Quotes About Action

Nobody is incapable of doing a foolish thing. Nobody is incapable of doing a wrong thing.

It takes a thoroughly good woman to do a thoroughly stupid thing.

It is always with the best intentions that the worst work is done.

People who shout so loud, my lords, do nothing; the only men I fear are silent men

All art is immortal. For emotion for the sake of emotion is the aim of art, and emotion for the sake of action is the aim of life.

As for being poisoned by a book, there is no such thing as that. Art has no influence upon action.

Lots of people act well, but very few people talk well, which shows that talking is much the more difficult thing of the two, and much the finer thing also.

The only action on the street was booze and hot cunt.

This is our purpose: to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us . . . to live in such a way that we may be proud of ourselves, to act in such a way that some part of us lives on. This is our purpose: to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us . . . to live in such a way that we may be proud of ourselves, to act in such a way that some part of us lives on.

The result justifies the deed (Exitus acta probat)

Let your hook be always cast in the pond. when you least expect it, there will be fish.

Wovon man nicht handeln kann, darüber muss man faulenzen. Whereof one cannot act, thereof one must be lazy.

Evil will win if good people do nothing.

I just have to do the right thing, and recently I've realized that sometimes the right thing seems crazy to those who don't want change.

What you put out into the world returns to you, and that goes for thoughts, acts, and energy.

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

As Shakespeare says, if you're going to do a thing you might as well pop right at it and get it over.

Well, there it is. That's Jeeves. Where others merely smite the brow and clutch the hair, he acts. Napoleon was the same.

I shoved on a dressing-gown, and flew downstairs like a mighty, rushing wind.

T]he success of every novel -- if it's a novel of action -- depends on the high spots. The thing to do is to say to yourself, What are my big scenes? and then get every drop of juice out of them. (Interview, The Paris Review , Issue 64, Winter 1975)

One uses the verb 'descend' advisedly, for what is required is some word suggesting instantaneous activity. About Baxter's progress from the second floor to the first there was nothing halting or hesitating. He, so to speak, did it now. Planting

Never mind, I said crisply. I have my methods. I dug out my entire stock of manly courage, breathed a short prayer and let her have it right in the thorax.

I hardly knew what to do. I wanted, of course, to rush down to Washington Square and grip the poor blighter silently by the hand; and then, thinking it over, I hadn't the nerve. Absent treatment seemed the touch. I gave it him in waves.

But those who read thrillers are an impatient race. They chafe at scenic rhapsodies and want to get on to the rough stuff.