Jung and the Story of Our Time, Laurens van der Post (1977)
Quotes about task
page 2
Barack Obama: "The President's News Conference With Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the Untied Kingdom in London, England," April 1, 2009. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=85953&st=&st1=
2009
2009, A New Beginning (June 2009)
May 1, 1945, quoted in "Memoirs: Ten Years And Twenty Days" - Page 445 - by Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz - History - 1997.
My Fairy
Useful and Instructive Poetry (1845)
Section 277
2010s, 2013, Evangelii Gaudium · The Joy of the Gospel
Jesus' Course in Miracles (2000) by Helen Schucman and William Thetford, Ch. 16 The Forgiveness of Illusions, p. 162
"A Way Forward in Iraq", Remarks to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (20 November 2006)
2006
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Groundbreaking Ceremony (13 November 2006)
2006
Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)
Ah a frescura na face de não cumprir um dever!
Faltar é positivamente estar no campo!
Que refúgio o não se poder ter confiança em nós!
Respiro melhor agora que passaram as horas dos encontros,
Faltei a todos, com uma deliberação do desleixo,
Fiquei esperando a vontade de ir para lá, que'eu saberia que não vinha.
Sou livre, contra a sociedade organizada e vestida.
Estou nu, e mergulho na água da minha imaginação.
E tarde para eu estar em qualquer dos dois pontos onde estaria à mesma hora,
Deliberadamente à mesma hora...
Está bem, ficarei aqui sonhando versos e sorrindo em itálico.
É tão engraçada esta parte assistente da vida!
Até não consigo acender o cigarro seguinte... Se é um gesto,
Fique com os outros, que me esperam, no desencontro que é a vida.
Álvaro de Campos (heteronym), "A Frescura" (1929), in Fernando Pessoa & Co: Selected Poems, trans. Richard Zenith (Grove Press, 1998)
Letter to a round-robin letter-writing group called "the Coryciani" (14 July 1936), quoted in Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters edited by S.T. Joshi, p. 339
Non-Fiction, Letters
"The Progressive Covenant With The People" http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/papr:@filreq(@field(NUMBER+@band(trrs+1146))+@field(COLLID+roosevelt)) speech (August 1912)
1910s
Context: Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare they have become the tools of corrupt interests, which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.
Truth and Knowledge http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA003/TaK/GA003_index.html, preface
2015, Naturalization Ceremony speech (December 2015)
Remarks by President Obama in Address to the United Nations General Assembly (24 September 2013) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/09/24/remarks-president-obama-address-united-nations-general-assembly
2013
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), Address on the Strategic Defense Initiative (1983)
April 30, 1945, quoted in "Memoirs: Ten Years And Twenty Days" - Page 442 - by Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz - History - 1997.
Foreword of Name Reactions in Heterocyclic Chemistry (2004) by Jie Jack Li
Der des Jargons Kundige braucht nicht zu sagen, was er denkt, nicht einmal recht es zu denken: das nimmt der Jargon ihm ab und entwertet den Gedanken.
Source: Jargon der Eigentlichkeit [Jargon of Authenticity] (1964), p. 9
2009, First Inaugural Address (January 2009)
Other
Source: 1970s, "Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems," 1976, p. 17
“For it is an ordinance of nature that nothing great can be achieved in a moment, and that all the fairest tasks are attended with difficulty, while on births as well she has imposed this law, that the larger the animal, the longer should be the period of gestation.”
Nihil enim rerum ipsa natura voluit magnum effici cito, praeposuitque pulcherrimo cuique operi difficultatem: quae nascendi quoque hanc fecerit legem, ut maiora animalia diutius visceribus parentis continerentur.
Book X, Chapter III, 4; translation by H. E. Butler
Compare: Natura non facit saltus
De Institutione Oratoria (c. 95 AD)
1860s, Speech in Independence Hall (1861)
Source: The Chronicles of Prydain (1964–1968), Book V : The High King (1968), Chapter 21 (closing words)
2012, Sandy Hook Prayer Vigil (December 2012)
“One of the most difficult of the philosopher's tasks is to find out where the shoe pinches.”
Source: 1910s, Notebooks 1914-1916, p. 61
Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1961), pp. 95-96
Speech to the US Congress (13 October 1949)
2013, Fifth State of the Union Address (February 2013)
Vorlesungen über analytische Mechanik [Lectures on Analytical Mechanics] (1847/48; edited by Helmut Pulte in 1996).
Alice's Adventures Under Ground (1886), Introduction, p. v
2012, Re-election Speech (November 2012)
Stanford v. Kentucky (1989) (plurality part, case later overruled by Roper); decided June 26, 1989.
1980s
Source: 1930s, Power: A New Social Analysis (1938), Ch. 18: The Taming of Power
Source: Against the Heavenly Prophets in the Matter of Images and Sacraments (1525), pp. 84-85
in a letter from to his art-dealer Durand-Ruel, 30 March 1893; as quoted in: Christoph Heinrich (2000), Monet, p. 57
1890 - 1900
"The City in Modern Life", Literary Essays (vol. 12 of The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, national ed., 1926), p. 226. Book review in The Atlantic Monthly (April 1895)
1890s
“Your task is not to foresee the future, but to enable it.”
Citadelle or The Wisdom of the Sands (1948)
Verwoerd in 1963, as quoted and translated by J. J. Venter in H.F. Verwoerd: Foundational aspects of his thought, Koers 64(4) 1999: 415–442
As quoted in Federalism and the French Canadians (1968) by Pierre Trudeau, p. 175
“Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man's task.”
Book I, ch. 27.
Discourses
Context: Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man's task.
Only the final bold section is connected to Laozi (see Ch. 17 of Tao Te Ching above). The origin of the added first section is unclear.
Misattributed
Variant: A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.
Context: "Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. With the best leaders when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say, "We have done this ourselves."
1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: All of us, no matter from what land our parents came, no matter in what way we may severally worship our Creator, must stand shoulder to shoulder in a united America for the elimination of race and religious prejudice. We must stand for a reign of equal justice to both big and small. We must insist on the maintenance of the American standard of living. We must stand for an adequate national control which shall secure a better training of our young men in time of peace, both for the work of peace and for the work of war. We must direct every national resource, material and spiritual, to the task not of shirking difficulties, but of training our people to overcome difficulties. Our aim must be, not to make life easy and soft, not to soften soul and body, but to fit us in virile fashion to do a great work for all mankind. This great work can only be done by a mighty democracy, with these qualities of soul, guided by those qualities of mind, which will both make it refuse to do injustice to any other nation, and also enable it to hold its own against aggression by any other nation. In our relations with the outside world, we must abhor wrongdoing, and disdain to commit it, and we must no less disdain the baseness of spirit which lamely submits to wrongdoing. Finally and most important of all, we must strive for the establishment within our own borders of that stern and lofty standard of personal and public neutrality which shall guarantee to each man his rights, and which shall insist in return upon the full performance by each man of his duties both to his neighbor and to the great nation whose flag must symbolize in the future as it has symbolized in the past the highest hopes of all mankind.
Light (1919), Ch. XXIII - Face To Face
Context: To understand life, and love it to its depths in a living being, that is the being's task, and that his masterpiece; and each of us can hardly occupy his time so greatly as with one other; we have only one true neighbor down here.
“One of the tasks we have set ourselves”
Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought Acceptance Speech (2013)
Context: Freedom of thought,…freedom of thought is essential to human progress. If we stop freedom of thought, we stop progress in our world. Because of this it is so important that we teach our children, our young people, the importance of freedom of thought. Freedom of thought begins with the right to ask questions. And this right our people in Burma have not had for so long that some of our young people do not quite know how to ask questions. One of the tasks we have set ourselves, in my party, the National League for Democracy is to teach our people to ask questions, not to accept everything that is done to them without asking why.
Letter to Moritz von Egidy (c. January 1894) - Original German text online http://www.lilienthal-museum.de/olma/l1852.htm
Context: I, too, have made it a lifelong task of mine to add a cultural element to my work, which should result in uniting countries and reconciling their people. Our experience of today's civilisation suffers from the fact that it only happens on the surface of the earth. We have invented barricades between our countries, custom regulations and constraints and complicated traffic laws and these are only possible because we are not in control of the 'kingdom of the air', and not as 'free as a bird'.
Numerous technicians in every state are doing their utmost to achieve the dream of free, unlimited flight and it is precisely here where changes can be made which would have a radical effect on our whole way of life. The borders between countries would lose their significance, because they could not be closed off from each other. Linguistic differences would disappear, as human mobility increased. National defence would cease to devour the best resources of nations as it would become impossible in itself. And the necessity of resolving disagreements among nations in some other way than by bloody battles would, in its turn, lead us to eternal peace.
We are getting closer to this goal. When we will reach it, I do not know.
1830s, The Lyceum Address (1838)
Context: We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them; they are a legacy bequeathed us by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed, race of ancestors. Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves us, of this goodly land, and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; 'tis ours only to transmit these — the former unprofaned by the foot of an invader, the latter undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation — to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.
Preface to ' (1859).
Context: In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material forces of production. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society — the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life determines the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. [Es ist nicht das Bewußtsein der Menschen, das ihr Sein, sondern umgekehrt ihr gesellschaftliches Sein, das ihr Bewusstsein bestimmt. ] At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces in society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression for the same thing — with the property relations within which they have been at work before. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations a distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic — in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so we can not judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social productive forces and the relations of production. No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore, mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, we will always find that the task itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation. In broad outlines we can designate the Asiatic, the ancient, the feudal, and the modern bourgeois modes of production as so many progressive epochs in the economic formation of society. The bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production — antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism, but of one arising from the social conditions of life of the individuals; at the same time the productive forces developing in the womb of bourgeois society create the material conditions for the solution of that antagonism. This social formation constitutes, therefore, the closing chapter of the prehistoric stage of human society.
2011, Address on interventions in Libya (March 2011)
Context: There is no question that Libya — and the world — would be better off with Qaddafi out of power. I, along with many other world leaders, have embraced that goal, and will actively pursue it through non-military means. But broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.
The task that I assigned our forces — to protect the Libyan people from immediate danger, and to establish a no-fly zone — carries with it a U. N. mandate and international support. It’s also what the Libyan opposition asked us to do. If we tried to overthrow Qaddafi by force, our coalition would splinter. We would likely have to put U. S. troops on the ground to accomplish that mission, or risk killing many civilians from the air. The dangers faced by our men and women in uniform would be far greater. So would the costs and our share of the responsibility for what comes next.
E. Jephcott, trans. (1974), § 1
Minima Moralia (1951)
Context: The son of well-to-do parents who … engages in a so-called intellectual profession, as an artist or a scholar, will have a particularly difficult time with those bearing the distasteful title of colleagues. It is not merely that his independence is envied, the seriousness of his intentions mistrusted, that he is suspected of being a secret envoy of the established powers. … The real resistance lies elsewhere. The occupation with things of the mind has by now itself become “practical,” a business with strict division of labor, departments and restricted entry. The man of independent means who chooses it out of repugnance for the ignominy of earning money will not be disposed to acknowledge the fact. For this he is punished. He … is ranked in the competitive hierarchy as a dilettante no matter how well he knows his subject, and must, if he wants to make a career, show himself even more resolutely blinkered than the most inveterate specialist. The urge to suspend the division of labor which, within certain limits, his economic situation enables him to satisfy, is thought particularly disreputable: it betrays a disinclination to sanction the operations imposed by society, and domineering competence permits no such idiosyncrasies. The departmentalization of mind is a means of abolishing mind where it is not exercised ex officio, under contract. It performs this task all the more reliably since anyone who repudiates this division of labor—if only by taking pleasure in his work—makes himself vulnerable by its standards, in ways inseparable from elements of his superiority. Thus is order ensured: some have to play the game because they cannot otherwise live, and those who could live otherwise are kept out because they do not want to play the game.
2012
Context: “Assume that in 30 minutes you will stop being president. I will take your place. Prepare me. Teach me how to be president.”
This was the third time I’d put the question to him, in one form or another. The first time, a month earlier in this same cabin, he’d had a lot of trouble getting his mind around the idea that I, not he, was president. He’d started by saying something he knew to be dull and expected but that—he insisted—was nevertheless perfectly true. “Here is what I would tell you,” he’d said. “I would say that your first and principal task is to think about the hopes and dreams the American people invested in you. Everything you are doing has to be viewed through this prism. And I tell you what every president … I actually think every president understands this responsibility. I don’t know George Bush well. I know Bill Clinton better. But I think they both approached the job in that spirit.” Then he added that the world thinks he spends a lot more time worrying about political angles than he actually does.
2013, Second Inaugural Address (January 2013)
1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), National Duties
Context: Barbarism has, and can have, no place in a civilized world. It is our duty toward the people living in barbarism to see that they are freed from their chains, and we can free them only by destroying barbarism itself. The missionary, the merchant, and the soldier may each have to play a part in this destruction, and in the consequent uplifting of the people. Exactly as it is the duty of a civilized power scrupulously to respect the rights of all weaker civilized powers and gladly to help those who are struggling toward civilization, so it is its duty to put down savagery and barbarism. As in such a work human instruments must be used, and as human instruments are imperfect, this means that at times there will be injustice; that at times merchant or soldier, or even missionary, may do wrong. Let us instantly condemn and rectify such wrong when it occurs, and if possible punish the wrongdoer. But shame, thrice shame to us, if we are so foolish as to make such occasional wrongdoing an excuse for failing to perform a great and righteous task. Not only in our own land, but throughout the world, throughout all history, the advance of civilization has been of incalculable benefit to mankind, and those through whom it has advanced deserve the highest honor. All honor to the missionary, all honor to the soldier, all honor to the merchant who now in our own day have done so much to bring light into the world’s dark places.
1860s, Illinois Farewell Address (1861)
Context: My friends — No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe every thing. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being, who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him, who can go with me, and remain with you and be every where for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.
2013, Fifth State of the Union Address (February 2013)
Context: The American people don’t expect government to solve every problem. They don’t expect those of us in this chamber to agree on every issue. But they do expect us to put the nation’s interests before party. They do expect us to forge reasonable compromise where we can. For they know that America moves forward only when we do so together, and that the responsibility of improving this union remains the task of us all.
“We depend on our words… Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others.”
Quoted in Philosophy of Science Vol. 37 (1934), p. 157, and in The Truth of Science : Physical Theories and Reality (1997) by Roger Gerhard Newton, p. 176
Context: What is it that we humans depend on? We depend on our words... Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others. We must strive continually to extend the scope of our description, but in such a way that our messages do not thereby lose their objective or unambiguous character … We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down. The word "reality" is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly.
72
Golden Sayings of Epictetus
Variant: It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
2011, Address on interventions in Libya (March 2011)
Context: As Commander-in-Chief, I have no greater responsibility than keeping this country safe. And no decision weighs on me more than when to deploy our men and women in uniform. I’ve made it clear that I will never hesitate to use our military swiftly, decisively, and unilaterally when necessary to defend our people, our homeland, our allies and our core interests. That's why we’re going after al Qaeda wherever they seek a foothold. That is why we continue to fight in Afghanistan, even as we have ended our combat mission in Iraq and removed more than 100,000 troops from that country.
There will be times, though, when our safety is not directly threatened, but our interests and our values are. Sometimes, the course of history poses challenges that threaten our common humanity and our common security — responding to natural disasters, for example; or preventing genocide and keeping the peace; ensuring regional security, and maintaining the flow of commerce. These may not be America’s problems alone, but they are important to us. They’re problems worth solving. And in these circumstances, we know that the United States, as the world’s most powerful nation, will often be called upon to help.
In such cases, we should not be afraid to act — but the burden of action should not be America’s alone. As we have in Libya, our task is instead to mobilize the international community for collective action. Because contrary to the claims of some, American leadership is not simply a matter of going it alone and bearing all of the burden ourselves. Real leadership creates the conditions and coalitions for others to step up as well; to work with allies and partners so that they bear their share of the burden and pay their share of the costs; and to see that the principles of justice and human dignity are upheld by all.
Remarks after the Solvay Conference (1927)
Context: In mathematics we can take our inner distance from the content of our statements. In the final analysis mathematics is a mental game that we can play or not play as we choose. Religion, on the other hand, deals with ourselves, with our life and death; its promises are meant to govern our actions and thus, at least indirectly, our very existence. We cannot just look at them impassively from the outside. Moreover, our attitude to religious questions cannot be separated from our attitude to society. Even if religion arose as the spiritual structure of a particular human society, it is arguable whether it has remained the strongest social molding force through history, or whether society, once formed, develops new spiritual structures and adapts them to its particular level of knowledge. Nowadays, the individual seems to be able to choose the spiritual framework of his thoughts and actions quite freely, and this freedom reflects the fact that the boundaries between the various cultures and societies are beginning to become more fluid. But even when an individual tries to attain the greatest possible degree of independence, he will still be swayed by the existing spiritual structures — consciously or unconsciously. For he, too, must be able to speak of life and death and the human condition to other members of the society in which he's chosen to live; he must educate his children according to the norms of that society, fit into its life. Epistemological sophistries cannot possibly help him attain these ends. Here, too, the relationship between critical thought about the spiritual content of a given religion and action based on the deliberate acceptance of that content is complementary. And such acceptance, if consciously arrived at, fills the individual with strength of purpose, helps him to overcome doubts and, if he has to suffer, provides him with the kind of solace that only a sense of being sheltered under an all-embracing roof can grant. In that sense, religion helps to make social life more harmonious; its most important task is to remind us, in the language of pictures and parables, of the wider framework within which our life is set.
May 5, 1908; The State Duma; P. A. Stolypin's speech about Finland.
Source: https://ru.citaty.net/tsitaty/484174-piotr-arkadevich-stolypin-narody-zabyvaiut-inogda-o-svoikh-natsionalnykh-zadacha/
Source: https://histrf.ru/lichnosti/biografii/p/stolypin-pietr-arkad-ievich
Source: http://www.myshared.ru/slide/138476/
Source: https://politus.ru/v-rossii/937-citaty-pastolypina.html
Source: https://books.google.ru/books?id=3iSeDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT216&lpg=PT216&dq=%D0%9D%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%8B+%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%B1%D1%8B%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%8E%D1%82+%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%B4%D0%B0+%D0%BE+%D1%81%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B8%D1%85+%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D1%8B%D1%85+%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B0%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%85;+%D0%BD%D0%BE+%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B5+%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%8B+%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0%B1%D0%BD%D1%83%D1%82,+%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B8+%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%89%D0%B0%D1%8E%D1%82%D1%81%D1%8F+%D0%B2+%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B5%D0%BC,+%D0%B2+%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5,+%D0%BD%D0%B0+%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BC+%D0%B2%D1%8B%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%8E%D1%82+%D0%B8+%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BF%D0%BD%D1%83%D1%82+%D0%B4%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0%B5,+%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B5+%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B5+%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%8B&source=bl&ots=bf14PULA74&sig=ACfU3U3rVMX-mwa8NstIIW64SFRW_P3xFA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiiv8fSmuLmAhWk1aYKHa5lCU8Q6AEwBnoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=%D0%9D%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%8B%20%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%B1%D1%8B%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%8E%D1%82%20%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%B4%D0%B0%20%D0%BE%20%D1%81%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B8%D1%85%20%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D1%8B%D1%85%20%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B0%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%85%3B%20%D0%BD%D0%BE%20%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B5%20%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%8B%20%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0%B1%D0%BD%D1%83%D1%82%2C%20%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B8%20%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%89%D0%B0%D1%8E%D1%82%D1%81%D1%8F%20%D0%B2%20%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B5%D0%BC%2C%20%D0%B2%20%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5%2C%20%D0%BD%D0%B0%20%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BC%20%D0%B2%D1%8B%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%8E%D1%82%20%D0%B8%20%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BF%D0%BD%D1%83%D1%82%20%D0%B4%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0%B5%2C%20%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B5%20%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B5%20%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%8B&f=false
Probably 1901. Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historical Site -- National Park Service https://www.nps.gov/thri/learn/historyculture/index.htm
1900s
Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers (1949)
As quoted in " 4 Takeaways from Xi Jinping’s Speech Defending Communist Party Control https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/world/asia/xi-china-speech-takeaways.html" The New York Times
2010s
1900s, "The Study of Mathematics" (November 1907)
Section 1 : The Meaning of Life
Life and Destiny (1913)
"Inaugural address of Premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki" https://polishfreedom.pl/en/document/statement-inaugural-address-of-the-prime-minister-tadeusz-mazowiecki-delivered-at-the-seym-session-on-12th-september-1989 (12 September 1989)
“Our first and final task will be to meditate upon the truest name of God.”
Only the final bold section is connected to Laozi (see Ch. 17 of Tao Te Ching above). The origin of the added first section is unclear.
Misattributed
“To love well is the task in all meaningful relationships, not just romantic bonds.”
Source: All About Love: New Visions
Source: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide: Five Complete Novels and One Story
“Man’s main task is to give birth to himself.”