Quotes about action

A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.

— John Calvin

Leap, and the net will appear.

— Julie Cameron

Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask. Everything you want also wants you. But you have to take action to get it.

— Jack Canfield

Action hangs, as it were, dissolved in speech, in thoughts whereof speech is the shadow; and precipitates itself therefrom. The kind of speech in a man betokens the kind of action you will get from him.

— Thomas Carlyle

The end of man is action, and not thought, though it be of the noblest.

— Thomas Carlyle

Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do.

— Thomas Carlyle

Narrative is linear, but action has breadth and depth as well as height and is solid.

— Thomas Carlyle

Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

— Thomas Carlyle

No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence.

— Thomas Carlyle

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what people say. I just watch what they do.

— Andrew Carnegie

Life leaps like a geyser for those who drill through the rock of inertia.

— Alexis Carrel

There is no use trying, said Alice; one can't believe impossible things. I dare say you haven't had much practice, said the Queen. When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

— Lewis Carroll

People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do.

— Lewis Cass

Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our own deeds.

— Miguel De Cervantes

The person of intellect is lost unless they unite with energy of character. When we have the lantern of Diogenese we must also have his staff.

— Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort

Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.

— Edwin Hubbel Chapin

In action be primitive; in foresight, a strategist.

— Rene Char

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 K. Chesterton

It is not whether your words or actions are tough or gentle; it is the spirit behind your actions and words that announces your inner state.

— Ching Ning Chu

I never worry about action, but only inaction.

— Winston Churchill

We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.

— Marcus T. Cicero

Action makes more fortune than caution.

— Luc De Clapiers

He who believes is strong; he who doubts is weak. Strong convictions precede great actions.

— James Freeman Clarke

A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he's not a man of action.. You must act as you breathe.

— Georges Clemenceau

When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn't a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

— Georges Clemenceau

Begin to free yourself at once by doing all that is possible with the means you have, and as you proceed in this spirit the way will open for you to do more.

— Robert Collier

Take the first step, and your mind will mobilize all its forces to your aid. But the first essential is that you begin. Once the battle is startled, all that is within and without you will come to your assistance.

— Robert Collier

If you don't make things happen then things will happen to you.

— Lanes Company

The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.

— Confucius

The superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in his actions.

— Confucius

Let every man or woman here, if you never hear me again, remember this, that if you wish to be great at all, you must begin where you are and with what you are. He who would be great anywhere must first be great in his own Philadelphia.

— Russel H. Conwell

We are born to action; and whatever is capable of suggesting and guiding action has power over us from the first.

— Charles Horton Cooley

Unless a capacity for thinking be accompanied by a capacity for action, a superior mind exists in torture.

— Benedetto Croce

Jump into the middle of things, get your hands dirty, fall flat on your face, and then reach for the stars.

— Joan L. Curcio

The difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you advance. Proceed, and light will dawn, and shine with increasing clearness on your path.

— D'Alembert

For what is liberty but the unhampered translation of will into act?

— Dante Alighieri

A fair request should be followed by the deed in silence.

— Dante Alighieri

The secret of getting things done is to act!

— Benjamin O. David

The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action.

— John Dewey

We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique.

— John Dewey

Just as a flower which seems beautiful and has color but no perfume, so are the fruitless words of the man who speaks them but does them not.

— Dhammapada

If you keep thinking about what you want to do or what you hope will happen, you don't do it, and it won't happen.

— Joe Dimaggio

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.

— Walt Disney

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.

— Benjamin Disraeli

Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.

— Fyodor Dostoevsky

Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.

— Peter F. Drucker

Never mind your happiness; do your duty.

— William J. Durant

Everything is in motion. Everything flows. Everything is vibrating.

— Wayne Dyer

Go for it now. The future is promised to no one.

— Wayne Dyer

What you are will show in what you do.

— Thomas A. Edison

Resolved, never to do anything which I should be afraid to do, if it were my last of life.

— Edward Edwards

We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organized that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of the race.

— Albert Einstein

All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of man's actions.

— Albert Einstein

Thought is the organizing factor in man, intersected between the causal primary instincts and the resulting actions.

— Albert Einstein

But their intervention makes our acts to serve ever less merely the immediate claims of our instincts.

— Albert Einstein

All such action would cease if those powerful elemental forces were to cease stirring within us.

— Albert Einstein

Tis God gives skill, but not without men's hand: He could not make Antonio Stradivarius's violins without Antonio.

— George Eliot

It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees.

— George Eliot

Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

— George Eliot

We must not sit still and look for miracles; up and doing, and the Lord will be with thee. Prayer and pains, through faith in Christ Jesus, will do anything.

— Sir John Eliot

There is a tendency for things to right themselves.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Act, if you like, but you do it at your peril. Men's actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The German intellect wants the French sprightliness, the fine practical understanding of the English, and the American adventure; but it has a certain probity, which never rests in a superficial performance, but asks steadily, To what end? A German public asks for a controlling sincerity.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let us, if we must have great actions, make our own so. All action is of infinite elasticity, and the least admits of being inflated with celestial air, until it eclipses the sun and moon.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Men's actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The ancestor of every action is thought.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Real action is in silent moments.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are always getting ready to live, but never living.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Why should we be cowed by the name of Action?.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man's action is only a picture book of his creed.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.

— Friedrich Engels

No sooner said than done -- so acts your man of worth.

— Quintus Ennius

Everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.

— Richard L. Evans

The undertaking of a new action brings new strength.

— Evenus

The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.

— William Faulkner

Your actions, and your action alone, determines your worth.

— Johann G. Fichte

No steam or gas ever drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.

— Harry Emerson Fosdick

It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.

— Anatole France

You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.

— St. Francis De Sales

Words may show a man's wit but actions his meaning.

— Benjamin Franklin

The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.

— Frederick (Carl) Frieseke

A man of action forced into a state of thought is unhappy until he can get out of it.

— John Galsworthy

Whatever you do may seem insignificant, but it is most important that you do it.

— Mahatma Gandhi

A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do, Nothing else.

— Mahatma Gandhi

Action expresses priorities.

— Charles A. Garfield

Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue.

— Giuseppe Garibaldi

Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.

— Charles De Gaulle

Every man of action has a strong dose of egoism, pride, hardness, and cunning. But all those things will be regarded as high qualities if he can make them the means to achieve great ends.

— Charles De Gaulle

You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.

— Lou Gerstner

A heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.

— Edward Gibbon

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.

— Andre Gide

One mustn't allow acting to be like stockbroker -- you must not take it just as a means of earning a living, to go down every day to do a job of work. The big thing is to combine punctuality, efficiency, good nature, obedience, intelligence, and concentration with an unawareness of what is going to happen next, thus keeping yourself available for excitement.

— John Gielgud

Fresh activity is the only means of overcoming adversity.

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Before you can do something you must first be something.

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

How shall we learn to know ourselves? By reflection? Never; but only through action. Strive to do thy duty; then you shall know what is in thee.

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The deed is everything, the glory is naught.

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe