“She gave an envious thought to the happier lot of men, who are always free to plunge into the healing waters of action.”
Source: The Portrait of a Lady (1881), Ch. XXXVIII
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Henry James 154
American novelist, short story author, and literary critic 1843–1916Related quotes

“I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.”
Book 1, Ch. 3, sec. 3
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)
Variant: The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.

24 March 1895, page 337
John of the Mountains, 1938

“What the Puritans gave the world was not thought, but action.”
Speech at the dinner of the Pilgrim Society (21 December 1855), published in Speeches, Letters and Lectures by Wendell Phillips https://archive.org/details/speecheslectures7056phil (1884), p. 229
1850s

“I must plunge into the water of doubt again and again.”
Source: 1930s-1951, Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993), Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 119

Quoted from S.R. Goel, (1994) Heroic Hindu resistance to Muslim invaders, 636 AD to 1206 AD.