Quotes About Action

The mind that leaps is the mind that lives.

All revolutions have been carried through by the spontaneous action of the people; if occasionally governments have responded to the initiative of the people it was only because they were forced or constrained to do so. Almost always they blocked, repressed, struck.

When feeling is for thinking and thinking is for doing, regret is for making us better.

Foundation regrets sound like this: If only I'd done the work.

Moral regrets sound like this: If only I'd done the right thing.

An object in motion will stay in motion, and an object at rest will stay at rest, unless acted on by an outside force.

The lesson is plain: Speak up. Ask him out. Take that trip. Start that business. Step off the train.

Perhaps you're familiar with the First Law of Holes: "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." And perhaps you've ignored this law.

The psychological concept is known as "escalation of commitment to a failing course of action." It's one of the many cognitive biases that can pollute our decisions.

HAVE A FEDEX DAY

In the American Regret Survey, twenty-year-olds had equal numbers of action and inaction regrets. But as people grew older, inaction regrets began to dominate. By age fifty, inaction regrets were twice as common as action regrets. Indeed, according to the data, age was by far the strongest predictor of regrets of inaction. When the universe of opportunities before them has dwindled (as it has with older folks), people seem to regret what they haven't done.

One of the most robust findings, in the academic research and my own, is that over time we are much more likely to regret the chances we didn't take than the chances we did.

Rewarding an activity will get you more of it. Punishing an activity will get you less of it.

Boldness regrets sound like this: If only I'd taken the risk.

The goal here is to recognize that slow-moving when problems have all the gravity of fast-moving what calamities—and deserve the same collective response.

But unless carefully managed and contained, self-criticism can become a form of inner-directed virtue signaling. It projects toughness and ambition, but often leads to rumination and hopelessness instead of productive action.[

Ferlazzo makes a distinction between "irritation" and "agitation." Irritation, he says, is "challenging people to do something that we want them to do." By contrast, "agitation is challenging them to do something that they want to do.

The lesson: Clarity on how to think without clarity on how to act can leave people unmoved.

What the hell, I think. My pistol is on my hips and my balls are between my legs.

Wu is seen taking a breath as if to speak . . . but the former taikonaut lets it out without saying anything. Her silence in this moment was surely spurred by conflicting desires—her duty to her team on one hand, versus her duty to maintain the secrets of her homeland on the other. With every word tantamount to a chess move, her decision to take no action here would prove a costly blunder. And an unnecessary one.

In a disaster . . . individual personality does not matter. Almost everything you do is going to make it worse. —MICHAEL CRICHTON

There are no truer choices than those made in crisis, choices made without judgment.

For every Gospel action, there is an opposite and devious demonic reaction. We see this in the book of Acts. It appears in church history. We experience it in our personal journeys.

Campbell. « Et puis, je me suis dit, c'est ridicule, il faut le faire