou art not yet strong and prudent in thy love." 2. Wherefore, O my Lord? 3. "Because for a little opposition thou fallest away from thy undertakings, and too eagerly seekest after consolation. The strong lover standeth fast in temptations, and believeth not the evil persuasions of the enemy. As in prosperity I please him, so in adversity I do not displease. — Thomas A Kempis

Nations, as well as man, almost always betray the most prominent features of their future destiny in their earliest years. When I contemplate the ardour with which the Anglo-Americans prosecute commercial enterprise, the advantages which befriend them, and the success of their undertakings, I cannot refrain from believing that they will one day become the first maritime power of the globe. They are born to rule the seas, as the Romans were to conquer the world. — Alexis De Tocqueville

One must shy away from questionable undertakings, even when they bear a high-sounding name. — Albert Einstein

I told him there was no future for him in this kind of campaign, that anything he said or did would not affect a decision of this matter, that it has never been the policy of the Church to take a stand simply on the basis of popularity.
... I gave him my testimony that no one was more anxious to do the will of the Lord than President Spencer W. Kimball, and that he and his counselors and the members of the Council of the Twelve prayed often for the direction of the Lord in all of their undertakings. I told him that we either have a prophet, or we don't have a prophet. If we have a prophet, we have everything. If we don't have a prophet, then we have nothing. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Joint undertakings stand a better chance when they benefit both sides. — Euripides

Lasting harmony with a woman (was) an undertaking in which I twice failed rather disgracefully. — Albert Einstein

Private enterprise manages better all that to which it is equal. Anarchism declares that private enterprise, whether individual or cooperative, is equal to all the undertakings of society. — Voltairine De Cleyre

And this brings us to our final type of man: the one who asserts himself out of defiance of his own weakness, who tries to be a god unto himself, the master of his fate, a self-created man. He will not be merely the pawn of others, of society; he will not be a passive sufferer and secret dreamer, nursing his own inner flame in oblivion. He will plunge into life,
into the distractions of great undertakings, he will become a restless spirit ... which wants to forget ... Or he will seek forgetfulness in sensuality, perhaps in debauchery ...
At its extreme, defiant self-creation can become demonic, a passion which Kierkegaard calls "demoniac rage," an attack on all of life for what it has dared to do to one, a revolt against existence itself. — Ernest Becker

One of the most arrogant undertakings, to my mind, is to write the biography of a man which pretends to go beyond external facts and gives the inmost motives. One of the most mendacious is autobiography. — Theodor Haecker

For corporations to be bedfellows with the arts is good business for both. The architecture that houses a company is a more visible statement than the president's in the annual report. Ditto interiors, particularly of offices and sometimes, dramatically, in plants. For solvent businesses, support of community cultural undertakings in music, drama, dance creates great goodwill. Also, the existence of such activities is often important to the executives and their families that companies want to keep or attract to keep. — Malcolm Forbes

I do like the thrill of risk-taking, but it's always carefully calculated. I have done many high risk undertakings, but I have always measured the stakes. Not feeding the fear nor the doubt. But I also believe that you need to fuel passion in whatever you do. This is what I am trying to teach my children today. — Guy Laliberte

An undertaking beset with danger. — Horace

In all thy undertakings, let a reasonable assurance animate thy endeavors if thou despairest of success, thou shalt not succeed. — Akhenaton

Say what we may of the inadequacy of translation, yet the work is and will always be one of the weightiest and worthiest undertakings in the general concerns of the world. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Often we allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. We lose many irreplaceable hours brooding over grievances that, in a year's time, will be forgotten by us and by everybody. No, let us devote our life to worthwhile actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections and enduring undertakings. — Andre Maurois

Niel felt tonight that the right man could still save her, even now. She was still her own indomitable self, going through her old part,--but only the stage hands were left to listen to her. All those who had shared in fine undertakings and bright occasions were gone. — Willa Cather

The degree of success that you attain in all of your physical, mental and spiritual undertakings is dependent upon the strength and clarity of your finite mind and your ability to access your infinite mind. — Frederick Lenz

It is this unification and simplification of knowledge that gives us hope for the future of our culture. To the extent that we encourage future generations to understand deeply, to see previously unseen connections, and to follow their conviction that such endeavors are noble undertakings of the human spirit, we will have contributed to a brighter future. — Carver Mead

When I see the elaborate study and ingenuity displayed by women in the pursuit of trifles, I feel no doubt of their capacity for the most herculean undertakings. — Julia Ward Howe

The Machinist ain't exactly loquacious when it comes down to his nefarious undertakings. — Kady Cross

For what is most dreaded is not the agony of dying, nor yet the strange impossibility that when we do not exist we should suffer for not existing. What is dreaded is the defeat of a present will directed upon life and its various undertakings. — George Santanyana

Before embarking on important undertakings sit quietly calm your senses and thoughts and meditate deeply. You will then be guided by the great creative power of Spirit. — Paramahansa Yogananda

I understand you undertake to overthrow my undertaking. — Gertrude Stein

Making a film is an incredibly technical undertaking. — Rose Byrne

God transcends even the undertakings of evangelical theologians. — Karl Barth

The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy. — John Galsworthy

Good government is that which delivers the citizen from being done out of his life and property too arbitrarily and violently-one that relieves him sufficiently from the barbaric business of guarding them to enable him to engage in gentler, more dignified, and more agreeable undertakings ... — H.L. Mencken

The natural effect of low interest is to increase trade and industry; because undertakings of every kind can be prosecuted with greater advantage. — Alexander Hamilton

My freedom thus consists in my moving about within the narrow frame that I have assigned to myself for each one of my undertakings. I shall go even further: my freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees oneself of the claims that shackle the spirit." - Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music — Dennis DeSantis

The best chess-player in Christendom may be little more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist implies capacity for success in all those more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind. — Edgar Allan Poe

All great undertakings are achieved through mighty obstacles. Keep up the deepest mental poise. Take not even the slightest notice of what puerile creatures may be saying against you. — Swami Vivekananda

Is he prepared to support, at his own expense, projects and undertakings designed to help the needy? Is he prepared to pay higher taxes so that public authorities may expand their efforts in the work of development? Is he prepared to pay more for imported goods, so that the foreign producer may make a fairer profit? Is he prepared to emigrate from his homeland if necessary and if he is young, in order to help the emerging nations? — Pope Paul VI

He who shall practice these twenty virtues shall become invincible in all his undertakings. — Chanakya

My freedom consists in my moving about within the narrow frame that I have assigned myself for each one of my undertakings. — Richard Diebenkorn

To hear these defenders of democracy talk, one would think that the people deliberate like a committee of wise men, whereas in truth judicial murders, foolhardy undertakings, wild choices, and above all foolish and disastrous wars are eminently the prerogatives of this form of government.
Study on Sovereignty. — Joseph De Maistre

Make a distinction between positive contingencies, and negative. Learn to distinguish between those human undertakings in which a lack of predictability has been extremely beneficial, and those where failure to understand the future has caused harm. — Nicholas Nassim Taleb

Act non-action; undertake no undertaking; taste the tasteless. — Laozi

All idealists imagine that the causes they serve are fundamentally better than any other causes in the world, and they refuse to believe that if their cause is to flourish at all it requires precisely the same foul-smelling manure that is necessary to all other human undertakings. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Writing is an undertaking for the modest. — Marianne Moore

Few secret undertakings ever did any nation any good. — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

Useful undertakings which require sustained attention and vigorous precision in order to succeed often end up by being abandoned, for, in America, as elsewhere, the people move forward by sudden impulses and short-lived efforts. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Providence has hidden a charm in difficult undertakings, which is appreciated only by those who dare to grapple with them. — Sophie Swetchine

Like it or not, war (cold or hot) is the most powerful funding driver in the public arsenal. Lofty goals such as curiosity, discovery, exploration, and science can get you money for modest-size projects, provided they resonate with the political and cultural views of the moment. But big, expensive activities are inherently long term, and require sustained investment that must survive economic fluctuations and changes in the political winds. In all eras, across time and culture, only war, greed, and the celebration of royal or religious power have fulfilled that funding requirement. Today, the power of kings is supplanted by elected governments, and the power of religion is often expressed in nonarchitectural undertakings, leaving war and greed to run the show. Sometimes those two drivers work hand in hand, as in the art of profiteering from the art of war. But war itself remains the ultimate and most compelling rationale. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Abuse doesn't come from people's inability to resolve conflicts but from one person's decision to claim a higher status than another. So while it is valuable, for example, to teach nonviolent conflict-resolution skills to elementary school students - a popular initiative nowadays - such efforts contribute little by themselves to ending abuse. Teaching equality, teaching a deep respect for all human beings - these are more complicated undertakings, but they are the ones that count. — Lundy Bancroft

Ascendant Frontier had actually been so efficient that it had finished building the Titan before CCP Games had finished all of the code to implement Titans into the game. These ships were such colossal undertakings that CCP assumed they had time to complete the code before anybody could actually build one. The bit of code that allowed Titans to be launched from a capital shipyard hadn't been written yet. Within — Andrew Groen

At the very moment when the world seems to break up we still take it seriously and perform reasonable acts and undertakings, the condemned man still drinks his glass of rum. To call it everyday and condemn it as inauthentic is to fail to recognize the sincerity of hunger and thirst — Emmanuel Levinas

It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings. — Eric Hoffer

Experience shows that nothing is operated with less economy and with more waste of labor and material of every kind than public services and undertakings. Private enterprise on the other hand naturally induces the owner to work with the greatest economy in his own interest. — Ludwig Von Mises

This is the very ecstasy of love, whose violent property ordoes itself and leads the will to desperate undertakings. — William Shakespeare

He smiled. "I suppose I thought we'd have a madly impractical, terrifyingly modern sort of marriage. One based on love. Not to mention dangerous undertakings and hair's-breadth escapes from burning buildings, high ledges and exploding sewers."
"And bickering."
"Always that, yes."
"Assuming I want to marry at all."
"True. I know of no good way of forcing you to do anything."
"And you're mad enough to think it could work - one day?"
He cupped her face in his hands. His smile was so brilliant it seemed to illuminate the room. "I think it would be heaven."
She trembled, then. "You have a very strange idea of heaven."
"Kiss me and see. — Y.S. Lee

If you look at the history of other movements, whether Civil Rights or environmental rights, these are all decades-long undertakings. — Mitch Kapor

Etatism by no means aims at the formal transformation of all ownership of the means of production into State ownership by a complete overthrow of the established legal system. Only the biggest industrial, mining, and transport enterprises are to be nationalized; in agriculture, and in medium- and small-scale industry, private property is nominally to continue. Nevertheless, all enterprises are to become State undertakings in fact. Owners are to be left the title and dignity of ownership, it is true, and to be given a right to the receipt of a 'reasonable' income, 'in accordance with their position'; but, in fact, every business is to be changed into a government office and every livelihood into an official profession. — Ludwig Von Mises

Lack of courage or means often deters the European woman from more independent business activity, and this in spite of increasing freedom to choose her occupation, in spite of brilliant examples of successful undertakings of women, in photography, hotel or boarding-house management, dress-making, etc. — Ellen Key

It is men of desperate fortunes on the one hand, or of aspiring, superior fortunes on the other, who go abroad upon adventures, to rise by enterprise, and make themselves famous in undertakings of a nature out of the common road. — Daniel Defoe

There are many possible interpretations of what it means to create dangerously, and Albert Camus, like the poet Osip Mandelstam, suggests that it is creating as a revolt against silence, creating when both the creation and the reception, the writing and the reading, are dangerous undertakings, disobedience to a directive. — Edwidge Danticat

People are slow to claim confidence in undertakings of magnitude. — Ovid

I have absolutely no histrionic talent, none at all, a constitutional handicap in almost all undertakings of life;but then, after all, plenty of actors possess little enough. — Anthony Powell

We supported the cooperative movement among farmers. The movement was still young and stubbornly opposed to the commercial distributors. I believed it to be one of the most helpful undertakings, for according to my social theories any organization run by citizens for their own welfare is preferable to the same action by the government. — Herbert Hoover

Marriage is an undertaking that requires focused time and attention to prepare effectively. — Laura M. Brotherson

I think that my strong determination for justice comes from the very strong, dynamic personality of my father ... I have rarely ever met a person more fearless and courageous than my father ... The thing that I admire most about my dad is his genuine Christian character. He is a man of real integrity, deeply committed to moral and ethical principles. He is conscientious in all of his undertakings ... If I had a problem I could always call Daddy. — Martin Luther King Jr.

All the great enterprises of the world are run by a few smart men: their aides and associates run down by rapid stages to the level of sheer morons. Everyone knows that this is true of government, but we often forget that it is equally true of private undertakings. In the average great bank, or railroad, or other corporation the burden of management lies upon a small group. The rest are ciphers. — H.L. Mencken

In this shifting landscape, we may tend to forget "what the old folks say." Most of us probably now realize that our ancestors did indeed have it right! Their common-sense ways allowed them to get through the worst of conditions throughout history and still we thrive from their bold undertakings. — Deborah L. Parker

For we Germans are snoring, buried in sleep and wine, and we are destitute of leaders who could measure up in wisdom, strategy, and strength of heart to manage such great undertakings. — Martin Luther

I sat on a somewhat higher sand dune and watched the eastern sky. Dawn in Mongolia was an amazing thing. In one instant, the horizon became a faint line suspended in the darkness, and then the line was drawn upward, higher and higher. It was as if a giant hand had stretched down from the sky and slowly lifted the curtain of night from the face of the earth. It was a magnificent sight, far greater in scale, [ ... ] than anything that I, with my limited human faculties, could comprehend. As I sat and watched, the feeling overtook me that my very life was slowly dwindling into nothingness. There was no trace here of anything as insignificant as human undertakings. This same event had been occurring hundreds of millions - hundreds of billions - of times, from an age long before there had been anything resembling life on earth. — Haruki Murakami

The men who rush into undertakings of vast change usually feel they are in possession of some irresistible power. The generation that made the French Revolution had an extravagant conception of the omnipotence of man's reason and the boundless range of his intelligence. Never, says de Tocqueville, had humanity been prouder of itself nor had it ever so much faith in its own omnipotence. — Eric Hoffer

Fear can be one of the most destructive emotions. It is, of course, also very important, in that fear sometimes stops you from doing stupid things. But it can also stop you from doing creative or exciting or experimental things. It can cloud your judgement of others, and lead to all kinds of evil. The control and understanding of our personal fears is one of the most important undertakings of our lives. — Helen Mirren

Is Abundant Success in all his honest undertakings. — George Morgan

When Heaven is about to confer a great office on a man, it first exercises his mind with suffering, and his sinews and bones with toil ; it exposes his body to hunger, and subjects him to extreme poverty ; it confounds his undertakings. By all these methods it stimulates his mind, hardens his nature, and supplies his incompetencies. — Mencius

The secret of all great undertakings is hard work and self-reliance — Gustavus Franklin Swift

But the bequest is involved in legal disputes, and pending them the work has stopped; so that like many other great undertakings in America, even this is rather going to be done one of these days, than doing now. — Charles Dickens

It is impossible to know when a fish swimming in water drinks some of it. Thus it's quite impossible to find out when government servants in charge of undertakings misappropriate money. — Ashwin Sanghi

Taken altogether, Washington as a city is most unsatisfactory, and falls more grievously short of the thing attempted than any other of the great undertakings of which I have seen anything in the United States. — Anthony Trollope

I'm used to doing big undertakings with my own money. — David H. Murdock

Industrial production, the flow of resources in the economy, the exertion of military effort in a war, the management of finances
all require the coordination of interrelated activities. What these complex undertakings share in common is the task of constructing a statement of actions to be performed, their timing and quantity (called a program or schedule), that, if implemented, would move the system from a given initial status as much as possible towards some defined goal — George Dantzig

Writing, when all is said and done, is an attempt to understand one's own circumstance and to clarify the confusion of existence, including insecurities that do not torment normal people, only chronic nonconformists, many of whom end up as writers after having failed in other undertakings. — Isabel Allende

The room had lost its morning light, the glow of expectation and potential. The daylight was now gray, and the new day was already used, a little soiled by mistaken thoughts and makeshift undertakings. — Tove Jansson

Today I can joyfully say that one of the best undertakings I have ever made was to study the subject of responsibility — Sunday Adelaja

In order to have a large number of values in common, all the members of the group must have an equable opportunity, to receive and to take from others. There must be a large variety of shared undertakings and experiences. Otherwise, the influences which educate some into masters, educates others into slaves. — John Dewey

But what most astonishes me in the United States, is not so much the marvelous grandeur of some undertakings, as the innumerable multitude of small ones. — Alexis De Tocqueville

It is the noble races that have left behind them the concept 'barbarian' wherever they have gone; even their highest culture betrays a consciousness of it and even a pride in it (for example, when Pericles says to the Athenians in his famous funeral oration 'our boldness has gained access to every land and sea, everywhere raising imperishable monuments to its goodness and wickedness). This 'boldness' of noble races, mad, absurd, and sudden in its expression, the incalculability, even incredibility of their undertakings - Pericles specially commends the rhathymia of the Athenians - their indifference to and contempt for security, body, life, comfort, their hair-raising cheerfulness and profound joy in all destruction, in all the voluptuousness of victory and cruelty - all this came together, in the minds of those who suffered from it, in the image of the 'barbarian,' the 'evil enemy,' perhaps as the 'Goths,' the 'Vandals. — Friedrich Nietzsche