Quotes About Action

Quite candidly, if it is possible for our faith and works to be hidden, perhaps that only shows they are of a kind that should be hidden. We might, in that case, think about directing our efforts toward the cultivation of a faith that is impossible to hide.

One of the greatest weaknesses in our teaching and leadership today is that we spend so much time trying to get people to do things good people are supposed to do, without changing what they really believe.

Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action.

Remember, to believe something is to act as if it is so. To believe that two plus two equals four is to behave accordingly when trying to find out how many dollars or apples are in the house. The advantage of believing it is not that we can pass tests in arithmetic; it is that we can deal much more successfully with reality. Just try dealing with it as if two plus two equaled six.

To say that "the righteous (or just) shall live by faith" does not mean that they live by blind and irresponsible leaps in total absence, or even in defiance, of knowledge. It does not mean that the "just" live in a state of ignorance or stupidity.1 They do on occasion act in specific ways beyond what they know, but only within a framework of knowledge that makes such action reasonable.

Belief cannot reliably govern life and action except in its proper connection with knowledge and with the truth and evidence knowledge involves.

Magic and witchcraft, by contrast, are forms of superstition. They work from belief that some action, substance or circumstance not logically or naturally (or even supernaturally) related to a certain course of events does nonetheless influence the outcome of those events if "correctly" approached.

You cannot choose conditions and reject the consequences. Even a "bill of rights" cannot change that.

We have a terrible time understanding love, because we confuse it with desire. Desire and love are two utterly different kinds of things. Not only is desire not love; it is often opposed to love. Right action is the act of love, regardless of the desires of anyone involved.

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.

God's sovereignty is not an invitation to passivity. Instead, it is a call to wise and risky creativity.

Action is never enough if defined as eradicating the problem. Action is always enough if it is faithful to the call of the moment.

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their silence at times of crisis.

Act first, explain later.

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis. For Langdon, the meaning of these words had never felt so clear: In dangerous times, there is no sin greater than inaction.

Relax, Langdon whispered. Do your piranha thing.

Anything is possible when people believe in a cause.

Find the truth. Act on it.

To do nothing is to welcome Dante's hell - cramped and starving, weltering in Sin. And so boldly I have taken action. Some will recoil in horror, but all salvation comes at a price. One day the world will grasp the beauty of my sacrifice.

One final bit of advice. The next time a senior administrator of the CIA tells you she has a national-security crisis ... Leave the bullshit in Cambridge.

And maybe that's why the only thing that keeps me going is my belief that we are capable of being better than we are Ã¢â'¬Â¦ capable of taking action to avoid a catastrophic future.

Iactura paucourm serva multos.

Your world moves so fast that if you stop even for an instant to consider the implications of your actions, someone more efficient will whip past you in a blur.

To permit ignorance is to empower it. To do nothing as our leaders proclaim absurdities is a crime of complacency. As is letting our schools and churches teach outright untruths to our children. The time for action has come. Not until we purge our species of superstitious thinking can we embrace all that our minds have to offer.