Quotes About Action

Claims such as I'm not a racist or so-and-so is not a racist may sound harmless to some, but to many they cut deep. Familiar denials like these so often seem to be the justification for a second, unspoken part to that sentence: and therefore I don't have to do anything about racism. And that's the part that is just plain wrong.

If you've managed to do one good thing, the ocean doesn't care. But when Newton's apple fell toward the earth, the earth, ever so slightly, fell toward the apple as well.

Say your prayers, think quietly what you should do, do it, and sleep. There is no man living, neither king nor emperor, can do more or better, or trust in a better harvest.

Thank God I didn't make the mistake of suggesting it to him, thought Cadfael devoutly. There's nothing the young hate and resent so much as to be urged to a good act, when they've already made the virtuous resolve on their own account.

What is done matters, but what is yet to do matters far more.

What you do and what you are is what matters.

It is as well to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.

Did you ever feel, Hugh, that it might be better to let even ill alone, wondered Cadfael ruefully, rather than let loose worse?

Drama is like life with the dull bits cut out.

Drama is life with the dull parts cut out of it.

JARRY: (To audience) As to the action which is about to begin, it takes place in Poland - that is to say, nowhere.

As to the action which is about to begin, it takes place in Poland – that is to say, nowhere

If those who know why and how neglect to act, those who do not know will act, and the world will continue to flounder. The whole history of mankind and especially the present plight of the world show only too sadly how dangerous and expensive it is to have the world governed by those who do not know.

Wild ran to get his rifle from his tent, then he dropped to one knee and shot.

All hands agreed, and the wire was sent. The reply was a one-word telegram: "Proceed.

Shackleton shouted excitedly to McNeish and Vincent below to shift ballast

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,To rust unburnished, not to shine in use,As though to breathe were life!

Ours not to reason why Ours but to do and die.

We cannot think first and act afterward. From the moment of birth we are immersed in action, and can only fitfully guide it by taking thought.

Fools act on imagination without knowledge, pedants act on knowledge without imagination.

The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervor, live for it, and, if need be, die for it.

No period of history has ever been great or ever can be that does not act on some sort of high, idealistic motives, and idealism in our time has been shoved aside, and we are paying the penalty for it.

Periods of tranquility are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.

Periods of tranquillity are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.