Quotes About Action

Cynicism is a cheap emotion, a craven substitute for thought and action.

As a confirmed melancholic, I can testify that the best and maybe only antidote for melancholia is action. However, like most melancholics, I suffer also from sloth.

What we need now are heroes and heroines, about a million of them, one brave deed is worth a thousand books. Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.

Philosophy without action is the ruin of the soul. One brave deed is worth a hundred books, a thousand theories, a million words. Now as always we need heroes. And heroines! Down with the passive and the limp.

I would not sacrifice a single living mesquite tree for any book ever written. One square mile of living desert is worth a hundred 'great books' - and one brave deed is worth a thousand.

If you wish to see it as it should be seen, don't wait - there's little time. How do you get there? Well, I couldn't tell you.

The Machine may seem omnipotent, but it is not. Human bodies and human wit, active here, there, everywhere, united in purpose, independent in action, can still face that machine and stop it and take it apart and reassemble it-if we wish-on lines entirely new. There is, after all, a better way to live.

It would be like murder; and where would I set my coffee?

With an intelligence too fine to be violated by ideas, she had learned that she was searching not for self-transformation (she liked herself) but for something good to do.

Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.

When people can't abide things as they are, when they can't abide the present, they do one of two things ... either they ... either they turn to a contemplation of the past ... or they set about to ... alter the future. And when you want to change something ... YOU BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

Anything you put in a play -- any speech -- has got to do one of two things: either define character or push the action of the play along.

Sadly, many people spend their entire lives focusing on the wrong questions. They may pursue money, when they really want happiness. They may pursue the respect of people whose favor is really not worthy of being sought. So before you succumb to the temptation to immediately spring to work on the answer, always stop and first ask, "What's the real question here?" Often the question that seems obvious may not be the question that leads to effective action.

The knowledge of Christ's love for us should cause us to love Him in such a way that it is demonstrated in our attitude, conduct, and commitment to serve God. Spiritual maturity is marked by spiritual knowledge being put into action.

Genius does what it must, and talent does what it can

There are people so intent on the separate life of individuals that they cannot grasp a notion of the action of the community as a whole – such an observer, incapable of a wide view of society, is aptly described in the saying that he "cannot see the forest for the trees… Thus sometimes we watch individuals acting for their own ends with little thought of their effect on society at large.

A bird in the hand is worth plucking, frying, and sticking between two bits of bread.

These were desperate times, the two men agreed; it was easy to stay at home and pull the bedcovers over your heads, but if nothing was done, someone would rip the bedcovers from your face and tug you naked into the street.

An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.

If you understand the system you can design appropriate action.

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.

I am only one, but I am one. I can't do everything, but I can do something. The something I ought to do, I can do. And by the grace of God, I will.

I am only one but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something.