Quotes About Action

The man of thought who will not act is ineffective; the man of action who will not think is dangerous.

Heaven never helps the man who will not help himself

A man full of hope will be full of action.

When a man is drowning, it may be better for him to try to swim than to thrash around waiting for divine intervention.

Men who reach decisions promptly usually have the capacity to move with definiteness of purpose in other circumstances.

What is the highest of all goods achievable by action? ...both the general run of man and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness ...but with regard to what happiness is they differ.

Opportunity is rare, and a wise man will never let it go by him.

Man is only truly great when he acts from the passions; never irresistible but when he appeals to the imagination.

Today I'm out wandering, turning my skull into a cup for others to drink wine from. In this town somewhere there sits a calm, intelligent man, who doesn't know what he's about to do!

He who learns the rules of wisdom, without conforming to them in his life, is like a man who labored in his fields, but did not sow

If a wise man behaves prudently, how can he be overcome by his enemies? Even a single man, by right action, can overcome a host of foes.

Guilt is a timorous thing ere perpetration; despair alone makes guilty men be bold.

And I really do think that the difficulty of research makes it more real to you than punching a thing to find out how many men were killed at this particular action.

Man is not free to refuse to do the thing which gives him more pleasure than any other conceivable action.

Liberty in thought and action is the only condition of life, growth and well-being: Where it does not exist, the man, the race, and the nation must go down.

To sit home, read one's favorite paper, and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. It is what evil men count upon the good men's doing.

Now is the time for all good men to come to.

A man who goes forth to take the life of another whom he does not know must believe only one thing: that by his act he will change the course of history.

The men of action are, after all, only the unconscious instruments of the men of thought.

The worst pain a man can have is to know much and be impotent to act.

Act is the blossom of thought; and joy and suffering are its fruits; thus does a man garner in the sweet and biter fruitage of his own husbandry

Vice: Whatever was passion in the contemplation of man, being brought forth by his will into action.

Men endowed with a wild imagination should have, in addition, the great poetic faculty of denying our universe and its values so that they may act upon it with sovereign ease.

A man may well bring a horse to water but he cannot make him drink.