Action

"Action implies motion; but there may be motion, as in a clock, where, properly speaking, there is no agent. Many motions necessary to life are continually going on in the human body; as those of the heart, lungs, and arteries: but these are not human actions, because man is not the cause of them. For the same reason, breathing, and the motion of the eyelids, are not actions; because, though we may act for a little time in suspending them, for the purpose of seeing or hearing more accurately, they commonly go on without any care of ours; and, while they do so, we are, in regard to them, not active, but passive. ... All action is the work of an agent, that is, of a being who acts; and every being who acts is the beginner of that motion which constitutes the action."

"Of every noble action the intent Is to give worth reward, vice punishment."

"Better remain silent, better not even think, if you are not prepared to act."

"Fate quello che noi diciamo e non quello che noi facciamo."

"That low man seeks a little thing to do, Sees it and does it. This high man, with a great thing to pursue, Dies ere he knows it."

"Put his shoulder to the wheel."

"To-morrow let us do or die."

"Hadst thou not Greek enough to understand thus much: The end of man is an action, and not a thought, though it were the noblest."

"Our grand business undoubtedly is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand."

"Ye been oure lord, dooth with youre owene thyng Right as yow list."

"It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness."

"A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he’s not a man of action. It is as if a tennis player before returning a ball stopped to think about his views of the physical and mental advantages of tennis. You must act as you breathe."

"When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn't a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking."

"Our actions must clothe us with an immortality loathsome or glorious."

"It is better to wear out than to rust out."

"Actions of the last age are like almanacs of the last year."

"For strong souls Live like fire-hearted suns; to spend their strength In furthest striving action."

"Tempests occasionally shake our dwellings and dissipate our commerce; but they scourge before them the lazy elements, which without them would stagnate into pestilence."

"Let's meet and either do or die."

"Man is his own star, and the soul that can Render an honest and a perfect man, Commands all light, all influence, all fate. Nothing to him falls early or too late. Our acts, our angels are, or good or ill, Our fatal shadows that walk by us still."

"people cannot take action if they don't have accurate information."

"Letting I dare not wait upon I would is a mug's game, and those who play it usually get mugged."

"If action, however violent, evolves from character, there is no higher literary expression and the ultimate crystallization of character is likely to lie in physical rather than psychological action."

"A man that's fond precociously of stirring, Must be a spoon."

"Fungar vice cotis, acutum Reddere quæ ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi."

"In medias res."

"The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter & did not ask, "Where is he at?" By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing — "Carry a message to Garcia!""

"If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all?"

"A good man deliberating which of several actions proposed he shall choose, regards and compares the material goodness of them, and then is determined by his moral sense invariably preferring that which appears most conducive to the happiness and virtue of mankind."

"The highest function of philosophy is to enforce the attitude of meditation and therewithal restrain the excessive volubility of the tongue. To us it seems that the reflective thinker wins his greatest victories when by what he says he compels us to recognise the relative insignificance of anything he can say. His task is not to capture Reality, but to free it from captivity."

"Waiting for power to move to its inevitable collapse is suicidal for all concerned. Blacks and other Third World peoples have the very imminent prospect of genocidal tactics to contend with, and we can now all see that the modern industrial state, motivated by exclusive groups of capitalist masters, cannot regulate itself to make possible an inclusive production and distribution of goods, or production without a massive waste of resources and destruction of all that stands about. The debate ends, the action begins. It is not question of the necessity of violence, but of how to organize it."

"She could never rid herself of the sense that unhappiness was a state of disease – of suffering as opposed to doing. To "do" – it hardly mattered what – would therefore be an escape, perhaps in some degree a remedy."

"Superman: It's not about where you were born. Or what powers you have. Or what you wear on your chest. ... It's about what you do... It's about action."

"Things don't just happen, they are made to happen."

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

"Let us, then, be up and doing. With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait."

"With useless endeavour Forever, forever, Is Sisyphus rolling His stone up the mountain!"

"Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action."

"Existence was given us for action, rather than indolent and aimless contemplation; our wrath is determined by the good deeds we do, rather than by the fine emotions we feel. They greatly mistake, who suppose that God cares for no other pursuit than devotion."

"It is no use for one to stand in the shade and complain that the sun does not shine upon him. He must come out resolutely on the hot and dusty field where all are compelled to antagonize with stubborn difficulties, and pertinaciously strive until he conquers, if he would deserve to be crowned."

"Problems or successes, they all are the results of our own actions. Karma. The philosophy of action is that no one else is the giver of peace or happiness. One's own karma, one's own actions are responsible to come to bring either happiness or success or whatever... As you sow, so shall you reap. It's a very old proverb of mankind."

"It is well to think well. It is divine to act well."

"He nothing common did, or mean, Upon that memorable scene."

"So much one man can do, That does both act and know."

"Awake, arise, or be forever fall'n!"

"Execute their aery purposes."

"Those graceful acts, Those thousand decencies that daily flow From all her words and actions."

"The man of action is not the headstrong fool who rushes into danger with no thought for himself, but the man who puts into practice the things he knows."

"Our rulers at the present day, with their machines and their preachers, are all occupied in putting into our heads the preposterous notion that activity rather than contemplation is the object of life."

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