Quotes About Action

It is not reasonings that are wanted now for there are books stuffed full of stoical reasonings. What is wanted, then? The man who shall apply them; whose actions may bear testimony to his doctrines. Assume this character for me, that we may no longer make use in the schools of the examples of the ancients, but may have some examples of our own.

Así como el Sol no espera que las oraciones y conjuros se levanten, sino que resplandece y es bien recibido por todos: así que tú tampoco esperes aplaudir y gritar y alabar para cumplir con tu deber; no, haz el bien por tu propia voluntad, y serás amado como el Sol.

you should not wait for clapping of hands and shouts and praise to do your duty; but do good of your own accord.

Philosophy is for living, not just learning.

How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?

It is for you to arrange your priorities; but whatever you decide to do, don't do it resentfully, as if you were being imposed on.

Just begin, believe me, and you will see the truth of what I've been saying.

Never call yourself a philosopher, nor talk a great deal among the unlearned about theorems, but act conformably to them. Thus, at an entertainment, don't talk how persons ought to eat, but eat as you ought.

If you act rashly, without regard to consequences, you may defeat your purposes.

But my nose is running!' What do you have hands for, idiot, if not to wipe it? 'But how is it right that there be running noses in the first place?' Instead of thinking up protests, wouldn't it be easier just to wipe your nose?

In every situation, consider what precedes it and what may follow—then act. If you act rashly, without regard to consequences, you may defeat your purposes.

First, tell yourself what you want to be, then act your part accordingly.

First, say to yourself what you would be; then do what you have to do

All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. —T. E. Lawrence

Good words will not get my people a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves. I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. It makes my heart sick when I remember

The individual's most vital need is to prove his worth, and this usually means an insatiable hunger for action. For it is only the few who can acquire a sense of worth by developing and employing their capacities and talents. The majority prove their worth by keeping busy.

When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which follows them. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.

If anything ail a man," says Thoreau, "so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even … he forthwith sets about reforming—the world."3

Ideas have significance for him only as a prelude to action.

When hopes are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which hollows them. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

If anything ail a man," says Thoreau, "so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even … he forthwith sets about reforming—the world.

I am still tired, and I begin to realize that the cure for tiredness is not rest.

A movement's call for action evokes an eager response in the frustrated, for they see in action a cure for all that ails them. It brings self-forgetting and gives them a sense of purpose and worth. Indeed it seems that frustration stems chiefly from an inability to act, and that the most poignantly frustrated are those whose talents and temperament equip them ideally for a life of action but are condemned by circumstances to rust away in idleness.