Undertaking Quotes

To venture upon an undertaking of any kind, even the most insignificant, is to sacrifice to envy. (Emil Cioran)
I realise that in this undertaking I place myself in a certain opposition to views widely held concerning the mathematical infinite and to opinions frequently defended on the nature of numbers. View quote
Georg Cantor
It is a very hard undertaking to seek to please everybody. View quote
Publilius Syrus
Astronomers have a common ground for discussion with musicians in the harmony of the stars and musical concords in tetrads and triads of the fourth and the fifth, and with geometricians in the subject of vision; and in all other sciences many points, perhaps all, are common so far as the discussion of them is concerned. But the actual undertaking of works which are brought to perfection by the hand and its manipulation is the function of those who have been specially trained to deal with a single art. View quote
Vitruvius
Of this voyage, I observe,' says the Admiral, 'that it has miraculously been shown, as may be understood by this writing, by the many signal miracles that He has shown on the voyage, and for me, who for so great a time was in the court of Your Highnesses with the opposition and against the opinion of so many high personages of your household, who were all against me, alleging this undertaking to be folly, which I hope in Our Lord will be to the greater glory of Christianity, which to some slight extent already has happened. View quote
Christopher Columbus
I think anybody who knows how to make a good movie knows that it's a collaborative undertaking. To deny that is really dangerous. View quote
Claire Danes
My undertaking is not difficult, essentially... I should only have to be immortal to carry it out. View quote
Jorge Luis Borges
Canada is either an idea or it does not exist. It is either an intellectual undertaking or it is little more than a resource-rich vacuum lying in the buffer zone just north of a great empire. View quote
John Ralston Saul
No, absolutely not, writing doesn't have to be like a jigsaw puzzle, it can be a very linear undertaking. View quote
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
Among my activities was membership in the Boy Scouts; I rose each year through the ranks, eventually achieving the rank of Eagle Scout and undertaking leadership roles in the organization. View quote
Frederick Reines
To me programming is more than an important practical art. It is also a gigantic undertaking in the foundations of knowledge. (Grace Hopper)
Art, and, above all, music, has a fundamental function, which is to catalyze the sublimation that it can bring about through all means of expression. It must aim through fixations which are landmarks, to draw [one] towards a total exaltation in which the individual mingles, losing his consciousness in a truth immediate, rare, enormous, and perfect. If a work of art succeeds in this undertaking even for a single moment, it attains its goal. View quote
Iannis Xenakis
The Hercules' was a monumental undertaking. It is the largest aircraft ever built... I put the sweat of my life into this thing. View quote
Howard Hughes
I suppose directing on set is the most fun because it's a good crack and you feel you're on the battlefield whereas writing is a fairly solitary undertaking. View quote
Guy Ritchie
One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you'd be stricken blind. To live a visual life is an enormous undertaking, practically unattainable. I have only touched it, just touched it. View quote
Dorothea Lange
My idea of the modern Stoic sage is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into information, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
What can it matter to me, that I succeed or fail? The undertaking is none of mine, if they want me to succeed I'll fail, and vice versa, so as not to be rid of my tormentors. View quote
Samuel Beckett
But by far the greatest obstacle to the progress of science and to the undertaking of new tasks and provinces therein is found in this - that men despair and think things impossible. View quote
Francis Bacon
It is a thorny undertaking, and more so than it seems, to follow a movement so wandering as that of our mind, to penetrate the opaque depths of its innermost folds, to pick out and immobilize the innumerable flutterings that agitate it. View quote
Michel de Montaigne
The greatest events occur without intention playing any part in them; chance makes good mistakes and undoes the most carefully planned undertaking. The world's greatest events are not produced, they happen. View quote
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
A just society must strive with all its might to right wrongs even if righting wrongs is a highly perilous undertaking. But if it is to survive, a just society must be strong and resolute enough to deal swiftly and relentlessly with those who would mistake its good will for weakness. (Eric Hoffer)
The social damage was not in the failure but in the undertaking, which was expensive. The cost of war was the poison running through the 14th century. View quote
Barbara Tuchman
Be your holiness persuaded that I am, and ever shall be, of such moderation as to keep aloof, as far as possible, from every undertaking which may testify any hatred towards the Roman Catholic religion. Nay, rather I will seize all opportunities, by a gentle and generous mode of conduct, to remove all sinister suspicions entirely; so that, as we all confess one undivided Trinity and one Christ crucified, we may be banded together unanimously into one faith. View quote
Charles I of England
I foresee that man will resign himself each day to more atrocious undertakings; soon there will be no one but warriors and brigands; I give them this counsel: The author of an atrocious undertaking ought to imagine that he has already accomplished it, ought to impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past. View quote
Jorge Luis Borges
But as the old confusion of tongues was laudable, when men who were of one language in wickedness and impiety, even as some now venture to be, were building the Tower; for by the confusion of their language the unity of their intention was broken up, and their undertaking destroyed; so much more worthy of praise is the present miraculous one. For being poured from One Spirit upon many men, it brings them again into harmony. And there is a diversity of Gifts, which stands in need of yet another Gift to discern which is the best, where all are praiseworthy. View quote
Gregory of Nazianzus