Quotes about act
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“You better live your best and act your best and think your best today, for today is the sure preparation for tomorrow and all the other tomorrows that follow.”

Harriet Martineau (1802–1876) English writer and sociologist

Thinking

“To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

Variant: To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act.
Source: Discours de réception, Séance De L'académie Française (introductory speech at a session of the French Academy), 24th December 1896, on Ferdinand de Lesseps' work on the Suez Canal.
Context: To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.

Dreams, Motivational, Deep, Success

“Accept - then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Sad

“If you make a deal with a fool, don't be surprised when they act foolishly.”

Jeffrey Archer book Only Time Will Tell

Source: Only Time Will Tell

Fools

“There's an old saying that applies to me: you can't lose a game if you don't play the game. (Act 1, scene 4)”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

Game

“I was surprised, as always, by how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibility.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Not a Kerouac quote, but by Jon Krakauer, from his nonfiction book Into the Wild (1996).
Misattributed
Source: On the Road

World

“You know, that might be the answer — to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That's a trick that never seems to fail.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22 (1961)

“The mission of law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even thought the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. Its mission is to protect property.”

Frédéric Bastiat book The Law

Source: The Law

Law, Personality

“All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than the animals that know nothing. A day will come when science will turn upon its error and no longer hesitate to shorten our woes. A day will come when it will dare and act with certainty; when life, grown wiser, will depart silently at its hour, knowing that it has reached its term.”

Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949) Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist

Our Eternity, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Life, Death, Pain, Error

“The law of harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny.”

James Allen (1864–1912) British philosophical writer

Law

“Does anyone in this land act like they're supposed to?”

Tamora Pierce book Wild Magic

Source: Wild Magic

“We will meet; and there we may rehearse most
obscenely and courageously.

Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream. Spoken by Bottom, Act I Sc. 2”

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream

Source: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Dreams, Courage, Night

“You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”

Ansel Adams (1902–1984) American photographer and environmentalist

Love, People, Books, Music

“Forgiveness is not a single act, but a matter of constant practice.”

Diana Gabaldon book Drums of Autumn

Source: Drums of Autumn

Forgiveness

“the self expands through acts of self forgetfulness.”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934) Hungarian American psychologist

Forgetting

“Every act I live while I am fully awake can not help but be both prayer and lovemaking.”

Oriah Mountain Dreamer (1954) Canadian author

Help

“If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?". - (Act III, scene I).”

William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice

Shylock, Act III, scene i.
Source: The Merchant of Venice (1596–7)
Context: I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

Revenge

“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”

Edmund Burke book A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

Part II Section II
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757)

Fear, Passion

“The sexual act is in time what the tiger is in space.”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

Time

“Heroes are those who can somehow resist the power of the situation and act out of noble motives, or behave in ways that do not demean others when they easily can.”

Philip G. Zimbardo (1933) American social psychologist, author of Stanford Prison Experiment

Way, Motivation

“I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Happiness, Personality

“Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.”

Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) New Zealand author

Source: Journal entry (14 October 1922), published in The Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927)

Truth

“Real friendship or love is not manufactured or achieved by an act of will or intention. Friendship is always an act of recognition.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Love, Friendship

“I act with complete certainty. But this certainty is my own.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book On Certainty

Source: On Certainty

“Whether we realise it or not, most of us define ourselves by opposing rather than by favouring something or someone. To put it another way, it is easier to react than to act.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Angel's Game

Source: The Angel's Game

Way

“Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.”

Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) English actor, writer, and dramatist

BBC obituary (2004)

Love, Forgiveness, Wise, love

“Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the making of a poet as flour goes into the making of bread.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Peace

“The demands of Jesus are difficult because they require us to do something extraordinary. At the same time He asks us to regard these [acts of goodness] as something usual, ordinary.”

Albert Schweitzer book The Quest of the Historical Jesus

Source: The Quest of the Historical Jesus

Time

“When people come to me saying they want to kill themselves, I tell them, "What's your rush? You can kill yourself any time you like. So calm down. Suicide is a positive act."”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

And they do calm down.
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Source: The Trouble with Being Born

People, Suicide, Time

“Man has three ways of acting wisely. First, on meditation; that is the noblest. Secondly, on imitation; that is the easiest. Thirdly, on experience; that is the bitterest.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

The Analects, as reported in Chambers Dictionary of Quotations (1997), p. 279.
Attributed

Way

“Mere animals couldn’t possibly manage to act like this. You need to be a human being to be really stupid.”

Terry Pratchett book Pyramids

Source: Pyramids

Stupidity, Animals

“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.”

William Shakespeare As You Like It

Jaques, Act II, scene vii.
Variant: All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.
Source: As You Like It (1599–1600)

Women, Men, Age, World

“I tend to think of the act of photographing, generally speaking, as an adventure. My favorite thing is to go where I’ve never been.”

Diane Arbus (1923–1971) American photographer and author

Thinking

“I've learned that no matter how serious your life requires you to be, everyone needs a friend to act goofy with.”

Andy Rooney (1919–2011) writer, humorist, television personality

Life, Learning

“So live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

Time

“The more you see yourself as what you'd like to become, and act as if
what you want is already there, the more you'll activate those dormant
forces that will collaborate to transform your dream into your reality.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Dreams, Reality

“Accept — then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Life, Sad

“A lie is an act of theft. It steals peoples faith and makes them resent themselves”

James Lee Burke (1936) Novelist, short story writer

People, Lie, Faith

“I don't like to hear cut and dried sermons. No—when I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Bee, Fight

“He's acting as foolish as a kitten… but then, everyone's entitled to a little foolishness once in a while.”

Christopher Paolini book Inheritance

Source: Inheritance

“The act of meditation is being spacious.”

Sogyal Rinpoche (1947–2019) Tibetan Dzogchen lama of the Nyingma tradition

“When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

As quoted in "On The Universal Declaration of Human Rights" by Hillary Rodham Clinton in Issues of Democracy Vol. 3, No. 3 (October 1998), p. 11

“Good men and bad men alike are capable of weakness. The difference is simply that a bad man will be proud all his life of one good deed - while an honest man is hardly aware of his good acts, but remembers a single sin for years on end.”

Vasily Grossman book Life and Fate

Source: Life and Fate

Life, Men

“I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Ich soll niemals anders verfahren als so, dass ich auch wollen könne, meine Maxime solle ein allgemeines Gesetz werden.
Kant's supreme moral principle or "categorical imperative"; Variant translations:
Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.
Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature.
So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.
May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law.
Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.
Do not feel forced to act, as you're only willing to act according to your own universal laws. And that's good. For only willfull acts are universal. And that's your maxim.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)

Law, Way, Universe

“I am very proud, revengeful,
ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have
thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape,
or time to act them in.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

Imagination, Revenge, Time

“Patience is power.
Patience is not an absence of action;
rather it is "timing"
it waits on the right time to act,
for the right principles
and in the right way.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Way, Time, Waiting, Patience

“Sow a thought, and you reap an act;
Sow an act, and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit, and you reap a character;
Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.”

Samuel Smiles (1812–1904) Scottish author

Saying published anonymously in The Dayspring, Vol. 10 (1881) by the Unitarian Sunday-School Society, and quoted in Life and Labor (1887) by Smiles; this is most often attributed to George Dana Boardman, at least as early as 1884, but also sometimes attributed to William Makepeace Thackeray as early as 1891, probably because in in Life and Labor Smiles adds a quote by Thackeray right after this one, to Charles Reade in 1903, and to William James as early as 1906, because it appears in his Principles of Psychology (1890).
Misattributed
Source: Happy Homes and the Hearts That Make Them

“Practicing an attitude of gratitude spills over to acts of generosity.”

Debbie Macomber (1948) American writer

Source: One Simple Act: Discovering the Power of Generosity

Gratitude

“What is art? (…) Like a declaration of love: the consciousness of our dependence on each other. A confession. An unconscious act that none the less reflects the true meaning of life—love and sacrifice.”

Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–1986) Soviet and Russian film-maker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director

Love, Life, Art, Dependency

“I act and react, and suddenly I wonder, ‘Where is the girl that I was last year? Two years ago? What would she think of me now?”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Girl, Thinking

“Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Source: Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals/On a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns

Way, Time, Personality

“Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands.
Curtsied when you have and kissed
The wild waves whist,
Foot is featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.

Ariel's song, scene II, Act I”

William Shakespeare The Tempest

Source: The Tempest

Kiss

“The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.”

Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor

“The organ of perception acts more readily than judgment.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

“Life (as you call it) is an opportunity for you to know experientially what you already know conceptually. You need learn nothing to do this. You need merely remember what you already know, and act on it.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Source: Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 1

Life, Learning

“Every day in the United States, seventeen children are killed by gunfire. That’s about 6,000 children each year who are killed by guns, as compared, for example, with about 3,000 a year who died at the height of the polio epidemic of the 1950s. We rose up as a society to fight against polio. Why do we not act more forcefully to halt today’s even greater scourge?”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: Sources of Strength: Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith

Children, Fight

“People who count their chickens before they are hatched act very wisely because chickens run about so absurdly that it's impossible to count them accurately.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Letter from Paris (May 1900)

People

“Hang there like a fruit, my soul, Till the tree die!

-Posthumus Leonatus
Act V, Scene V”

William Shakespeare Cymbeline

Source: Cymbeline

Soul, Tree

“I take my only exercise acting as pallbearer at the funerals of my friends who exercised regularly.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source Undetermined in Everyone's Mark Twain (1972) compiled by Caroline Thomas Harnsberger, p. 161
Disputed

Exercises

“The whole point of extravagance is to act like a fool and feel like a fool, but enjoy it.”

Alfred Bester book The Stars My Destination

Source: The Stars My Destination

Fools, Feeling

“That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts. There is always a kind of contempt in the act of speaking.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Heart, Dead

“Every gesture is a revolutionary act.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 274
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Todo o gesto é um acto revolucionário.

“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Future

“I sighed. I hated the maze of bureaucracy with a passion, but I've found the best way to deal with it is to smile and act stupid. That way, no one gets confused.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Dead Witch Walking

Hate, Stupidity, Smile, Way

“One is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

The Critic as Artist (1891), Part II

Animals

“If you believe something, you're automatically precluded from believing in the opposite, which means that a degree of your human freedom has been forfeited in the act of this belief.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

Psychedelic Society (1984)
Context: What blinds us, or what makes historical progress very difficult, is our lack of awareness of our ignorance. And [I think] that beliefs should be put aside, and that a psychedelic society would abandon belief systems [in favor of] direct experience and this is, I think much, of the problem of the modern dilemma, is that direct experience has been discounted and in its place all kind of belief systems have been erected... If you believe something, you're automatically precluded from believing in the opposite, which means that a degree of your human freedom has been forfeited in the act of this belief.

Freedom

“The future is not a scenario written, which we only have to act out; it is a work which we have to create.”

Roger Garaudy (1913–2012) French philosopher

Future

“The last act is bloody, however fine the rest of the play”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

“If her past were your past, her pain your pain, her level of consciousness your level of consciousness, you would think and act exactly as she does. With this realization comes forgiveness, compassion, peace.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Stillness Speaks (2003)

Pain, Peace, Forgiveness, Thinking

“We think we don't deserve love, we think if we let it in we'll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said." Love is the only rational act.”

Morrie Schwartz (1916–1995) American sociologist

Love, Thinking

“I try to be good but sometimes
a person just has to break out and
act like the wild and springy thing
one used to be. It's impossible not
to remember wild an want it back.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Personality

“Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects that must be saved from a burning building.”

Paulo Freire book Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970)

“… there occurred to me the simple epitaph which, when I am no more, I intend to have inscribed on my tombstone. It was this:
"He was a man who acted from the best motives. There is one born every minute.”

P.G. Wodehouse book My Man Jeeves

Source: My Man Jeeves

Motivation

“When God puts love and compassion in your heart toward someone, He’s offering you an opportunity to make a difference in that person’s life. You must learn to follow that love. Don’t ignore it. Act on it. Somebody needs what you have.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

Love, Life, God, Learning

“All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

“It is a tremendous act of violence to begin anything. I am not able to begin. I simply skip what should be the beginning.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

“Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1950s, Unpopular Essays (1950)

en.wikiquote.org - Bertrand Russell / Quotes / 1950s / Unpopular Essays (1950)

Fear, Thinking

“I'm the empty stage where various actors act out various plays.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

“By acting compassionately, by helping to restore justice and to encourage peace, we are acknowledging that we are all part of one another.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

Peace, Justice, Help, Parting

“The most beautiful act of faith is the one made in darkness, in sacrifice, and with extreme effort.”

Padre Pio (1887–1968) Italian saint, priest, stigmatist and mystic

Faith, Beauty, Effort

“Be great in act, as you have been in thought.”

William Shakespeare King John

Source: King John

“What if a puppet could cut its own strings, and in that act of defiance and strength of will become truly alive? Become is own puppetmaster?”

Barry Lyga (1971) American writer

Source: I Hunt Killers

“It is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act.”

Stanley Milgram (1933–1984) Social psychologist

Source: Obedience to Authority : An Experimental View (1974), p. 205
Context: The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson: often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act.

Personality

“Remorse.-- Never yield to remorse, but at once tell yourself: remorse would simply mean adding to the first act of stupidity a second.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Stupidity

“He clings to his solitude, to his affected indifference and his grown-up ways, but it's just an act, so as never, never to show his real feelings.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

Way, Feeling, Solitude, Indifference

“It is noble to be shy, illustrious not to know how to act, great not to have a gift for living.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 86
The Book of Disquiet
Original: É nobre ser tímido, ilustre não saber agir, grande não ter jeito para viver.

“There are a host of bad habits and inconsiderate acts which mean nothing in themselves but which are terrible as indicators of the true composition of a soul.”

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer

Es gibt eine Menge kleiner Rücksichtslosigkeiten und Unarten, die an und für sich nichts bedeuten, aber furchtbar sind als Kennzeichen der Beschaffenheit der Seele.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 38.

Soul

“We shall have [a complete theory] only when the laws of Physics shall be extended enough, generalized enough, to make known beforehand all the effects of heat acting in a determined manner on any body.”

Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot (1796–1832) French physicist, the "father of thermodynamics" (1796–1832)

p, 125
Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat (1824)

Law

“You must get away from the real thing because the real thing will limit your acting and cripple you. To think of your own mother's death each time you want to cry onstage is schizophrenic and sick.”

Stella Adler (1901–1992) American actress and teaching coach

Obituary in New York Times

Death, Thinking, Time, Cry

“I asked a teacher what the opposite of a miracle was and she, without thinking, I assume, said it was an act of God.
You shouldn't say something like that to the kind of kid who will grow up to be a writer; we have long memories.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

"I create gods all the time - now I think one might exist" (2008)

God, Thinking, Teachers, Memory

“Since everything that lives is obliged to expend and receive life, there is an exchange of modifications between the living creature and its environment.
And yet, once that vital necessity is satisfied, our species—a positively strange species—thinks it must create for itself other needs and tasks besides that of preserving life. … Whatever may be the origin or cause of this curious deviation, the human species is engaged in an immense adventure, an adventure whose objective and end it does not know. …
The same senses, the same muscles, the same limbs—more, the same types of signs, the same instruments of exchange, the same languages, the same modes of logic—enter into the most indispensable acts of our lives, as they figure into the most gratuitous. …
In short, man has not two sets of tools, he has only one, and this one set must serve him for the preservation of his life and his physiological rhythm, and expend itself at other times on illusions and on the labours of our great adventure. …
The same muscles and nerves produce walking as well as dancing, exactly as our linguistic faculty enables us to express our needs and ideas, while the same words and forms can be combined to produce works of poetry. A single mechanism is employed in both cases for two entirely different purposes.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Source: Regards sur le monde actuel [Reflections on the World Today] (1931), pp. 158-159

Life, Idea, Thinking, Sense

“Eating, bathing, going to the toilet, talking, thinking, and many other activities related to the body are all work. How is it that the performance of one particular act is alone (considered) work? To be still is to be always engaged in work. To be silent is to be always talking.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

Abide as the Self

Thinking

“One time they said it was terrorism, another time they said it was acting against the constitution, another time they said it was alcohol.”

Mohamed Nasheed (1967) Maldivian politician, 4th president of the Maldives

Decca Aitkenhead (1 April 2012). " Dictatorship is coming back to the Maldives and democracy is slipping away http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/01/dictatorship-maldives-democracy?newsfeed=true". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 April 2012: Nasheed about the official charges against him in the Maldives.

Alcohol, Time

“Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote that you cannot commit an act of violence against a non-sentient object. Back in 1986, the Green Party of Canada tried to toss me out of the Party for sinking whaling ships on the ground that it was a violent act. I pointed out that the Green Party of Canada supported violence when it was convenient politically — for example they supported and continue to support abortion which is, like it or not, a violent act, certainly more violent than sinking some metal into the sea. Violence is not violent when we justify it, be it abortion, or war, or eating meat for example. I support abortion but I'm not a hypocrite about it — it's violent, I accept that. Every American taxpayer accepts the violence that their tax-dollars fund.”

Paul Watson (1950) Canadian environmental activist

When asked how he addressed accusations of property destruction as being a violent act. Taken from an interview given to the environmentalist magazine, Resistance: Journal of the Earth Liberation Movement http://www.resistancemagazine.org/

War, Support, Sea

“When a man acts in ways that annoy us we wish to think him wicked, and we refuse to face the fact that his annoying behaviour is a result of antecedent causes which, if you follow them long enough, will take you beyond the moment of his birth and therefore to events for which he cannot be held responsible by any stretch of imagination.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"The Doctrine of Free Will"
1930s, Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? (1930)

Way, Imagination, Birth, Thinking

“[[S]ex] is often a hostile act, often an exercise of power over somebody else.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

Norah Vincent, Sex, Love and Politics, id., p. 40, col. 1.

Hostility, Exercises

“Much has been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth, and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial and sincere friendship. We must show not only in our words, but in our deeds, that we are earnestly desirous of securing their good will by acting toward them in a spirit of just and generous recognition of all their rights. But justice and generosity in a nation, as in an individual, count most when shown not by the weak but by the strong.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, Inaugural Address (1905)

Friendship, People, Justice, Strong

“How wonderful it is that no one has to wait, but can start right now to gradually change the world! How wonderful it is that everyone, great and small, can immediately help bring about justice by giving of themselves! […] You can always — always — give something, even if it's a simple act of kindness!”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

"Give!" (26 March 1944)
Variant translation: How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before beginning to improve the world! [...] You can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!
Tales from the Secret Annex

World, Justice, Change, Waiting

“Defense is the first act of war.”

Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer

Your Inner Awakening

War

Quotes about act page 3

Quotes about act
page 3