Quotes about action
page 7

“The source of love is deep in us and we can help others realize a lot of happiness. One word, one action, one thought can reduce another person’s suffering and bring that person joy.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

love, For Him, For Boyfriend, Love

“Art—the meaning of the pattern of our common actions in reality. The cloth-of-gold that hides behind the sackcloth of reality, forced out by the pain of human memory.”

Lawrence Durrell book Justine

Source: Justine

Pain, Art, Reality, Memory

“All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories

People, Support, Thinking

“Parents who discipline their child by discussing the consequences of their actions produce children who have better moral development, compared to children whose parents use authoritarian methods and punishment.”

Simon Baron-Cohen (1958) psychologist and author

Source: Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty

Children, Parent

“There aren’t many sure things in life, but one thing I know for sure is
that you have to deal with the consequences of your actions. You have to follow
through on some things.”

Cecelia Ahern book Love, Rosie

Variant: There aren’t many sure things in life, but one thing I do know is that you have to deal with the consequences of your actions. You have to follow through on some things.
Source: Love, Rosie

Life

“There are generations yet unborn,
whose very lives will be shifted and shaped by the moves you make and the actions you take.”

Andy Andrews (1959) author and corporate speaker

“The paths to liberation are numerous, but the bank along the way is always the same, the Bank of Karma, where the liberation account of each of us is credited or debited depending on our actions.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

Way, Dependency

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.”

John Stuart Mill book On Liberty

Source: On Liberty

Evil, Personality

“What kind of justice is this?
Where the poor go to prison and the rich go free.
Where witnesses are rented, bought, or bribed.
Where people are tried not because of any criminal actions but because of their political beliefs.”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

Source: Assata: An Autobiography

People, Justice

“Only if the third necessary thing could be given us. Number one, as I said: quality of information. Number two: leisure to digest it. And number three: the right to carry out actions based on what we learn from the interaction of the first two.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Learning

“Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.”

Abraham Verghese book Cutting for Stone

Source: Cutting for Stone

“acquisition of skills requires a regular environment, an adequate opportunity to practice, and rapid and unequivocal feedback about the correctness of thoughts and actions.”

Daniel Kahneman book Thinking, Fast and Slow

Source: Thinking, Fast and Slow

“We can reproach ourselves for some action, for a remark, but not for a feeling, quite simply because we have no control at all over it.”

Milan Kundera (1929–2023) Czech author of Czech and French literature

Feeling

“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Context: I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

Men, God, Hate, People

“I never worry about action, but only about inaction.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Winston Churchill (Author) and Richard Langworth (Editor) (28. Oktober 2008): Churchill by Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations. New York: PublicAffairs (1st Edition), page 160. note: See also: 1940s. Passim. Martin Gilbert, The Churchill War Papers, Volume II: Never Surrender, May 1940-December 1940. London: Heinemann, New York: Norton, 1994, page xvi, where Sir Martin writes in his Preface: "Inefficiency, incompetence and negative attitudes roused his ire: I have indicated some examples of this in the Churchill index entry, under “rebukes by.” He did not take kindly to what he called “a drizzle of carping criticism,” or to those officials, military or civilian, who, as he expressed it, “failed to rise to the height of circumstances.” Among his injunctions to his Ministers were, “Don’t let this matter sleep,” and, “I never ‘worry’ about action, but only about inaction.”" note: See also: In a letter, on page 1184 of the above work: Concerning “Operation Compass,” the first major British offensive in North Africa, Churchill wrote to General Dill on 7 December 1940: "If, with the situation as it is, General Wavell is only playing small, and is not hurling on his whole available forces with furious energy, he will have failed to rise to the height of circumstances. I never “worry” about action, but only about inaction." note: Source for all the aforementioned information: Richard M. Langworth (Senior fellow, Hillsdale College Churchill Project, Writer and Historian) (March 4, 2009): Churchill on Action vs. Inaction. <br class="br">Source: Archived on June 2, 2020 https://web.archive.org/web/20200602062301/https://richardlangworth.com/i-never-worry-about-action-but-only-about-inaction and secured on June 2, 2020 http://archive.is/Xgxu6 from the original https://richardlangworth.com/i-never-worry-about-action-but-only-about-inaction

“The easiest way to get brainwashed is to be born. All of the above principles then immediately go into action, a process which social psychologists euphemistically call socialization.”

Robert Anton Wilson book Prometheus Rising

Source: Prometheus Rising

Way

“A thought which does not result in an action is nothing much, and an action which does not proceed from a thought is nothing at all.”

Georges Bernanos (1888–1948) French writer

“If I had done this, if I had said that, in the end you are always more tormented by what you didn't do than what you did, actions already performed can always be rationalized in time, the neglected deed might have changed the world.”

Damon Galgut book In a Strange Room

Source: In a Strange Room

World, Change, Time

“In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.”

Anthony Robbins (1960) Author, actor, professional speaker

Motivational

“Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action?”

Haruki Murakami book After Dark

Source: After Dark

“There is never one absolutely right thing to do. All you can do is honor what you believe, accept the consequences of your own actions, and make the best out of what happens.”

Garth Nix book Superior Saturday

Source: Superior Saturday

“The only recognizable feature of hope is action.”

Grace Paley (1922–2007) American writer and activist

Hope

“If emotion can create a physical action, then duplicating the physical action can re-create the emotion.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Diary

Source: Diary

“For every action, there’s an infinity of outcomes. Countless trillions are possible, many milliards are likely, millions might be considered probable, several occur as possibilities to us as observers—and one comes true.”

China Miéville book The Scar

Part 6 “Morning Walker”, chapter 34 (p. 394)
Source: The Scar (2002)

“Blood hardly defines one's character. We are made by our actions, not our blood. - Soren”

Kathryn Lasky (1944) American children's writer

Source: The Golden Tree

“What is trust, sidhe-seer, but expectation that another will behave in a certain fashion, consistent with prior actions?”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

Fashion

“Happiness is really rooted in simplicity. The tendency to excessiveness in thought and action diminishes happiness.”

Brian L. Weiss

Happiness

“There was a sound in the background like a distant sheep coughing gently on a mountainside. Jeeves sailing into action.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Joy in the Morning (1947)
Source: Jeeves in the Morning

Distant

“Action alone is the tinder which ignites the map, the parchment, this scroll, my dreams, my plans, my goals, into a living force.”

Og Mandino book The Greatest Salesman in the World

Source: The Greatest Salesman in the World (1968), Ch. 16 : The Scroll Marked IX, p. 93.
Context: I will act now. Never has there been a map, however carefully executed to detail and scale, which carried its owner over even one inch of ground. Never has there been a parchment of law, however fair, which prevented one crime. Never has there been a scroll, even such as the one I hold, which earned so much as a penny or produced a single word of acclamation. Action alone is the tinder which ignites the map, the parchment, this scroll, my dreams, my plans, my goals, into a living force. Action is the food and drink which will nourish my success.
I will act now.

Dreams

“… racist thought and action says far more about the person they come from than the person they are directed at.”

Chris Crutcher book Whale Talk

Source: Whale Talk

Personality

“I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Understanding, Effort

“My actions are my only true belongings.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Understanding Our Mind: 50 Verses on Buddhist Psychology

“A practical girl never pines; she takes action.”

Adriana Trigiani (1970) American film director

Source: The Shoemaker's Wife

Girl

“I’m merely talking about learning to be less bothered by the actions of people.”

Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker

Source: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff ... and it's all small stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life

People, Learning

“A man's every action is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds him and by his own body.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

“We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.”

Abigail Adams (1744–1818) 2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801)

Letter to John Adams (1774)

“A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action. If there's no action, you haven't truly decided.”

Anthony Robbins (1960) Author, actor, professional speaker

Source: Awaken the Giant Within (1992), p. 49
Source: Unlimited Power : The New Science Of Personal Achievement

Decision

“real action and true helpfulness are perhaps the ultimate charm.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Help

“I'm sorry,' he says simply. 'People make mistakes, Gemma. We take the wrong action for the right reasons, and the right action for the wrong reasons.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

People

“Dreams and reality are opposites. Action synthesizes them.”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

Source: Assata: An Autobiography

Dreams, Reality

“Calvin: Life's a lot more fun when you're not responsible for your actions.
p152”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes
Source: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

Life

“You don't have to be 'adults'… but be someone who can take responsibility for their own words and actions. Believe it or not, that's actually harder.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Source: Fruits Basket, Vol. 8

“It's strange, I think, the way our lives turn out. Moments of circumstance, when later combined with conscious decisions and actions and a boatload of hope, can eventually forge a future that seems predestined.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Longest Ride

Source: The Longest Ride

Hope, Way, Thinking, Decision

“If you do not know what you feel, then it is difficult to choose love; it is better to fall. Then you do not have to be responsible for your actions.”

Bell Hooks book All About Love: New Visions

Source: All About Love: New Visions

Love, Feeling

“Life is made of our attitudes. And there are certain things that the gods oblige us to live through. Their reason for this does not matter, and there is no action we can take to make them pass us by.”

Paulo Coelho book The Fifth Mountain

Source: The Fifth Mountain

Life, God

“For every failure, there's an alternative
course of action. You just have to find it.
When you come to a roadblock,
take a detour.”

Mary Kay Ash (1918–2001) Entrepreneur

Failure

“My Life cannot implement in action the demands of all the people to whom my heart responds.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American aviator and author

Life, People, Heart

“The idea that each corporation can be a feudal monarchy and yet behave in its corporate action like a democratic citizen concerned for the world we live in is one of the great absurdities of our time”

Kim Stanley Robinson book Antarctica

Source: Antarctica

World, Idea, Time

“I early learned that it is a hard matter to convert an individual by abusing him, and that this is more often accomplished by giving credit for all the praiseworthy actions performed than by calling attention alone to all the evil done.”

Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor

Source: Up From Slavery: An Autobiography

Learning, Evil

“The wisest man is the silent one. Examine his actions. Judge him by them.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

“I do not believe that the desires of young boys cause catastrophic events. The actions of humans do.”

Melina Marchetta Finnikin of the Rock

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

Boy

“Just think! This whole world of ours is only a speck of mildew sprung up on a tiny planet, yet we think we can have something great - thoughts,, actions! They are all but grains of sand”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

World, Thinking

“… it is by our actions that we are destroyed or saved. The choice is ours.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: The Dream Hunter

“When I was kidnapped, my parents snapped into action. They rented out my room.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Standup Comic (1999)

Parent

“Action creates/a taste/for itself.”

Kay Ryan (1945) American poet

“While it is true that most people never see or understand the difference they make, or sometimes only imagine their actions having a tiny effect, every single action a person takes has far-reaching consequences.”

Andy Andrews (1959) author and corporate speaker

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

People, Imagination, Understanding, Personality

“Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.”

Steven Pressfield (1943) United States Marine

Source: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles

Feeling, Soul

“I’d seen him fight before, but it never got old. He was captivating. He never stopped moving. Every action was graceful and lethal. He was a dancer of death.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Death, Fight

“I believe that in judging our actions we are more severe than professional judges. We judge not only our actions, but our thoughts, our intentions, our secret curses, our hidden hate.”

Anaïs Nin book A Spy in the House of Love

Variant: We are more severe judges of our own acts... We judge our thoughts, our intents, our secret curses, our secret hates, not only our acts.
Source: A Spy in the House of Love

Hate, Secret

“Concern should drive us into action, not into a depression.”

Karen Horney (1885–1952) American-German psychoanalyst

Depressing

“Emotions come and go and can't be controlled so there's no reason to worry about them. That in the end, people should be judged by their actions since in the end it was actions that defined everyone.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

People

“You are the one who calls the law of attraction into action, and you do it through your thoughts.”

Rhonda Byrne book The Secret

Source: The Secret

Law

“A person who cannot imagine the future is a person who cannot contemplate the results of his actions. Some are thus paralyzed into inaction.”

Alan Lightman book Einstein's Dreams

Source: Einstein's Dreams

Imagination, Future, Personality

“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. You receive from the world what you give to the world.”

Gary Zukav (1942) American writer and revivalist

Source: The Seat of the Soul

World

“The most decisive actions of our life — I mean those that are most likely to decide the whole course of our future — are, more often than not, unconsidered.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

Les Faux Monnayeurs (1925), Pt. 3, ch. 16

Life, Decision, Future

“Actions that sometimes seem mean aren’t. Rather they are done by the ones we love in order to protect us without our knowing it. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Love

“Good actions are the invisible hinges on the doors of heaven.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

“The wisest and the best of men, nay, the wisest and best of their actions, may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Life, Men, Personality

“As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise human science is at a loss.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Question, Decision, Science, Loss

“Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Variant: Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

Motivational, Back To Work

“The more I thought about human nature, the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin/mistakes causes us to use our minds to rationalize our action.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Nature

“But love, I've come to understand, is more than three words mumbled before bedtime. Love is sustained by action, a pattern of devotion in the things we do for each other every day.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Wedding

Wilson Lewis, Chapter 4, p. 63
Source: 2000s, The Wedding (2003)

Love, Understanding

“I hate how my past actions keep messing up my future options, Seth muttered.
Then you've started down the road to wisdom, Grandpa replied.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary

Wisdom, Hate, Past, Future

“Love is sustained by action, a pattern of devotion in the things we do for each other every day.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Wedding

Source: The Wedding

For Wife, Love

“The essence in obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view himself as an instrument for carrying out another person's wishes and he therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for his actions.”

Stanley Milgram (1933–1984) Social psychologist

Source: Obedience to Authority

Personality

“People need routines. It's like a theme in music. But it also restricts your thoughts and actions and limits your freedom. It structures your priorities and in some cases distorts your logic.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

People, Music, Freedom

“Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man's freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Source: The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism

Men, Freedom

“All power is the same. Magic. Physical strength. Economic strength. Political strength. It all serves a single purpose-it gives its possessor a broader spectrum of choices. It creates alternative courses of action.”

Jim Butcher Proven Guilty

Source: Proven Guilty

“I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.”

Baruch Spinoza book Tractatus Theologico-Politicus

Source: Tractatus Theologico-Politicus

Hate, Understanding

“Nonviolent action, born of the awareness of suffering and nurtured by love, is the most effective way to confront adversity.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Love in Action: Writings on Nonviolent Social Change

Love, Way, Suffering

“Your beliefs become your thoughts
Your thoughts become your words
Your words become your actions
Your actions become your destiny.

Mahatma Ghandi,” he said. “There’s more, but I can’t remember it all.”

Louise Penny book A Fatal Grace

Source: A Fatal Grace

“If you smile, even if you’re feeling bad, the action of the muscles will trick your brain into thinking you’re happy”

Candace Bushnell book The Carrie Diaries

Source: The Carrie Diaries

Smile, Feeling, Thinking, Happiness

“Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Dreams, Reality

“What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

“Leo had seen Tia Callida in action; she liked knives, snakes and putting babies in roaring fires. Yeah, definitely let's unleash her rage. Great idea.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Idea, Rage, Baby

“You only have control over three things in your life-the thoughts you think, the images you visualise, & the actions you take.”

Jack Canfield (1944) American writer

Life, Thinking

“At a certain point, I just felt, you know, God is not looking for alms, God is looking for action.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

God

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

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

James Legge translation.
Variant translations: The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his actions.
The greater man does not boast of himself, But does what he must do.
A good man does not give orders, but leads by example.
The Analects, Chapter I, Chapter IV

For Men