Quotes About Action

If you are a CEO, for example, and you suspect that your treasurer is cooking the books, and you do not investigate because you do not want to know, you may still be liable for your inaction—as is appropriate.

We live within a framework that defines the present as eternally lacking and the future as eternally better. If we did not see things this way, we would not act

Simplesmente não somos ateus nas nossas ações e são as nossas ações que refletem mais precisamente as nossas crenças mais profundas – aquelas que estão implícitas, impregnadas no Ser, sob as nossas apreensões supérfluas e as atitudes articuláveis e do autoconhecimento superficial.

If the answer is no, here's something to try: Start to stop doing what you know to be wrong. Start stopping today. Don't waste time questioning how you know that what you're doing is wrong, if you are certain that it is.

The world of possibility begins to actualize itself with such instinctual, embodied action, unconscious and uncontrollable.

It is not vision as such, and not a plan devised to achieve a vision, that is at fault under such circumstances. A vision of the future, the desirable future, is necessary. Such a vision links action taken now with important, long-term, foundational values. It lends actions in the present significance and importance. It provides a frame limiting uncertainty and anxiety.

I will make a different plan. I will try to want whatever it is that would make my life better—whatever that might be—and I will start working on it now.

Why remain vague when it makes life stagnant

To his great and salutary shock, I picked him bodily off the playground structure, and threw him thirty feet down the field.

I will try to want whatever it is that would make my life better—whatever that might be—and I will start working on it now.

Everywhere, the cynic despairs, are bad decisions. But someone who has transcended that cynicism (or more accurately, replaced it with an even more profound doubt—that is, the doubt that doubt itself is an ultimately reliable guide) objects: the worst decision of all is none.

THE QUESTION IS WHY WOULD YOU EVER DO ANYTHING?

Your resolution trumps your nihilism and despair.

just because you know a bunch of things doesn't give you an unerring guide to know what to do about those things

Have you cleaned up your life? If the answer is no, here's something to try: Start to stop doing what you know to be wrong. Start stopping today. Don't waste time questioning how you know that what you're doing is wrong, if you are certain that it is.

We can imagine new ways that things could be set right, and improved, even if we have everything we thought we needed. Even when satisfied, temporarily, we remain curious. We live within a framework that defines the present as eternally lacking and the future as eternally better. If we did not see things this way, we would not act at all.

Por definición, nuestros patrones habituales de acción solo bastan para cosas y situaciones de determinada significación: solo sabemos como actuar en presencia de lo que nos es familiar. La aparición de lo inesperado nos saca de la complacencia inconsciente, axiomática, y nos obliga (dolorosamente) a pensar.

When people think, they simulate the world, and plan how to act in it. If they do a good job of simulating, they can figure out what stupid things they shouldn't do. Then they can not do them. Then they don't have to suffer the consequences. That's the purpose of thinking.

the notion that it was good, well even if you don't believe that because maybe it's not as good as it could be. I would say it's incumbent on you as someone who participates in the process of furthering creation to act as if it could be good at least and to further that with all of your efforts. Partly because what the hell else do you have to do that could possible be better than that, that could possible justify your existence more than that?

by the end of the day, I want things in my life to be a tiny bit better than they were this morning. Then you ask yourself, "What could I do, that I would do, that would accomplish that, and what small thing would I like as a reward?

It is easier and more direct to represent a behavioral pattern with behavior than with words. Outright mimicry does that directly, action for action. Imitation, which can produce new behaviors akin to those that motivated the mimicry, takes that one step further.

NOTICE THAT OPPORTUNITY LURKS WHERE RESPONSIBILITY HAS BEEN ABDICATED

You could ask yourself, "Is there anything at all that I might be willing to do about that pile of paper? Would I look, maybe, at one part of it? For twenty minutes?" Maybe the answer will be, "No!" But you might look for ten, or even for five (and if not that, for one). Start there. You will soon find that the entire pile shrinks in significance, merely because you have looked at part of it.

A rabbit isn't virtuous, it just can't do anything except getting eaten. It's not virtuous. If you're a monster and you don't act monstrously, then that's virtuous.