Quotes About Action

Sometimes we gotta be brave even when we're scared. We gotta not let being scared keep us from thinkin' straight. That's all brave is, boy, when you come right down to it, not lettin' the fear get you so turned around you start doin' stupid things, instead of what you know you ought to do.

I have one life and one chance to make it count for something . . . I'm free to choose what that something is, and the something I've chosen is my faith. Now, my faith goes beyond theology and religion and requires considerable work and effort. My faith demands -- this is not optional -- my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference." – President Jimmy Carter

There are people who wring their hands and call it an abyss, but do nothing to fill it; there are also those who work to widen it, as if the scientist and literary man belong to two different human subspecies, reciprocally incomprehensible, fated to ignore each other and not apt to engage in cross-fertilization.

If I'm not for myself, who will be for me? If not this way, how? If not now, when?

He spoke grudgingly about his exploits. He did not belong to that species of persons who do things in order to talk about them (like me).

better not to do than to do, better to meditate than to act, better his astrophysics, the threshold of the Unknowable, than my chemistry, a mess compounded of stenches, explosions, and small futile mysteries

It's just that sometimes, he said, even when the right answer is smack in front of you, you got to reach deep inside yourself to act on it. You know what I'm sayin'?

Now if you want a book about prayer, this one's probably not for you. You can find some wonderful books on prayer by some scholarly writers, books that are well worth the time spent reading them. In fact, I highly suggest you do. Can't really learn too much about prayer, can you? But here, in these pages, we aren't going to merely talk about prayer or think about praying. No. Get ready.

Elisabeth Elliot, has said, "One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was, 'Do the next thing.'" Instead of getting all hung up on looking for the grand scope of God's will for your life, just do what He's called you to do right now. That's all that really matters. Now.

Don't do nothing, just because you can't do everything. pg. 144

Ask the Lord to break your heart for what breaks His, and then ask Him to stir in you a sense of active compassion that makes you too uncomfortable to sit by and do nothing.

After all, a man is only what he has decided to do, or not to do.

If a man acts in such a way as to create a belief that he is dead, he must put up with the consequences.

usual call to quarters. This was part of the daily routine, but on this occasion, with a chase in sight, the preparation and inspection was more than usually rigorous, the captain himself accompanying the first lieutenant round the decks to see that all was in order and ready for action; so that all hands were kept busy till it was time to pipe down the hammocks and set the watch.

John Bunyan once said: "You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.

Doubt, he would say, set men free … Doubt, not truth! Beliefs were the foundation of actions. Those who believed without doubting, he would say, acted without thinking. And those who acted without thinking were enslaved.

Convince a man to take a single step—after all, what earthly difference could one step make?—and he would walk the next mile to prove himself right.

he knew that one never stood still, even while waiting. That sometimes the sheathed knife could cut the most throats of all.

To resent is to brood in inaction, to pass through life acting in a manner indistinguishable from those who bear no grudges. But hatred hails from a wilder, far more violent tribe. Even when you cannot strike out, you strike nonetheless. Inward, if not outward, as if such things have direction. To hate, especially without recourse to vengeance, is to besiege yourself, to starve yourself to the point of eating your own, then to lay wreaths of blame at the feet of the accused.

To resent is to brood in inaction, to pass through life acting in a manner indistinguishable from those who bear no grudges. But hatred hails from a wilder, far more violent tribe. Even when you cannot strike out, you strike nonetheless. Inward, if not outward, as if such things have direction. To hate, especially without recourse to vengeance, is to besiege yourself, to starve yourself to the point of eating your own

It was ever the same: Convince a man to take a single step--after all, what earthly difference could one step make?--and he would walk the next mile to prove himself right.

I slammed the car door, and we sped away.

That is the principal thing-not to remain with the dream, with the intention, with the being-in-the-mood, but always forcibly to convert it all into things.

Claire: So we do nothing? Michael: We do the best nothing you've ever seen.