Tasks Quotes - Page 33

• [H]ow do I pity those who (assuming the name of friends) surround themselves with maxims importing the wisdom of doubt and suspicion, 'til they impose on themselves that very hard task of laboring through life without ever knowing a human creature to whom they can make the proper use of language and freely speak the dictates of their hearts!

  Sarah Fielding

  Friendship, Heart, Names

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• Thoroughly to unfold the labyrinths of the human mind is an arduous task.... In order to dive into those recesses and lay them open to the reader in a striking and intelligible manner, 'tis necessary to assume a certain freedom in writing, not strictly perhaps within the limits prescribed by rules.

  Sarah Fielding

  Writing, Order, Mind

  Sarah Fielding, Christopher D. Johnson (1757). “The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia”, p.33, Bucknell University Press

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• I discovered when I went all out, when I put 100 percent of my energy into some intense, impossible task - when my heart was jack-hammering, when lactic acid was sizzling through my muscles - that's when I felt good, normal, balanced.

  Daniel Coyle

  Heart, Energy, Acid

  Daniel Coyle, Tyler Hamilton (2012). “The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs”, p.19, Random House

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• Almost all scholarly research carries practical and political implications. Better that we should spell these out ourselves than leave that task to people with a vested interest in stressing only some of the implications and falsifying others. The idea that academics should remain "above the fray" only gives ideologues license to misuse our work.

  Stephanie Coontz

  Stress, Ideas, People

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• Wittgenstein imagined that the philosopher was like a therapist whose task was to put problems finally to rest, and to cure us ofbeing bewitched by them. So we are told to stop, to shut off lines of inquiry, not to find things puzzling nor to seek explanations. This is intellectual suicide.

  Simon Blackburn

  Suicide, Philosophical, Intellectual

  Simon Blackburn (1993). “Essays in Quasi-Realism”, p.51, Oxford University Press

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• We must not leap to the fatalistic conclusion that we are stuck with the conceptual scheme that we grew up in. We can change it, bit by bit, plank by plank, though meanwhile there is nothing to carry us along but the evolving conceptual scheme itself. The philosopher's task was well compared by Neurath to that of a mariner who must rebuild his ship on the open sea.

  Willard Van Orman Quine

  Philosophical, Sea, Ships

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• Indeed, to spur your Baal to action, I will taunt and challenge you ... to create as much as a single frog in the name and by the power of free choice, though the heathen and ungodly magicians in Egypt were able to create many.... I will not set you the heavy task of creating lice, which they could not produce either

  Martin Luther

  Egypt, Names, Creating

  Martin Luther, Desiderius Erasmus, Ernest Gordon Rupp, Philip Saville Watson (1969). “Luther and Erasmus: Free will and salvation”, Westminster John Knox Press

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• It is the task of the scenarist to invent little pieces of business that are so characteristic and give so deep an insight into his creatures, that their personalities clearly and organically unfold before the eyes of the audience so that the latter feel that the actions of these people are contingent upon their characters, that there exists some kind of a logical fate, and that nothing is left to mere accident or coincidence.

  Ernst Lubitsch

  Eye, Character, Fate

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• Our task as we grow older in a rapidly advancing science, is to retain the capacity of joy in discoveries which correct older ideas, and to learn from our pupils as we teach them.

  Hans Zinsser

  Learning, Discovery, Ideas

  Hans Zinsser (1940). “As I Remember Him”

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• The child's personality is a product of slow gradual growth. His nervous system matures by stages and natural sequences. He sits before he stands; he babbles before he talks; he fabricates before he tells the truth; he draws a circle before he draws a square; he is selfish before he is altruistic; he is dependent on others before he achieves dependence on self. All of his abilities, including his morals, are subject to laws of growth. The task of child care is not to force him into a predetermined pattern but to guide his growth.

  Arnold Gesell

  Baby, Children, Selfish

  Arnold Gesell, Frances Lillian Ilg (1951). “Infant and Child in the Culture of Today: The Guidance of Development in Home and Nursery School (From the Former Clinic of Child Development, School of Medicine at Yale University)”

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• The practice sessions of aspiring champions have a specific and never-changing purpose: Progress.  Every second of every minute of every hour, the goal is to extend one's mind and body, to push oneself beyond the outer limits of one's capacities, to engage so deeply in the task that one leaves the training session, literally, a changed person.

  Matthew Syed

  Motivational, Sports, Practice

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• Teaching high school in an inner-city school is not an easy task. Every teacher is responsible for 150 teenagers. The amount of work is just mind-boggling. Remember, you're not just doing a job. You have these kids' futures in your hand; you have to inspire them.

  Tony Danza

  Teacher, Jobs, Teenager

  "Q&A: Tony Danza on Don Jon, Fake Deaths, and Scarlett Johansson". Interview with Danielle Bacher, www.esquire.com. September 27, 2013.

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• The real leaders intend to do definitely that good task for which a pretender has provoked them by saying that it can't be done, but the good number of pretenders tend to do only that job for which a real leader has cautioned them by showing the things that should not be done.

  Anuj

  Jobs, Real, Numbers

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• Serious journalists often imagine society is adrift because people don't know certain things. Yet often, they know but just don't care. So the task of serious journalism isn't just to lay out truths. It is to make vital truths compelling to a big audience.

  Alain de Botton

  People, Care, Adrift

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• I am no preacher of the old legal Sabbath. I am a preacher of the gospel. The Sabbath of the Jew is to him a task; the Lord's Day of the Christian, the first day of the week, is to him a joy, a day of rest, of peace, and of thanksgiving. And if you Christian men can earnestly drive away all distractions, so that you can really rest today, it will be good for your bodies, good for your souls, good mentally, good spiritually, good temporally, and good eternally.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Christian, Men, Joy

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• Cooking with your kids and engaging them in hands-on activities are two ways to begin to educate children about the healthy eating, and kick start the important task to help change how the younger generation looks at food and nutrition.

  Marcus Samuelsson

  Children, Kids, Hands

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• No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition and both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.

  John F. Kennedy

  Dedication, People, Support

  Address to the American Newspaper Publishers, delivered 27 April 1961, Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York

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• As all entrepreneurs know, you live and die by your ability to prioritize. You must focus on the most important, mission-critical tasks each day and night, and then share, delegate, delay or skip the rest.

  Jessica Jackley

  Night, Focus, Entrepreneur

  "PREGNANT FOUNDER'S RESPONSE TO VC: "I've Never Heard Someone Say 'An Expectant Father/CEO Will Fail'" by Alyson Shontell, www.businessinsider.com. April 20, 2011.

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• If you stand with the Customs and Border Protection officers who staff the passport booths at Dulles airport near the nation's capital, their task seems daunting.

  David K. Shipler

  Airports, Borders, Protection

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• I know no other way to associate with great tasks than as play: as a sign of greatness, this is an essential presupposition.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Greatness, Play, Essentials

  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1989). “On the Genealogy of Morals”, Vintage

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• Expediency of literature, reason of literature, lawfulness of writing down a thought, is questioned; much is to say on both sides,and, while the fight waxes hot, thou, dearest scholar, stick to thy foolish task, add a line every hour, and between whiles add a line.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Writing, Fighting, Hot

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.209, Penguin

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• The object of convalescence ought to be to turn our attention to life: at other times, simply to our tasks!

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Attention, Recuperation, Turns

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• For the most part, only the light characters travel. Who are you that have no task to keep you at home?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Travel, Home, Character

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume II”, p.392

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• Censorship is not an occupation that attracts intelligent, subtle minds. Censors can and often have been outwitted. But the game of slipping Aesopian messages past the censor is ultimately a sterile one, diverting writers from their proper task.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Intelligent, Past, Games

  J. M. Coetzee (1997). “Giving Offense: Essays on Censorship”, p.8, University of Chicago Press

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• To televisionize any serious problem, the program directors face the task of making the message 'go down smooth' until the audience is delivered to the commercial.

  Arlie Russell Hochschild

  Directors, Faces, Messages

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