|
Action |
|
| "Do something. Either lead,
follow or get out of the way." |
| -- Ted Turner, (1938- ),
American business executive, sports enthusiast |
|
| "Plunge boldly into the thick
of life!" |
| -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(1749-1832), German author, scientist |
|
| "Well done is better than well
said." |
| -- Benjamin Franklin |
|
|
"Let deeds match words." |
| -- Plato
(428?-347? BC), Greek philosopher |
|
| "An acre of performance is
worth a whole world of promises." |
| -- W. D. Howells |
|
| "Action is at bottom a
swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep
afloat." |
| -- Eric Hoffer (1902-83), American
philosopher |
|
|
"Think like a man of
action. Act like a man of thought." |
|
-- Henri Bergson (1859-1941),
French philosopher |
|
| "To think is easy. To act is
difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult of all." |
| -- Goethe |
|
| “It is the mark of a good action
that it appears inevitable, in retrospect.” |
| -- Robert Louis Stevenson |
|
| "A life of reaction is a life
of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One must fight for a
life of action, not reaction." |
| -- Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944),
American writer |
|
| "In doing something, do it
with love or never do it at all." |
| -- "Mahatma" Gandhi (1869-1948),
India nationalist |
|
| “So
act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the
whole world.” |
| -- Immanuel Kant (1724-1804),
German philosopher |
|
|
"I never worry about
action, only inaction." |
|
-- Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British Prime Minister, author |
|
| "We cannot seek or attain
health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is
always specific, concrete, individualized, unique." |
| -- John Dewey (1859-1952), American
philosopher |
|
| “In
each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and
future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relation of
all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.” |
| -- Blaise Pascal |
|
| "The happiness and unhappiness
of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on
what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but
in doing." |
| -- Marcus Aurelius (121-180), Roman Emperor, philosopher |
|
| "Inaction
breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you
want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and
get busy." |
| -- Dale Carnegie (1888-1955),
American author |
|
| “Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant.
It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of
interest.” |
| --
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986), American artist |
|
|
"Heaven never helps the men
who will not act." |
|
-- Sophocles
(496?-406? BC), Athenian dramatist |
|
| “The
self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous
formation through choice of action.” |
| -- John Dewey (1859-1952), American
philosopher |
|
| “A
man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can
do, nothing else.” |
| -- Andre Malraux, (1901-1976),
French novelist, political activist |
|
| "Here I stand; I can do no
otherwise. God help me. Amen!" |
| -- Martin Luther (1483-1546),
German theologian, religious reformer |
|
|
"Just Do It!" |
|
-- Nike Commercial
|
|
| "The superior man is modest in
his speech, but excels in his actions." |
| -- Confucius |
|
| "Rest is not idleness, and to
lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening
to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the
sky, is by no means a waste of time." |
| -- Sir John Lubbock (1834-1913),
British banker, politician |
|
|
"Seize the day. Make your
lives extraordinary." |
|
-- Movie Dead Poets Society
|
|
| "Never
mistake motion for action." |
| -- Ernest Miller Hemingway
(1899-1961), American writer, journalist |
|
| "The most decisive actions of
our life -- I mean those that are most likely to decide the whole
course of our future -- are, more often than not,
unconsidered." |
| -- Andre Gide (1869-1951), French novelist |
|
| "The pursuit of truth and
beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain
children all our lives." |
| -- Albert Einstein (1875-1955),
German-born American theoretical physicist |
|
|
"How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking; always
by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right away what you amount to." |
|
--
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet, dramatist |
|
| "To make no mistakes is not in
the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and
good learn wisdom for the future." |
| -- Plutarch (46 AD - 120 AD), Greek
biographer, essayist |
|
| "There is nothing with which
every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is
capable of doing and becoming." |
| -- Søren Aaby Kierkegaard
(1813-55), Danish philosopher |
|
| "...let us love, not in word
or speech, but in truth and action." |
| -- 1 John 3:18, Bible |
|
|
"The truth of the matter is that you always know
the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it."
|
|
--
H. Norman Schwartzkopf
|
|
| "Do not let what you cannot do
interfere with what you can do." |
| -- John Wooden (1910- ), American
basketball coach |
|
| "It is the greatest of all
mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little. Do what you
can." |
| -- Sydney Smith (1771-1845),
British religious leader |
|
| "The
purpose of life is
not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to
have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well." |
| --
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American author |
|
“On
action alone be thy interest,
Never on its fruits.
Let not the fruits of action be thy motive,
Nor be thy attachment to inaction.” |
| -- Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2 |
|
|
"On
matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand
like a rock."
|
|
-- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826),
American US 3rd president
|
|
|
"Excellence is an art won by training
and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or
excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are
what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."
|
|
--
Aristotle (384-322 BC), Greek philosopher, scientist |
|
| "A tree is known by its fruit;
a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy
reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love." |
| -- Saint Basil (329-379 A.D.), [The
Great] bishop of Caesarea |
|
| “Our
life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious, and they
must be brought into connection with action. They must be woven
together.” |
| -- Anais Nin, American writer |
|
| "Man has a limited biological
capacity for change. When this capacity is overwhelmed, the capacity
is in future shock." |
| -- Alvin Toffler |
|
| "Every time you smile at someone, it is an action
of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing." |
| -- Mother Teresa (1910-97),
Albanian-born Indian nun & missionary |
|
|
"Man's greatest actions are performed
in minor struggles. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment and poverty
are battlefields which have their heroes - obscure heroes who are at times
greater than illustrious heroes."
|
|
--
Victor Hugo
|
|
|
"Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds."
|
| --
George Eliot
(1819-1880, British Novelist)
|
|
"The softest things in the
world overcome the hardest things in the world.
Through this I know the advantage of taking no action." |
| -- Lao-tzu (604 BC - 531 BC) |
|
| "All great deeds and all great thoughts have a
ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in
a restaurant's revolving door." |
| -- Albert Camus (1913-60),
French novelist, essayist, playwright, philosopher |
|
|
"Let
us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected
from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from
the lips, and shows itself in deeds." |
| --
Theodore Roosevelt |
|
| "The great end of life is not knowledge but action." |
| -- Thomas Henry Huxley
(1825-95), British biologist |
|
|
"In the arena of human life
the honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in
action." |
| --
Aristotle (384-322 BC), Greek philosopher, scientist |
|
| "What you can do,
or think you can, begin it."
|
|
--
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
|
| "I am always doing things I can't do,
that's how I get to do them."
|
|
--
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973, Spanish
Artist)
|
|
| "Whatever is
worth doing at all is worth doing well."
|
|
--
Lord Chesterfield
(1694-1773) British statesman and writer |
|
| "Do what you can, with
what you have, where you are."
|
|
--
Theodore Roosevelt
(1858-1919), American US 26th president
|
|
| "While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to
choose the consequences of our actions." |
| -- Stephen R. Covey (b. 1932),
American writer, author |
|
| "Vision without action is a daydream. Action with without
vision is a nightmare." |
| -- Japanese Proverb |
|
| "All the beautiful sentiments
in the world weigh less than a single lovely action." |
| -- James Russel Lowell (1819-91),
American editor, poet, diplomat |
|
| "To live for results would be to sentence myself
to continuous frustration. My only sure reward is in my actions and not
from them." |
| -- Hugh Prather |
|
| "I've found that luck is quite
predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more
active. Show up more often." |
| -- Brian Tracy |
|
| "Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses it purity and
in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the
mind." |
| -- Leonardo da Vinci
(1452-1519), Italian painter, sculptor, architect, engineer,
scientist |
|
| "We will have to repent in this generation not merely for
the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling
silence of the good people." |
| -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
(1929-68), African-American reverend, civil rights leader |
|
| "The beginning is the half of every
action." |
| -- Greek Proverb |
|
| "I do not believe in a fate
that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that
falls on them unless they act." |
| -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton
(1874-1936), British writer |
|
| "A human action becomes genuinely important when
it springs from the soil of a clear-sighted awareness of the temporality
and the ephemerality of everything human. It is only this awareness that
can breathe any greatness into an action." |
| -- Václav Havel
(1936- ),
Czechoslovakian writer, playwright, statesman |
|
| "As the kindled fire consumes the fuel, so in
the flame of wisdom the embers of action are burnt to ashes." |
| -- Bhagavad Gita (c. BC 400) |
|
| "As one acts and conducts himself, so does he become. The
doer of good becomes good. The doer of evil becomes evil. One becomes
virtuous by virtuous action, bad by bad action." |
| -- Maitri Upanishads (c. BC
800-) |
|
| "Do not be too timid and squeamish about your reactions. All
life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." |
| -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803-82), American author |
|
| "Enthusiasm...the sustaining
power of all great action." |
| -- Samuel Smiles (1822-1803),
American patriot |
|
| We know what a person thinks not
when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions." |
| -- Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-91),
Polish-born American Yiddish writer |
|
| "Rest not! Life is sweeping
by; go and dare before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave
behind to conquer time." |
| -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(1749-1832), German writer, scientist |
|
| "Action and reflection form a
dialectic, and one without the other can not form a human life as
noble as the two in tandem. Reflection, or contemplation, is a
variety of action, as breathing in and breathing out are both
varieties of breathing. Reflection is the same as reaction, as
thinking requires experience and components to assemble into
thoughts. Noble and purposeful persons, whether thinkers or doers by
nature, are apt to hold their thoughts to the test of experience,
and their actions to the test of reflection." |
| -- Albert Emerson Unaterra
(1952-2002), American writer |
|
| "It is in the compelling zest of high adventure
and of victory, and in creative action, that man finds his supreme
joys." |
| -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
(1900-44), French writer, aviator |
|
| "Men are not made religious by performing certain actions
which are externally good, but they must first have righteous principles,
and then they will not fail to perform virtuous actions." |
| -- Martin Luther (1483-1546),
German theologian, reformation leader |
|
| "A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of
what he can do, nothing else." |
| -- Andre Malraux (1901-1976),
French novelist, political activist |
|
| "As soon as questions of will or decision or
reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss." |
| -- Noam Chomsky (1928- ),
American linguist, author |
|
|
"Dreams have as much influence as actions." |
| -- Stephane Mallarme(1842-1898), , French poet |
|
| "Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no
happiness without action." |
| -- Benjamin "Dizzy"
Disraeli (1804-81), British politician |
|
| "One who sees inaction in action, and action in inaction, is
intelligent among men." |
| -- Bhagavad Gita (c. BC 400) |
|
| “Between
eighteen
and twenty, life is like an exchange where one buys stocks, not with
money, but with actions. Most men buy nothing.” |
| -- Andre Malraux (1901-1976),
French novelist, political activist |
|
| "It is vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with
tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot
find it." |
| -- Charlotte Bronte (1816-55),
English novelist |
|
| "A man builds a fine house;
and now he has a master, and a task for life; he is to furnish,
watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days." |
| -- Ralph Waldo Emerson (103 -
1882), American author |
|
| "We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers
connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic
threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as
effects." |
| -- Herman Melville (1819-91),
American writer |
|
| "One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to
vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear." |
| -- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
(1844-1900), German philosopher |
|
| "Nothing is as terrible to see
as ignorance in action." |
| -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(1749-1832), German writer, scientist |
|
| "Talk that does not end in any
kind of action is better suppressed altogether." |
| -- Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881),
British historian, essayist |
|
| "We know what a person thinks not when he tells us what he
thinks, but by his actions." |
| -- Isaac Bashevis Singer
(1904-91), Polish-born American Yiddish writer |
|
| “The
ancestor of every action is a thought.” |
| -- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882),
American author |
|
| "Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a
gift to that person, a beautiful thing." |
| -- Mother Teresa (1910-97),
Albanian-born Indian nun, missionary |
|
| "The soul is made for action,
and cannot rest till it be employed. Idleness is its rust. Unless it
will up and think and taste and see, all is in vain." |
| -- Thomas Traherne (1636-74),
English clergyman, poet, mystic |
|
|
“The most
important human endeavor is striving for morality in our actions. Our
inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in
our actions can give beauty and dignity to our lives.”
|
|
-- Albert Einstein (1875-1955),
German-born American theoretical physicist |
|
| "Learning is finding out what you already know, Doing is
demonstrating that you know it, Teaching is reminding others that they
know it as well as you do. We are all learners, doers, and teachers." |
| -- Richard David Bach (b. 1936),
American author |
|
| "All human actions have one or more of these seven causes:
chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire." |
| -- Aristotle (384-322 BC), Greek
philosopher |
|
| "We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand
fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as
sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us
as effects." |
| -- Herman Melville (1819-91),
American writer |
|
| "The
actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts." |
| -- John Locke (1632-1704),
English philosopher |
|
| "Each step in life which
increases my self confidence, my integrity, my courage, my
conviction-- also increases my capacity to choose the desirable
alternative, until eventually it becomes more difficult for me to
choose the undesirable rather than the desirable action." |
| -- Erich Fromm (1900-1980),
German-born American psychoanalyst |
|
| "If you sit down at set of sun
And count the acts that you have done, And counting find One
self-denying deed, one word That eased the heart of him who heard;
One glance most kind That fell like sunshine where it went- Then you
may count that day well spent." |
| -- George Eliot (1819-80), [Mary
Ann Evans] British writer |
|
