Action
- Action conquers fear.--Peter Nivio Zarlenga
- Action itself, so long as I am convinced that it is right action, gives me satisfaction.--Jawaharlal Nehru
- The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.--John Locke
- All the Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
Layin' in the sun,
Talkin' bout the things They woulda-coulda-shoulda done...
But those Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
All ran away and hid
From one little did.--Shel Silverstein
- America is a nation that conceives many odd inventions for getting somewhere but it can think of nothing to do once it gets there.--Will Rogers
- As you begin changing your thinking, start immediately to change your behavior. Begin to act the part of the person you would like to become. Take action on your behavior. Too many people want to feel, then take action. This never works.--John Maxwell (Developing the Leader Within You)
- Be an explorer...read, surf the internet, visit customers, enjoy arts, watch children play...do anything to prevent yourself from becoming a prisoner of your knowledge, experience, and current view of the world.--Charles 'Chic' Thompson (What a Great Idea)
- Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake...--Marie Beyon Ray
- Begin somewhere; you cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do.--Liz Smith
- The best way out is always through.--Helen Keller
- The best way out of a difficulty is through it.--Anonymous
- Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.--Carl Weick
- Commitment leads to action. Action brings your dream closer.--Marcia Wieder
- Complex systems can only be built step by step, whereas destruction requires but an instant.--Stephen Jay Gould
- Concern should drive us into action, not into a depression.--Karen Horney
- The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.--Franklin Roosevelt
- Deliberation is a function of the many; action is the function of one.--Charles de Gaulle (War Memoirs)
- Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.--Thomas Jefferson
- Do noble things, do not dream them all day long.--Charles Kingsley
- Do not wait; the time will never be "just right." Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.--Napoleon Hill
- Do or do not. There is no try.--Yoda
- Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.--Witold (?) Gombrowicz
- Doing a huge number of things doesn’t mean you’re getting anything meaningful done.--Leo Babauta (The Power Of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential)
- Doing is a quantum leap from imagining. Thinking about swimming isn't much like actually getting in the water.--Barbara Sher
- Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.--Earl Nightingale
- Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do--do it and let it speak for itself.--Martin Vanbee
- Don't wait for someone to bring you flowers. Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul.--Mario Quintana
- Don't wait for something big to occur. Start where you are, with what you have, and that will always lead you into something greater.--Mary Manin Morrissey
- Don't wait for your ship to come in, and feel angry and cheated when it doesn't. Get going with something small.--Irene Kassorla
- The enjoyment of life would be instantly gone if you removed the possibility of doing something.--Chauncey Depew
- Everyday do something that will inch you closer to a better tomorrow.--Doug Firebaugh
- Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.--Will Rogers
- First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.--Epictetus
- The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.--John Pierpont Morgan
- Five frogs are sitting on a log. Four decide to jump off. How many are left? ... Five. Why? Because there’s a difference between deciding and doing!--John Maxwell (The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth)
- Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost.--Thomas J. Watson
- Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.--Theodore Roosevelt
- The great end of life is not knowledge but action.--T. H. Huxley ("Technical Education")
- Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.--Emily P. Bissell
- The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving.--Oliver Wendell Holmes
- A handful of pine-seed will cover mountains with the green majesty of forests. I too will set my face to the wind and throw my handful of seed on high.--Fiona Macleod
- Happiness consists in activity. It is running steam, not a stagnant pool.--John Mason Good
- Happiness is not in having being; it is in doing.--Lilian Eichler Watson
- Have the courage to act instead of react.--Earlene Larson Jenks
- He who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do anything.--Samuel Johnson
- However many holy words you read,
However many you speak,
What good will they do you
If you do not act on upon them?--Buddha
- 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.--G. K. Chesterton
- I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving--we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it -- but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.--Oliver W. Holmes
- I like things to happen; and if they don't happen, I like to make them happen.--Winston Churchill
- I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.--Marie Curie
- I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.--Florence Nightingale
- I would rather regret the things that I have done than the things that I have not.--Lucille Ball
- An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.--Edward de Bono (Serious Creativity)
- If everything's under control, you're going too slow.--Mario Andretti
- If I look at the mass, I’ll never act. If I look at the one, I will.--Mother Teresa
- If one wants to be active, one mustn't be afraid to do something wrong sometimes, not afraid to lapse into some mistakes. To be good – many people think that they'll achieve it by doing no harm – and that's a lie... That leads to stagnation, to mediocrity.--Vincent van Gogh (letter to his brother Theo, October 2, 1884)
- If the windows of your spirit are dirty, and streaked, covered with matter foreign to them, then the world as you look out of them will be dirty and streaked and out of order. … Go wash your windows.--Ralph W. Trine
- If you do nothing unexpected, nothing unexpected happens.--Fay Weldon
- If you have a great ambition, take as big a step as possible in the direction of fulfilling it. The step may only be a tiny one, but trust that it may be the largest one possible for now.--Mildred McAfee
- If you only do what you know you can do - you never do very much.--Tom Krause
- If you wait, all that happens is that you get older.--Larry McMurty
- If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?--Stephen Levine
- In a world where there is so much to be done, I felt strongly impressed that there must be something for me to do.--Dorothea Dix
- In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn't been good versus evil. It's hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing.--Deirdre Sullivan ("Always Go to the Funeral" in This I Believe ed. by Allison and Gediman)
- In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.--Margaret Thatcher
- In the end, when it's over, all that matters is what you've done.--Alexander the Great
- Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation ... even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.--Leonardo da Vinci
- It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.--Elinor Smith
- It is not what we say, but what we do, that leaves the lasting mark in the lives of others. Doing this, we glorify and honor our Creator.--Michael Rawls (on Facebook 12/10/11)
- It is well to think well; it is divine to act well.--Horace Mann
- It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.--Thomas Jefferson
- It isn't enough to think outside the box. Thinking is passive. Get used to acting outside the box.--Tim Ferriss
- It's better to be boldly decisive and risk being wrong than to agonize at length and be right too late.--Marilyn Moats Kennedy
- It's not how much you do, it's how often you do it. It simply doesn't matter if you make some monumental effort at any given time. You have it in your to give that extra little bit. You know that you could add that finishing touch. You know you can take that extra step.--Vince Poscente (Invinceable Principles)
- It's not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is praised. The mosquito is swatted.--Mary O'Connor
- It’s not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren’t doing it.-- Terry Pratchett (from the foreword to The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy, by David Pringle)
- Just as iron rusts from disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect.--Leonardo da Vinci
- Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Knowledge might be power, but only when you take action.--Richard Keeves
- Leave something good in every day.--Dolly Parton
- Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.--Tom Peters
- 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
- Long ago I learned nothing gets done by just wishing it. You have to do it.--Louis L'Amour
- Make the iron hot by striking it.--Oliver Cromwell
- The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.--Amelia Earhart
- The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure , the process is its own reward.--Robyn Davidson
- The most effective way to do it, is to do it.--Toni Cade Bambara
- Never do things others can do and will do if there are things others cannot do or will not do.--Dawson Trottman
- Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn't be done.--Amelia Earhart
- Never mistake motion for action.--Ernest Hemingway
- No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves.--Lawrence G. Lovasik (The Hidden Power of Kindness)
- No matter how deep a study you make ... you really don’t know what’s going to happen until you do it.--Konosuke Matshushita
- Nothing is so embarrassing as watching someone do something that you said couldn't be done.--Sam Ewing
- "Now" is the operative word. Everything you put in your way is just a method of putting off the hour when you could actually be doing your dream. You don't need endless time and perfect conditions. Do it now. Do it today. Do it for twenty minutes and watch your heart start beating.--Barbara Sher
- Obviously, there is little you can learn from doing nothing.--Zig Ziglar (Zig Ziglar's Little Book of Big Quotes)
- Oh, the places you'll go!--Dr Seuss (Oh, the Places You'll Go)
- On the Plains of Hesitation bleach the bones of countless millions, who, at the Dawn of Victory, sat down to wait, and waiting--died!--George W. Cecil
- One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now.--Paulo Coelho
- Only actions give life strength; only moderation gives it charm.--Jean Paul Richter
- Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.--Pablo Picasso
- Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.--Stephen A. Brennan
- Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly in the distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.--Thomas Carlyle
- The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can't find them, make them.--George Bernard Shaw
- People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.--Jack Canfield & Mark Hansen
- The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.--Gloria Anzaldua
- Power is the faculty or capacity to act, the strength and potency to accomplish something. It is the vital energy to make choices and decisions. It also includes the capacity to overcome deeply embedded habits and to cultivate higher, more effective ones.--Stephen R. Covey
- Real spirituality is not up n the clouds--it is down on earth, here and now. Deep spirituality is seeing God every day in the common things, and showing God your appreciation by doing common tasks.--Fred De Witt Van Amburgh
- Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.--Theodore Roosevelt
- Rushing into action, you fail. Trying to grasp things, you lose them. Forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe.--Lao-tzu
- The secret of happiness is something to do.--John Burroughs
- The secret to success has always been a bias for action. Without it nothing changes. The old cowboys used to say, ‘Just get ‘er done!’–-Wayne Cordeiro (Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion)
- She didn't know it couldn't be done, so she went ahead and did it.--Bridget O'Donnell
- The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.--Anonymous
- The smallest deed is greater than the grandest intention.--Patti LaBelle
- A somebody was once a nobody who wanted to and did.--Anonymous
- Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands.--Clint Eastwood
- Sometimes the fool who rushes in gets the job done--Al Bernstein
- The soul's joy lies in doing.--Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.--Andrew Jackson
- There are only three colors, ten digits, and seven notes; it's what we do with them that's important.--Ruth Ross
- There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.--John F. Kennedy
- There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it.--John W. Raper
- There is no power greater than right action in the present moment.--Yaga Vasistha
- Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.--Abraham Lincoln
- Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.--Henri Bergson
- Thinking before taking actions is useful only if you are going to take action, otherwise you are wasting time and insulting your mind.--Amit Kalantri
- Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- To accomplish great things, we must not only act but also dream. Not only plan but also believe.--Anatole France
- To act and act wisely when the time for action comes, to wait and wait patiently when it is time for repose, will put man in accord with the rising and falling tides (of affairs), so that with nature and law at his back, and truth and beneficence as his beacon light, he may accomplish wonders.--Madame Helena Petrova Blavatsky
- To fight fear, act. To increase fear--wait, put off postpone.--David Joseph Schwartz
- To know oneself, one should assert oneself.--Camus
- To make excuses and do nothing is to accept the world as it is. Making a decision and taking action is to shape the world into what it can be.--Michael Rawls
- True leaders don't give consoling answers, they take constructive actions.--Amit Kalantri
- The true perfection of man lies not in what man has, but in what man does.--Oscar Wilde
- Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.--Japanese proverb
- Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is simply passing the time. Action with Vision is making a positive difference.--Joel Barker
- We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle.
- We don't have to wait for fear to vanish altogether because that moment will never come; all we need is a moment of daring that can change a whole lifetime of waiting.--Diane Conway (What Would You Do If You Had No Fear?)
- We don't know who we are until we see what we can do.--Martha Grimes
- We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.--Abigail Adams (letter to John Adams, Oct. 16, 1774)
- We know what a person thinks not when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions.--Isaac Bashevis Singer
- What really matters is what you do with what you have.--Shirley Lord
- What this country needs is more people to inspire others with confidence, and fewer people to discourage any initiative in the right direction; more to get into the thick of things, fewer to sit on the sidelines, merely finding fault; more to point out what's right with the world, and fewer to keep harping on what's wrong with it; and more who are interested in lighting candles, and fewer who blow them out.--Father James Keller
- What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself--Mark Twain
- Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.--Ralph Waldo Emerson
- When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.--Ursula K. Le Guin
- When our intentions and actions are guided by spirituality – our belief in our interconnectedness and love – our everyday experiences can be spiritual practice.--Brene Brown (Rising Strong: the Reckoning, the Rumble, the Revolution)
- When you are in doubt, be still, and wait. When doubt no longer exists for you, then go forward in courage.--White Eagle
- When you see something that is broken, fix it. When you find something that is lost, return it. When you see something that needs to be done, do it. In that way, you will take care of your world and repair creation.--Lawrence Kushner (Eyes Remade for Wonder)
- While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.--Stephen Covey
- Whoever makes it a rule to test action by thought, thought by action, cannot falter, and if he does, will soon find his way back to the right road.--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Why should I stay at the bottom of a well when a strong rope is in my hand?--Rumi
- Words may show a man's wit, but actions his meaning.--Benjamin Franklin
- Worry a little every day and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years. If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry. Worry never fixes anything.--Mary Hemingway
- Yes, you can be a dreamer and a doer too, if you will remove one word from your vocabulary: impossible.--H. Robert Schuller
- You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act.--Lee J. Iacocca
- You can't cross the sea merely by staring at the water.--Rabindranath Tagore
- You can't hit a home run unless you step up to the plate. You can't catch fish unless you put your line in the water. You can't reach your goals if you don't try.--Kathy Seligman
- You can't just sit there and wait for people to give you that golden dream; you've got to get out there and make it happen for yourself.--Diana Ross
- You can't stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.--A. A. Milne (said by Winnie the Pooh)
- You have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by.--James M. Barrie
- You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.--Beverly Sills
- You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.--Wayne Gretzky
- You see, in life, lots of people know what to do, but few people actually do what they know. Knowing is not enough! You must take action.--Anthony Robbins
- You want a better, more fraternal, more just world? Well then, start building it: Who is stopping you? Build it inside yourself and around you, build it with those who want it. Build it small, and it will grow.--Lanza del Vasto
- You will never stub your toe standing still. The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere.--Charles Kettering
- You're more likely to act yourself into feeling than feel yourself into action. So act! Whatever it is you know you should do, do it.--Jerome Brunet
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This page last updated April 1, 2017.