Quotes About Action

Courage is action, not talk.

Like a beautiful brightly colored flower without fragrance Is the well-spoken word without action. Like a beautiful brightly colored flower full of fragrance Is the well-spoken word and the deed that matches the word. DHAMMAPADA 51-52

Ying threw the tiger hook swords far across the compound and leaped down from the high roof in a perfectly executed double flip. "Everyone, follow me!" Ying shouted. "Now!" Tonglong waited for Ying and the others to travel some distance before he tucked his thick braid into his sash and leaped down in a perfect triple flip.

They both had sub-machine guns. Yes, actual sub-machine guns. I couldn't believe it.

Though I'd considered the idea of killing him a million times, once I made the decision to actually do it, I knew it had to be that night. It was sort of like that big public speaking engagement you're dreading, and you just want it to be over so you can stop worrying about it.

inspiration is rarely the first step. When it does come out of the blue, it's glorious. But it's much more in your own hands than the divine-intervention-type beliefs we all tend to have about inspiration. Most of the time, inspiration has to be invited.

I think the disconnect is more related to the idea of "being" anything when it's the "doing" that's more rewarding. Being something isn't real in the same way that doing something can be real.

Maybe it's a cliché, but you have to focus on verbs over nouns -- what you want to do, not what you want to be.

Solitude could press down on a person, seem to demand that action be taken.

Above all, don't think, for what you think happens!

Never do something for just one reason.

If he'd had something to say, he should have picked up the phone a long time ago.

The law of karma says that no matter what context I find myself in, it is neither my parents, nor my science teacher, nor the mailman, but I alone who have brought myself into this state because of my past actions. Instead of trapping me in a fatalistic snare, this gives me freedom. Because I alone have brought myself into my present condition, I myself, by working hard and striving earnestly, can reach the supreme state which is nirvana.

It is to be expected that when one's thoughts lead so persistently to one place, one's feet will follow.

La vida es imposible cuando se es cobarde- dijo Dinello. [...] -La timidez o es cobardía o es cortesía y hay que romperla con un gesto brutal- agregó Dinello [...] -¡Cruzar las líneas enemigas!- Contestó él sin titubear.

Every command consists of momentum and sting. The momentum forces the recipient to act, and to act in accordance with the content of the command; the sting remains behind in him. When a command functions normally and as one expects, there is nothing to be seen of the sting; it is hidden and unsuspected and may only reveal its existence by some faint, scarcely perceptible recalcitrance before the command obeyed.

The momentum carried us out of the church and into the streets where true Christianity belongs.

If there is a problem somewhere," he said with his dry chuckle, "this is what happens. Three people will try to do something concrete to settle the issue. Ten people will give a lecture analyzing what the three are doing. One hundred people will commend or condemn the ten for their lecture. One thousand people will argue about the problem. And one person—only one—will involve himself so deeply in the true solution that he is too busy to listen to any of it.

If there is a problem somewhere... this is what happens. Three people will try to do something concrete to settle the issue. Ten people will give a lecture analyzing what the three are doing. One hundred people will commend or condemn the ten for their lecture. One thousand people will argue about the problem. And one person -- only one -- will involve himself so deeply in the true solution that he is too busy to listen to any of it... [W]hich person are you? -Fr. Longère

A destruction, an annihilation that only man can provoke, only man can prevent.

And action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all.

We have to go into the despair and go beyond it, by working and doing for somebody else, by using it for something else.

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. -Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (b. 1928) You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth. -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.