action quotes

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.

I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.

Man is only great when he acts from passion.

We are not going to be satisfied by politicians saying ‚we support you‘ and then walking away. We won’t be satisfied until they meet our demands and act. That’s why simply taking a selfie or posting support on Twitter isn’t enough. That’s why we have to keep striking.

Effective action is always unjust.

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done!

We must not sit still and look for miracles; up and doing, and the Lord will be with thee. Prayer and pains, through faith in Christ Jesus, will do anything.

You must take action now that will move you towards your goals. Develop a sense of urgency in your life.

The action we take and the decisions we make in this decade will have consequences far into this century. If America shows weakness and uncertainty, the world will drift toward tragedy. That will not happen on my watch.

Once we start to act, hope is everywhere. So instead of looking for hope, look for action. Then, and only then, hope will come.

Personal success or personal satisfaction are not worth another thought if one does achieve them, or worth worrying about if they evade one or are slow in coming. All that is really worth while is action – faithful action, for the world, and in God.

Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing.

Men’s actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.

Our faith is released as we say, pray and do the Word.

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.

It is a no-fail, incontrovertible reality: If you get, give. If you learn, teach. You can’t do anything with that except do it.

Justice is truth in action.

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.

The sons of Judah have to choose that God may again choose them. The divine principle of our race is action, choice, resolved memory.

Freedom is something that dies unless it’s used.

The real danger is not inaction. The real danger is when politicians and CEOs are making it look like action is happening when in fact nothing is being done.

I never worry about action, but only inaction.

We give speeches and pin ribbons onto uniforms, etch names into walls. And all that is fine, but too often, all those tributes, all those words aren’t always backed up by action. And that felt like such a stark contrast to me, because, as we all know, our military is all about action.

The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.

All fiction is about people, unless it’s about rabbits pretending to be people. It’s all essentially characters in action, which means characters moving through time and changes taking place, and that’s what we call ‚the plot‘.

The original reason to start the project, which was that the Germans were a danger, started me off on a process of action, which was to try to develop this first system at Princeton and then at Los Alamos, to try to make the bomb work.

You can’t think; you just gotta do things.

I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.

When I take action, I’m not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It’s going to be decisive.

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.

If you want to conquer fear, don’t sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

When a country has the skill and self-confidence to take action against its biggest problems, it makes outsiders eager to be a part of it.

Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong – these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.

The effects of climate change are real and must be acted on.

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion.

If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles!

Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.

I started in action, and then I went to comedy school.

Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action.

The right man is the one who seizes the moment.

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.

Besides entertainment and action, I want to educate. You know, as a producer or director, we do have a responsibility to society.

People who think too much before they act don’t act too much.

Not having hope is not an excuse for not doing something.

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.

Even though you are on the right track – you will get run over if you just sit there.

Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.

I want to make a good, solid kung fu movie.

We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.

Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.

I want to use my position of leadership to help move along at a faster pace what I believe and know the Obama administration wants to do around the urgency of climate change.

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

Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.

When all is said and done, more is said than done.

Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.