quotations about action
Potential is the good of life -- action the secret key.
D. WILLIAMS
"Action", The National Magazine, Dec. 1854
I would say act like a man of thought and think like a man of action.
HENRI BERGSON
speech at the Descartes Conference in Paris, 1937
How shall not man, whose nature stands bound up with forces vast, innate with strength, reveal his life In mould of holiest cast. His law is action: gates of power stand open in his view; a restless soul, a holy zeal, shall give him entrance through.
D. WILLIAMS
"Action", The National Magazine, Dec. 1854
To act is to anchor in the imminent future.
EMIL CIORAN
History & Utopia
It is so easy to do a dirty thing with self-satisfaction when it consists in abstaining from action.
LORD ACTON
letter to Mary Gladstone, June 1, 1880
Action is character.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Notes for The Last Tycoon
Action is but coarsened thought; thought become concrete, obscure, and unconscious.
HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL
Journal Intime
Our deeds are like children that are born to us; they live and act apart from our own will. Nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never: they have an indestructible life both in and out of our consciousness.
GEORGE ELIOT
Romola
Sometimes we have to do a thing in order to find out the reason for it. Sometimes our actions are questions, not answers.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
A Perfect Spy
We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Never confuse movement with action.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
attributed, Papa Hemingway
Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.
BRUCE LEE
Jeet Kune Do: Bruce Lee's Commentaries on the Martial Way
As a man believes, so he will act.
SAM HARRIS
The End of Faith
An action is the perfection and publication of thought.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Nature
Your actions are like a beacon of light that other staff can aspire to follow and depend upon for guidance.
MAHMUD MOHAMMED
"Nigeria: Budget Constraint Crippling the Judiciary, Says CJN", All Africa, September 6, 2016
Action without a name, a "who" attached to it, is meaningless.
HANNAH ARENDT
The Human Condition
A man often imagines that he acts, when he is acted upon.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
Action is eloquence.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Coriolanus
Make your actions deliberate, not rushed and random.
STATE JOURNAL STAFF
"Leap Day offers extra time to focus on 'big-picture' -- use it wisely", The State Journal, February 29, 2016
The only things you control are your actions. You decided to get down about something. That means you can also decide to do something that cheers you up.
DARIUS FOROUX
"7 Ways to Instantly Feel 10X Better", Huffington Post, March 1, 2016