Quotes About Action

We see long-term planning as necessary and deliberation as a virtue, but when we decide that action is urgently needed, our tolerance for delay disappears.

Already, "never again" was happening.

What the country needs is a plainspoken commitment by responsible leaders from both parties to address national needs together, accompanied by a general plan of action for doing so.

What that something might be is for each of us to decide in accordance with our opportunities and talents, but it begins by pushing back harder against the debilitating cancer of cynicism.

In recent years, we have all become familiar with the counterterrorism mantra: "See something, say something." In the pages that follow, I propose an added exhortation—do something. What that something might be is for each of us to decide in accordance with our opportunities and talents, but it begins by pushing back harder against the debilitating cancer of cynicism.

You think that the things that matter are more difficult than words - to retreat from a confrontation, for instance, to work at changing something, truly changing something." She lifted her hand toward the bodies and the tanks. "Ai-ming, you're studying history to prepare for the examinations. What if revolution and violence are the only way?

How did a person know, he wondered, what was love and what was a facsimile of it? Did it matter? Was the thing that mattered most the action that one took - or failed to take - in the name of that feeling?

For life is the mirror of king and slave, 'Tis just what we are and do Then give to the world the best you have, And the best will come back to you.

Sometimes events conspire to force one to do what should be done.

Bold action and bold manner are not the same.

Timidity creates nothing.

As it turned out, I did kill pigs that night after all.

As it turns out, I did kill pigs that night after all

It is a practical world, Mr. Owen, and we have to do practical things.

In all emotional conflicts, the thing you find the most difficult to do, is the thing that you should do. --Meyer's Law

we both knew we were talking nonsense. The habit of involvement is not easily broken. It is even more pervasive than the habit of noninvolvement, the habit of walking away when the action starts.

He that leaveth nothing to chance will do few things ill, but he will do very few things. —GEORGE SAVILE, MARQUIS OF HALIFAX

Without a life example that speaks louder than words, even the most persuasive leader will fail.

Most men wait to move until victory is guaranteed.

That's the key word—engage. Choose to engage and your weary warrior wakes up.

What man is a man who does not make the world better?

The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. [State of the Union Address January 11 1962]

If not us, who? If not now, when?

There are costs and risks to a program of action, but they are far less than the long range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.