Quotes about action
page 2

“Life is funny. Life isn't categorized into comedy, drama, action, is it? So I don't know why they try to categorize everything. It drives me crazy-why it would have to be just a romantic comedy or… I want to have a little integrity, a little story, you know?”

Jennifer Aniston (1969) television and film actress from the United States

Primetime interview (Jan 2004)

Life

“If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action.”

Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) austrian economist

Planning for Freedom (1952), p. 44

“President Donald Trump's remarks which described the U. S. option through straightforward expression of his will have convinced me, rather than frightening or stopping me, that the path I chose is correct and that it is the one I have to follow to the last. […] Action is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say. […] I am now thinking hard about what response he could have expected when he allowed such eccentric words to trip off his tongue. Whatever Trump might have expected, he will face results beyond his expectation. I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U. S. dotard with fire.”

Kim Jong-un (1984) 3rd Supreme Leader of North Korea

Official statement from September 22, 2017, as quoted in Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/09/21/north-korean-leader-to-trump-i-will-surely-and-definitely-tame-the-mentally-deranged-u-s-dotard-with-fire/

Thinking

“By what aberration has suicide, the only truly normal action, become the attribute of the flawed?”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

Suicide

“The Second World War supplied the occasion for the spending, and Keynesian economics supplied the rationale. But Keynesian fiscal policy had political appeal even before the war demonstrated its economic success. For unlike the various proposals for structural reform, such as vigorous antitrust action or national economic planning, Keynesian economics offered a way for the government to control the economy without having to choose among controversial views of the good society. Where earlier reformers had sought economic arrangements that would cultivate, citizens of a certain kind, Keynesians undertook no formative mission; they proposed simply to accept existing consumer preferences and to regulate the economy by manipulating aggregate demand.”

Michael J. Sandel (1953) American political philosopher

1. America's Search for a Public Philosophy
Public Philosophy (2005)

War, World, Way, Success

“To manage is to forecast and plan, to organize, to command, to coordinate and to control. To foresee and plan means examining the future and drawing up the plan of action. To organize means building up the dual structure, material and human, of the undertaking. To command means binding together, unifying and harmonizing all activity and effort. To control means seeing that everything occurs in conformity with established rule and expressed demand.”

Henri Fayol (1841–1925) Developer of Fayolism

Henri Fayol (1916) cited in: Russell C. Swansburg (1996) Management and Leadership for Nurse Managers, p. 1

Effort, Future, Drawing

“The thing that I think very striking is that no one, or no one I can remember, ever writes of an execution with approval. The dominant note is always horror. Society, apparently, cannot get along without capital punishment—for there are some people whom it is simply not safe to leave alive—and yet there is no one, when the pinch comes, who feels it right to kill another human being in cold blood. I watched a man hanged once. There was no question that everybody concerned knew this to be a dreadful, unnatural action. I believe it is always the same—the whole jail, warders and prisoners alike, is upset when there is an execution. It is probably the fact that capital punishment is accepted as necessary, and yet instinctively felt to be wrong, that gives so many descriptions of executions their tragic atmosphere. They are mostly written by people who have actually watched an execution and feel it to be a terrible and only partly comprehensible experience which they want to record; whereas battle literature is largely written by people who have never heard a gun go off and think of a battle as a sort of football match in which nobody gets hurt.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please" column in The Tribune (3 November 1944) http://alexpeak.com/twr/oocp/ "As I Please" (1943–1947)

People, Feeling, Literature, Question

“"Film star," "movie star" — whatever they want to try to call you is limiting, in the sense that I think an actor has to be able to play characters. To separate these things — you know: "leading man," "action hero," "character actor," stuff like that — I guess if I want to be close to anything, it would be a character actor, which is what I think an actor should be. So any of that "movie star" stuff, I just don't buy it. It just doesn't make sense to me.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Quoted in "'Johnny Depp - From Hell' special," http://www.johnnydeppfan.com/interviews/From%20Hell%20Special.htm ITV (January 2002)

Star, Thinking, Sense

“Judo teaches us to look for the best possible course of action, whatever the individual circumstances, and helps us to understand that worry is a waste of energy.”

Kanō Jigorō (1860–1938) Japanese educator and judoka

Source: Kodokan Judo (1882), p. 23
Context: Judo teaches us to look for the best possible course of action, whatever the individual circumstances, and helps us to understand that worry is a waste of energy. Paradoxically, the man who has failed and one who is at the peak of success are in exactly the same position. Each must decide what he will do next, choose the course that will lead him to the future. The teachings of judo give each the same potential for success, in the former instance guiding a man out of lethargy and disappointment to a state of vigorous activity.

Understanding, Help

“The man who, through his own efforts, is able to perform all the actions necessary for his comfort and development in life, conquers himself, and in doing so multiplies his abilities and perfects himself as an individual.
We must make of the future generation, powerful men, and by that we mean men who are independent and free.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Source: The Montessori Method (1912), Ch. 5 : Discipline, p. 100.
Context: Let us picture to ourselves a clever and proficient workman, capable, not only of producing much and perfect work, but of giving advice in his workshop, because of his ability to control and direct the general activity of the environment in which he works. The man who is thus master of his environment will be able to smile before the anger of others, showing that great mastery of himself which comes from consciousness of his ability to do things. We should not, however, be in the least surprised to know that in his home this capable workman scolded his wife if the soup was not to his taste, or not ready at the appointed time. In his home, he is no longer the capable workman; the skilled workman here is the wife, who serves him and prepares his food for him. He is a serene and pleasant man where he is powerful through being efficient, but is domineering where he is served. Perhaps if he should learn how to prepare his soup he might become a perfect man! The man who, through his own efforts, is able to perform all the actions necessary for his comfort and development in life, conquers himself, and in doing so multiplies his abilities and perfects himself as an individual.
We must make of the future generation, powerful men, and by that we mean men who are independent and free.

Life, Men, Effort, Future

“Strictly speaking, as a Nationalist, he was an enemy, but since in every crisis he would exert himself to prevent violence — which, from the British point of view, meant preventing any effective action whatever — he could be regarded as "our man."”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

In private this was sometimes cynically admitted. The attitude of the Indian millionaires was similar. Gandhi called upon them to repent, and naturally they preferred him to the Socialists and Communists who, given the chance, would actually have taken their money away. How reliable such calculations are in the long run is doubtful; as Gandhi himself says, "in the end deceivers deceive only themselves"; but at any rate the gentleness with which he was nearly always handled was due partly to the feeling that he was useful.
Reflections on Gandhi (1949)

“Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Gitanjali http://www.spiritualbee.com/gitanjali-poems-of-tagore/ (1912) Context: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Way, Freedom, Dead, Country

“This is not only dishonest; it also carries a severe penalty with it. If you disregard people's motives, it becomes much harder to foresee their actions.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please," Tribune (8 December 1944) http://alexpeak.com/twr/tdoaom/ "As I Please" (1943–1947) Context: We are told that it is only people's objective actions that matter, and their subjective feelings are of no importance. Thus pacifists, by obstructing the war effort, are 'objectively' aiding the Nazis; and therefore the fact that they may be personally hostile to Fascism is irrelevant. I have been guilty of saying this myself more than once. The same argument is applied to Trotskyism... To criticize the Soviet Union helps Hitler: therefore "Trotskyism is Fascism". And when this has been established, the accusation of conscious treachery is usually repeated. This is not only dishonest; it also carries a severe penalty with it. If you disregard people's motives, it becomes much harder to foresee their actions.

People, Penalty, Motivation

“Since pacifists have more freedom of action in countries where traces of democracy survive, pacifism can act more effectively against democracy than for it. Objectively the pacifist is pro-Nazi.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"No, Not One," The Adelphi (October 1941)
See his later thoughts on this statement below from "As I Please," Tribune (8 December 1944)

Democracy, Freedom, Country

“We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization.”

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian

The Irony of American History (1952)
Context: We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization. We must exercise our power. But we ought neither to believe that a nation is capable of perfect disinterestedness in its exercise, nor become complacent about a particular degree of interest and passion which corrupt the justice by which the exercise of power is legitimatized.

“I want to go rapidly towards my objective. But fundamentally even the results of action do not worry me so much. Action itself, so long as I am convinced that it is right action, gives me satisfaction.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Statement of 1951, in Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru Vol. 5 (1987), p. 321
Context: I want to go rapidly towards my objective. But fundamentally even the results of action do not worry me so much. Action itself, so long as I am convinced that it is right action, gives me satisfaction. In my general outlook on life I am a socialist and it is a socialist order that I should like to see established in India and the world.

“Contempt for an assailant is best shown by bravery in action.”

Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War

Book VI, 6.34-[9]; "the true contempt of an invader is shown by deeds of valour in the field" ( trans. http://www.classicpersuasion.org/pw/thucydides/jthucbk6rv2.htm Benjamin Jowett) History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VI

“Creating the kind of connections between people that lead to collective civic action, political expression, community dialogue, shared cultural experiences.”

Giovanni Morassutti (1980) Italian actor, theatre director and cultural entrepreneur.

Quoted in "Connected by a Thread: Arts Territory Exchange Residency in Sustainable Practice" by Gudrun Filipska, CSPA Quarterly periodical (January 25, 2019) http://www.sustainablepractice.org/2019/01/25/connected-by-a-thread/.

People, Communication

“When evaluating someone’s actions or temperament, always examine motive for it is the essence of what and who they are. One’s actions are in direct correlation with the conscience.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1992

Motivation

“Man is not, as the croaking philosophers say, merely a rational animal, capable of understanding and knowledge; for, according to them, even irrational creatures appear possessed of understanding and knowledge. But man alone is the image and likeness of God ; and I mean by man, not one who performs actions similar to those of animals, but one who has advanced far beyond mere humanity — to God Himself. This question we have discussed more minutely in the treatise concerning animals. But the principal point to be spoken of now is, what is intended by the image and likeness of God.”

Tatian (120–180) Syrian writer

Ante-Nicene Christian library: v. 3 p. 20
Address to the Greeks

God, Understanding, Question, Knowledge

“In fact, honour, duty and love of one’s own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita.. Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action. In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history’s towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit.”

Nathuram Godse (1910–1949) Assassin of Mahatma Gandhi

Nathuram Godse: Why I Assassinated Gandhi (1993)

History, Country, Spring, Self-confidence

“Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart — one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a stupid action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not?”

Edgar Allan Poe book The Black Cat

Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgement, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such?
The Black Cat (1843)

Soul, Time, Heart, Stupidity

“We must never forget that it is through our actions, words, and thoughts that we have a choice.”

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

Forgetting

“Our dedication to good actions as human beings is what most nourishes our souls”

Angelo Vulpini (2003) Venezuelan recording artist

Source: Posted on @angelovulpini, Instagram (June 15, 2019)

Soul

“For religion is the book and the words within it. It is innocent from any committed action(s).”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Religion, Books

“Purify your actions and words, so that you will not add more fuel to those who lack these attributes within them.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Every action of man, the highest as well as the lowest, is egoistic; for it flows from a certain individuality, a certain I, with a sufficient motive, and can in no way be omitted. To go into the reason of the difference of characters is not the place here; we have simply to accept it as a fact. Now it is just as impossible for the merciful man to let his neighbor starve as it is for the hard-hearted man to help the poor. Each of the two acts according to his character, his nature, his ego, his happiness, consequently egoistically; for if the merciful one did not dry the tears of others, would he be happy? And if the hard-hearted one relieved the suffering of others, would he be satisfied?”

Philipp Mainländer (1841–1876) German poet and philosopher

Source: Philosophie der Erlösung, Erster Band (2014), Ethik, § 11 ISBN 978-1494963262

Motivation, Nature, Tear, Happiness

“It is not enough to just think about the changes one would wish to see around oneself, when putting a positive and compassionate thought into action could make all the difference in the world.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Thinking, World, Change

“If you limit your actions in life to things that nobody can possibly find fault with, you will not do much!”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Life

“To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction”

Isaac Newton book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica

Laws of Motion, III
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
Context: To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction; or, the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.

“When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.”

Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer

Reality

“Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions — as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.”

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

Sec. 41
The Gay Science (1882)

Failure, Question, Success

“The greatest mistake of the movement has been trying to organize a sleeping people around specific goals. You have to wake the people up first, then you'll get action.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Source: Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements

People, Sleep

“Passion is the love of turning being into action. It fuels the engine of creation. It changes concepts to experience…. Never deny passion, for that is to deny Who You Are, and Who You Truly Want To Be.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Love, Passion, Change

“I learned to create a little more space between my thoughts and actions—actually between my feelings and reactions. This is extremely important; without it, life can be a real roller coaster ride.”

Sadhguru (1957) Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian

Source: Midnights with the Mystic

Life, Feeling, Learning

“Solid character will reflect itself in consistent behavior, while poor character will seek to hide behind deceptive words and actions.”

Myles Munroe (1954–2014) Bahamian Evangelical Christian minister

Source: Waiting and Dating

Behavior

“I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.”

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

Light

“And presently I was driving through the drizzle of the dying day, with the windshield wipers in full action but unable to cope with my tears.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

Tear

“Action is eloquence.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

“Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it's no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

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

Learning, Time

“When our actions do not, our fears do make us traitors”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Fear

“Temptation requires definite, decisive action.”

Billy Graham (1918–2018) American Christian evangelist

Billy Graham in Quotes

Decision

“The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action in mind.”

Frank Herbert (1920–1986) American writer

"The Plowboy Interview: Frank Herbert", in Mother Earth News No. 69 (May/June 1981)
General sources

People

“Lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity.”

Blaise Pascal Pensées

Source: Pensées

“To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Study, Personality

“The best cure for one's bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Personality

“The higher a man stands on the social ladder, the greater the number of people he is connected with, the more power he has over other people, the more obvious is the predestination and inevitability of his every action.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

People

“It may be bliss not to know a tornado is coming because you have no need to worry or take action. But while your head is in the sand your bum is in the air, the tornado is still coming.”

David Icke (1952) English writer and public speaker

“Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless…”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Source: Lady Windermere's Fan / A Woman of No Importance / An Ideal Husband / The Importance of Being Earnest / Salomé

Life

“For her, choices were simple; either there was an action she could take to improve the situation, in which case she took it, or there was not, and everything else said on the subject was so much meaningless noise.”

Christopher Paolini book Brisingr

Source: Brisingr

“Your time on this earth is a gift to be used wisely. Don't squander your words or your thoughts. Consider that even the simplest actions you take for your lives matter beyond measure… and they matter forever.”

Andy Andrews (1959) author and corporate speaker

Source: The Noticer: Sometimes, All a Person Needs Is a Little Perspective

Time

“The consciousness of self is the greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all physical action.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

“We are oft to blame in this, -
'tis too much proved, - that with devotion's visage,
and pios action we do sugar o'er
the devil himself.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

“It is a better world. A place where we ate responsible for our actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and becauseit is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment.”

Christopher Paolini book Eldest

Source: Eldest

World

“All thought of something is at the same time self-consciousness […] At the root of all our experiences and all our reflections, we find […] a being which immediately recognises itself, […] and which knows its own existence, not by observation and as a given fact, nor by inference from any idea of itself, but through direct contact with that existence. Self-consciousness is the very being of mind in action.”

Maurice Merleau-Ponty book Phenomenology of Perception

Source: Phenomenology of Perception

Idea, Time

“The root of the matter is a very simple and old fashioned thing… love or compassion. If you feel this, you have a motive for existence, a guide for action, a reason for courage, an imperative necessity for intellectual honesty.”

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

Love, Feeling, Motivation, Fashion

“Mindfulness should guide all your actions and your spiritual endeavors. Whatever you do, always apply three essential points: undertake the action with the intention of doing so for the good of all beings; execute it with perfect concentration, free of attachment to concepts of subject, object, and action; and, finally, dedicate the merit you have created to the enlightenment of all beings.”

Dilgo Khyentse (1910–1991) Bhutanese Buddhist Lama

Source: The Hundred Verses of Advice: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on What Matters Most

Perfection

“Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Attitude, Spring

“Our body begins to destroy itself from the moment it is born. We are fragile. We’re creatures of passage. All that is left of us are our actions, the good or the evil we do to our fellow humans”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book Marina

Source: Marina

Evil

“Your fears are a kind of prison that confines you within a limited range of action. The less you fear, the more power you will have and the more fully you will live.”

Robert Greene book The 50th Law

Source: The 50th Law

Fear

“Eventually we all have to accept full and total responsibility for our actions, everything we have done, and have not done.”

Hubert Selby Jr. Requiem for a Dream

Source: Requiem for a Dream

“If you hear a voice within you saying, "You are not a painter," then by all means paint, boy, and that voice will be silenced, but only by working. He who goes to trends and tells his troubles when he feels like that loses part of his manliness, part of the best that's in him; your friends can only be those who themselves struggle against it, who raise your activity by their own example of action.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter from Drenthe, The Netherlands, Oct. 1883, 'Van Gogh's Letters', http://webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/13/336.htm 1880s, 1883

Feeling, Boy, Silence, Parting

“The complete irresponsibility of man for his actions and his nature is the bitterest drop which he who understands must swallow.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

Source: Human, All Too Human

Understanding, Nature

“Experience is the child of Thought, and Thought is the child of Action. We can not learn men from books.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Book V, Chapter 1.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Vivian Grey (1826)

Men, Books, Learning

“And thus, the actions of life often not allowing any delay, it is a truth very certain that, when it is not in our power to determine the most true opinions we ought to follow the most probable.”

René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist

Source: Discourse on Method

Life, Truth

“I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.”

John Locke book An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

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

Men

“Balance your thoughts with action. — If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Source: Striking Thoughts (2000), p. 43

Thinking, Time

“Knowledge kills action; action requires the veils of illusion.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Birth of Tragedy

Source: The Birth of Tragedy

Knowledge

“The number one cause of atheism is Christians. Those who proclaim Him with their mouths and deny Him with their actions is what an unbelieving world finds unbelievable.”

Karl Rahner (1904–1984) German Catholic theologian

World

“The consequences of our actions take hold of us, quite indifferent to our claim that meanwhile we have 'improved.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Beyond Good and Evil

Source: Beyond Good and Evil

Indifference

“I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

BBC broadcast (“The Russian Enigma”), London, October 1, 1939 ( partial text http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/RusnEnig.html, transcript of the "First Month of War" speech https://ww2memories.wordpress.com/2011/09/24/churchills-ww2-speech-to-the-nation-october-1939/). The Second World War (1939–1945) Context: I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.

“Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Wisdom, Books, Dead

“He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it — namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.”

Mark Twain book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Source: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Ch. 2

Law, Boy

“There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.”

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

“Action is movement with intelligence. The world is filled with movement. What the world needs is more conscious movement, more action.”

B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014) Indian yoga teacher and scholar

Source: Light on Life

World, Intelligence

“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

“Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

Learning

“Do actions agree with words? There's your measure of reliability. Never confine yourself to the words.”

Frank Herbert book Chapterhouse: Dune

Source: Chapterhouse: Dune

“Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,
And vice sometime by action dignified.”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

“You become most powerful in whatever you do if the action is performed for its own sake rather than as a means to protect, enhance, or conform to your role identity.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“Sometimes our best action result in things that are most regrettable.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

“Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged.”

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

This was the lead sentence in an article "Democrats Usher in An Age of Treason" by conservative author J. Michael Waller in Insight magazine (23 December 2003) which a copyeditor (http://www.factcheck.org/misquoting_lincoln.html) mistakenly put quotation marks around, making it seem a quote of Lincoln.
Misattributed

“Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.”

Carrie Fisher (1956–2016) American actress, screenwriter and novelist

Confidence, Waiting

“Thus, in pornographic novels, action has to be limited to the copulation of clichés.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“There are only 3 things that can make your dreams come true: your thoughts, your words, and your actions.”

Mike Dooley (1961) American writer

Dreams

“In such business
Action is eloquence, and the eyes of th’ ignorant
More learned than the ears.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Business, Learning

“Just remember, you can do anything you set your mind to, but it takes action, perseverance, and facing your fears.”

Gillian Anderson (1968) American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer

Excerpt from the foreword in Girl Boss: Running the Show Like the Big Chicks http://www.gilliananderson.ws/transcripts/99_00/99girlboss.shtml, by Stacy Kravetz (1999) 1990s

For women, Fear, Perseverance

“In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

As quoted in Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, "Pythagoras", Sect. 23–24, as translated in Dictionary of Quotations (1906) by Thomas Benfield Harbottle, p. 370

Powerful, Anger

“The basis of action is lack of imagination. It is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

The Critic as Artist (1891), Part I
Variant: Action... is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.

Dreams, Imagination

“In peace there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility; but when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger; stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favor'd rage.”

William Shakespeare Henry V

Source: Henry V

War, Peace, Nature, Rage

“I for one believe that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they'll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

People, Understanding

“Our virtues themselves are not free and floating qualities over which we retain a permanent control and power of disposal; they come to be so closely linked in our minds with the actions in conjunction with which we make it our duty to practice them, that, if we are suddenly called upon to perform some action of a different order, it takes us by surprise, and without our supposing for a moment that it might involve the bringing of those very same virtues into play.”

Marcel Proust book In Search of Lost Time

Source: In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol II: Within a Budding Grove (1919)

“As a general rule, I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I can not properly offer an answer. In spite of this precaution, however, it comes to my knowledge that I am much censured for some supposed agency in setting up, and seeking to sustain, the new State government of Louisiana. In this I have done just so much as, and no more than, the public knows. In the Annual Message of Dec. 1863 and accompanying Proclamation, I presented a plan of re-construction (as the phrase goes) which, I promised, if adopted by any State, should be acceptable to, and sustained by, the Executive government of the nation. I distinctly stated that this was not the only plan which might possibly be acceptable; and I also distinctly protested that the Executive claimed no right to say when, or whether members should be admitted to seats in Congress from such States. This plan was, in advance, submitted to the then Cabinet, and distinctly approved by every member of it. One of them suggested that I should then, and in that connection, apply the Emancipation Proclamation to the theretofore excepted parts of Virginia and Louisiana; that I should drop the suggestion about apprenticeship for freed-people, and that I should omit the protest against my own power, in regard to the admission of members to Congress; but even he approved every part and parcel of the plan which has since been employed or touched by the action of Louisiana. The new constitution of Louisiana, declaring emancipation for the whole State, practically applies the Proclamation to the part previously excepted. It does not adopt apprenticeship for freed-people; and it is silent, as it could not well be otherwise, about the admission of members to Congress. So that, as it applies to Louisiana, every member of the Cabinet fully approved the plan. The message went to Congress, and I received many commendations of the plan, written and verbal; and not a single objection to it, from any professed emancipationist, came to my knowledge, until after the news reached Washington that the people of Louisiana had begun to move in accordance with it. From about July 1862, I had corresponded with different persons, supposed to be interested, seeking a reconstruction of a State government for Louisiana. When the message of 1863, with the plan before mentioned, reached New-Orleans, General Banks wrote me that he was confident the people, with his military co-operation, would reconstruct, substantially on that plan. I wrote him, and some of them to try it; they tried it, and the result is known. Such only has been my agency in getting up the Louisiana government. As to sustaining it, my promise is out, as before stated. But, as bad promises are better broken than kept, I shall treat this as a bad promise, and break it, whenever I shall be convinced that keeping it is adverse to the public interest. But I have not yet been so convinced.”

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

1860s, Last public address (1865)

People, Confidence, Knowledge, Reading

“One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

I.74
Human, All Too Human (1878)

Fear

“The very fact that religions are not content to stand on their own feet, but insist on crippling or warping the flexible minds of children in their favour, forms a sufficient proof that there is no truth in them. If there were any truth in religion, it would be even more acceptable to a mature mind than to an infant mind—yet no mature mind ever accepts religion unless it has been crippled in infancy. … The whole basis of religion is a symbolic emotionalism which modern knowledge has rendered meaningless & even unhealthy. Today we know that the cosmos is simply a flux of purposeless rearrangement amidst which man is a wholly negligible incident or accident. There is no reason why it should be otherwise, or why we should wish it otherwise. All the florid romancing about man's "dignity", "immortality", &c. &c. is simply egotistical delusions plus primitive ignorance. So, too, are the infantile concepts of "sin" or cosmic "right" & "wrong". Actually, organic life on our planet is simply a momentary spark of no importance or meaning whatsoever. Man matters to nobody except himself. Nor are his "noble" imaginative concepts any proof of the objective reality of the things they visualise. Psychologists understand how these concepts are built up out of fragments of experience, instinct, & misapprehension. Man is essentially a machine of a very complex sort, as La Mettrie recognised nearly 2 centuries ago. He arises through certain typical chemical & physical reactions, & his members gradually break down into their constituent parts & vanish from existence. The idea of personal "immortality" is merely the dream of a child or savage. However, there is nothing anti-ethical or anti-social in such a realistic view of things. Although meaning nothing in the cosmos as a whole, mankind obviously means a good deal to itself. Therefore it must be regulated by customs which shall ensure, for its own benefit, the full development of its various accidental potentialities. It has a fortuitous jumble of reactions, some of which it instinctively seeks to heighten & prolong, & some of which it instinctively seeks to shorten or lessen. Also, we see that certain courses of action tend to increase its radius of comprehension & degree of specialised organisation (things usually promoting the wished-for reactions, & in general removing the species from a clod-like, unorganised state), while other courses of action tend to exert an opposite effect. Now since man means nothing to the cosmos, it is plan that his only logical goal (a goal whose sole reference is to himself) is simply the achievement of a reasonable equilibrium which shall enhance his likelihood of experiencing the sort of reactions he wishes, & which shall help along his natural impulse to increase his differentiation from unorganised force & matter. This goal can be reached only through teaching individual men how best to keep out of each other's way, & how best to reconcile the various conflicting instincts which a haphazard cosmic drift has placed within the breast of the same person. Here, then, is a practical & imperative system of ethics, resting on the firmest possible foundation & being essentially that taught by Epicurus & Lucretius. It has no need of supernatualism, & indeed has nothing to do with it.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Natalie H. Wooley (2 May 1936), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 240-241
Non-Fiction, Letters

Life, Men, Children, Truth