In this country men seem to live for action as long as they can and sink into apathy when they retire.
You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.
The shortest distance between two points is under construction.
The greatest potential for control tends to exist at the point where action takes place.
Action is coarsened thought; thought becomes concrete, obscure, and unconscious.
Action and faith enslave thought, both of them in order not be troubled or inconvenienced by reflection, criticism, and doubt.
For purposes of action nothing is more useful than narrowness of thought combined with energy of will.
A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.
Effective action is always unjust.
Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute! Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Only engage, and then the mind grows heated. Begin, and then the work will be completed.
Those who are more adapted to the active life can prepare themselves for contemplation in the practice of the active life, while those who are more adapted to the contemplative life can take upon themselves the works of the active life so as to become yet more apt for contemplation.
What really distinguishes this generation in all countries from earlier generations... is its determination to act, its joy in action, the assurance of being able to change things by one's own efforts.
Action without a name, a who attached to it, is meaningless.
We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.
Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way. We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.
For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.
Well begun is half done.
The only correct actions are those that demand no explanation and no apology.
Do every act of your life as if it were your last.
Dig within. Within is the wellspring of Good; and it is always ready to bubble up, if you just dig.
Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.
Begin -- to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.
It was prettily devised of Aesop, The fly sat on the axle tree of the chariot wheel and said, what dust do I raise!
Most people of action are inclined to fatalism and most of thought believe in providence.
It is easy to sit up and take notice, What is difficult is getting up and taking action.
— Batt, Al
The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
Think like a man of action, and act like a man of thought.
Never forget that life can only be nobly inspired and rightly lived if you take it bravely and gallantly, as a splendid adventure in which you are setting out into an unknown country, to meet many a joy, to find many a comrade, to win and lose many a battle.
Action is the product of the qualities inherent in nature.
Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. [Matthew 7:120]
— Bible
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. [James 1:22]
— Bible
All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. [Matthew 7:12]
— Bible
All rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full.
— Bible
You can't aim a duck to death.
Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.
The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.
It is vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.
Let your performance do the thinking.
You must take action now that will move you towards your goals. Develop a sense of urgency in your life.
Take action in order to move toward your goals.
It's motive alone which gives character to the actions of men.
Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
Let us do or die.
The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.
Every action we take, everything we do, is either a victory or defeat in the struggle to become what we want to be.
Dwell not on the past. Use it to illustrate a point, then leave it behind. Nothing really matters except what you do now in this instant of time. From this moment onwards you can be an entirely different person, filled with love and understanding, ready with an outstretched hand, uplifted and positive in every thought and deed.
A good action is never lost; it is a treasure laid up and guarded for the doer's need.
A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.
Leap, and the net will appear.
Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask. Everything you want also wants you. But you have to take action to get it.
Action hangs, as it were, dissolved in speech, in thoughts whereof speech is the shadow; and precipitates itself therefrom. The kind of speech in a man betokens the kind of action you will get from him.
The end of man is action, and not thought, though it be of the noblest.
Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do.
Narrative is linear, but action has breadth and depth as well as height and is solid.
Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence.
As I grow older, I pay less attention to what people say. I just watch what they do.
Life leaps like a geyser for those who drill through the rock of inertia.
There is no use trying, said Alice; one can't believe impossible things. I dare say you haven't had much practice, said the Queen. When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do.
Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our own deeds.
The person of intellect is lost unless they unite with energy of character. When we have the lantern of Diogenese we must also have his staff.
Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.
In action be primitive; in foresight, a strategist.
I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.
It is not whether your words or actions are tough or gentle; it is the spirit behind your actions and words that announces your inner state.
I never worry about action, but only inaction.
We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.
Action makes more fortune than caution.
He who believes is strong; he who doubts is weak. Strong convictions precede great actions.
A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he's not a man of action.. You must act as you breathe.
When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn't a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.
Begin to free yourself at once by doing all that is possible with the means you have, and as you proceed in this spirit the way will open for you to do more.
Take the first step, and your mind will mobilize all its forces to your aid. But the first essential is that you begin. Once the battle is startled, all that is within and without you will come to your assistance.
If you don't make things happen then things will happen to you.
The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.
The superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in his actions.
Let every man or woman here, if you never hear me again, remember this, that if you wish to be great at all, you must begin where you are and with what you are. He who would be great anywhere must first be great in his own Philadelphia.
We are born to action; and whatever is capable of suggesting and guiding action has power over us from the first.
Unless a capacity for thinking be accompanied by a capacity for action, a superior mind exists in torture.
Jump into the middle of things, get your hands dirty, fall flat on your face, and then reach for the stars.
The difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you advance. Proceed, and light will dawn, and shine with increasing clearness on your path.
For what is liberty but the unhampered translation of will into act?
A fair request should be followed by the deed in silence.
The secret of getting things done is to act!
The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action.
We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique.
Just as a flower which seems beautiful and has color but no perfume, so are the fruitless words of the man who speaks them but does them not.
If you keep thinking about what you want to do or what you hope will happen, you don't do it, and it won't happen.
We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.
Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.
Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.
Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.
Never mind your happiness; do your duty.
Everything is in motion. Everything flows. Everything is vibrating.
Go for it now. The future is promised to no one.
What you are will show in what you do.
Resolved, never to do anything which I should be afraid to do, if it were my last of life.
We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organized that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of the race.
All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of man's actions.
Thought is the organizing factor in man, intersected between the causal primary instincts and the resulting actions.
But their intervention makes our acts to serve ever less merely the immediate claims of our instincts.
All such action would cease if those powerful elemental forces were to cease stirring within us.
'Tis God gives skill, but not without men's hand: He could not make Antonio Stradivarius's violins without Antonio.
It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees.
Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.
We must not sit still and look for miracles; up and doing, and the Lord will be with thee. Prayer and pains, through faith in Christ Jesus, will do anything.
There is a tendency for things to right themselves.
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.
Act, if you like, but you do it at your peril. Men's actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.
The German intellect wants the French sprightliness, the fine practical understanding of the English, and the American adventure; but it has a certain probity, which never rests in a superficial performance, but asks steadily, To what end? A German public asks for a controlling sincerity.
Let us, if we must have great actions, make our own so. All action is of infinite elasticity, and the least admits of being inflated with celestial air, until it eclipses the sun and moon.
Men's actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.
The ancestor of every action is thought.
Real action is in silent moments.
We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it.
Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.
We are always getting ready to live, but never living.
Why should we be cowed by the name of Action?.
A man's action is only a picture book of his creed.
An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.
No sooner said than done -- so acts your man of worth.
Everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.
The undertaking of a new action brings new strength.
— Evenus
The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
Your actions, and your action alone, determines your worth.
No steam or gas ever drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.
It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.
You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.
Words may show a man's wit but actions his meaning.
The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.
A man of action forced into a state of thought is unhappy until he can get out of it.
Whatever you do may seem insignificant, but it is most important that you do it.
A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do, Nothing else.
Action expresses priorities.
Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue.
Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.
Every man of action has a strong dose of egoism, pride, hardness, and cunning. But all those things will be regarded as high qualities if he can make them the means to achieve great ends.
You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.
A heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.
Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.
One mustn't allow acting to be like stockbroker -- you must not take it just as a means of earning a living, to go down every day to do a job of work. The big thing is to combine punctuality, efficiency, good nature, obedience, intelligence, and concentration with an unawareness of what is going to happen next, thus keeping yourself available for excitement.
Fresh activity is the only means of overcoming adversity.
Before you can do something you must first be something.
How shall we learn to know ourselves? By reflection? Never; but only through action. Strive to do thy duty; then you shall know what is in thee.
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
The deed is everything, the glory is naught.
Then indecision brings its own delays, And days are lost lamenting o'er lost days. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; What you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
When all is said the greatest action is to limit and isolate one's self.
We will burn that bridge when we come to it.
The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.
Dreams will get you nowhere, a good kick in the pants will take you a long way.
— Graffiti
There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is on a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.
If you think about it seriously, all the questions about the soul and the immortality of the soul and paradise and hell are at bottom only a way of seeing this very simple fact: that every action of ours is passed on to others according to its value, of good or evil, it passes from father to son, from one generation to the next, in a perpetual movement.
Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.
The secret to success is to start from scratch and keep on scratching.
You have to make it happen.
For as one star another far exceeds, So souls in heaven are placed by their deeds.
In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.
Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.
A human action becomes genuinely important when it springs from the soil of a clear-sighted awareness of the temporality and the ephemerally of everything human. It is only this awareness that can breathe any greatness into an action.
The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.
You know more of a road by having traveled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.
Mark this well, you proud men of action! you are, after all, nothing but unconscious instruments of the men of thought.
Never confuse motion with action.
Action is the real measure of intelligence.
Do it now! can affect every phase of your life. It can help you do the things you should do but don't feel like doing. It can keep you from procrastinating when an unpleasant duty faces you. But it can also help you do those things that you want to do. It helps you seize those precious moments that, if lost, may never be retrieved.
Do not wait; the time will never be just right. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.
The world has the habit of making room for the man whose actions show that he knows where he is going.
One of the marks of a truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action --the ability to pass directly from thought to action.
Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat.
The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome. De Tocqueville points out that it is at times when passions start to govern human affairs that ideas are most obviously translated into political action. The translation of ideas into action is usually in the hands of people least likely to follow rational motives. Hence, it is that action is often the nemesis of ideas, and sometimes of the men who formulate them. One of the marks of the truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action the ability to pass directly from thought to action.
You must get involved to have an impact. No one is impressed with the won-lost record of the referee.
You don't always win your battles, but it's good to know you fought.
I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.
To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at anchor.
Don't be a spectator, don't let life pass you by.
When all is said and done, more is said than done.
He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin.
— Horace
He has half the deed done who has made a beginning
— Horace
Don't think, just do.
An acre of performance is worth a whole world of promise.
Positive anything is better than negative nothing.
Allow motion to equal emotion.
Initiative is doing the right thing without being told.
Our acts make or mar us, we are the children of our own deeds.
The action is best that secures the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
The great end of life is not knowledge but action.
People say to me, You were a roaring success. How did you do it? I go back to what my parents taught me. Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then, by God, do something. Don't just stand there, make something happen.
The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.
Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then, by God, do something. Don't just stand there, make it happen.
So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don't sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we've satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.
How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive o all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.
The successful men of action are not sufficiently self-observant to know exactly on what their success depends.
If you want a trait, act as if you already have the trait.
I will act as if what I do makes a difference.
Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.
Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.
Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a be general natural law.
My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.
I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
Now is the time for all good men to come to.
Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.
It is not good enough for things to be planned -- they still have to be done; for the intention to become a reality, energy has to be launched into operation.
In the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.
Our actions are like the terminations of verses, which we rhyme as we please.
Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.
Act well at the moment, and you have performed a good action for all eternity.
He who has no taste for order, will be often wrong in his judgment, and seldom considerate or conscientious in his actions.
He who limps is still walking.
Sometimes something worth doing is worth overdoing.
Next in importance to having a good aim is to recognize when to pull the trigger.
You can't start at the top.
Sings. Hope in every sphere of life is a privilege that attaches to action. No action, no hope.
Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.
I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.
The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.
Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.
I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.
As our case is new, we must think and act anew.
One thought driven home is better than three left on base.
The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.
Our deeds disguise us. People need endless time to try on their deeds, until each knows the proper deeds for him to do. But every day, every hour, rushes by. There is no time.
Each morning sees some task begun, each evening sees it close; Something attempted, something done, has earned a night's repose.
Build today, then strong and sure, With a firm and ample base; And ascending and secure. Shall tomorrow find its place.
What really matters is what you do with what you have.
If you act like you know what you're doing, you can do anything you want -- except neurosurgery.
As people are walking all the time, in the same spot, a path appears.
— Lu Xun
Do the things you know, and you shall learn the truth you need to know.
Existence was given us for action. Our worth is determined by the good deed we do, rather than by the fine emotions we feel,
If you go on working with the light available, you will meet your Master, as he himself will be seeking you.
Between eighteen and twenty, life is like an exchange where one buys stocks, not with money, but with actions. Most men buy nothing.
Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk -- and to act.
Let your actions always speak for you, but be forever on guard against the terrible traps of false pride and conceit that can halt your progress. The next time you are tempted to boast, just place your fist in a full pail of water, and when you remove it, the hole remaining will give you a correct measure of your importance.
I will act now. I will act now. I will act now. Henceforth, I will repeat these words each hour, each day, everyday, until the words become as much a habit as my breathing, and the action which follows becomes as instinctive as the blinking of my eyelids. With these words I can condition my mind to perform every action necessary for my success. I will act now. I will repeat these words again and again and again. I will walk where failures fear to walk. I will work when failures seek rest. I will act now for now is all I have. Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labor of the lazy. I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when the failure will succeed. I am not a failure. I will act now. Success will not wait. If I delay, success will become wed to another and lost to me forever. This is the time. This is the place. I am the person.
I have never heard anything about the resolutions of the apostles, but a good deal about their acts.
Begin where you are; work where you are; the hour which you are now wasting, dreaming of some far off success may be crowded with grand possibilities.
Let us not be content to wait and see what will happen, but give us the determination to make the right things happen.
The common conception is that motivation leads to action, but the reverse is true -- action precedes motivation. You have to prime the pump and get the juice flowing, which motivates you to work on your goals. Getting momentum going is the most difficult part of the job, and often taking the first step is enough to prompt you to make the best of your day.
We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as courses, and they come back to us as effects.
I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.
Whatever fortune brings, don't be afraid of doing things.
You will be better advised to watch what we do instead of what we say.
You can't pick cherries with your back to the tree.
There should be less talk; a preaching point is not a meeting point. What do you do then? Take a broom and clean someone's house. That says enough.
Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.
Let us be tried by our actions.
— Motto
It is impossible to walk rapidly and be unhappy.
This body, full of faults, has yet one great quality: Whatever it encounters in this temporal life depends upon one's actions.
Action itself, so long as I am convinced that it is right action, gives me satisfaction.
Action to be effective must be directed to clearly conceived ends.
He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.
Just do it.
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious, and they must be brought into connection with action. They must be woven together.
The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life. Albert Einstein It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.
Good things happen to those who hustle.
Let your hook always be cast. In the pool where you least expect it, will be a fish.
— Ovid
Men do not value a good deed unless it brings a reward.
— Ovid
The odds of hitting your target go up dramatically when you aim at it.
Act like you expect to get into the end zone.
Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.
The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river.
Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.
Action is greater than writing. A good man is a nobler object of contemplation than a great author. There are but two things worth living for: to do what is worthy of being written; and to write what is worthy of being read; and the
We have all the light we need, we just need to put it in practice.
Where there is a will, there is a way. If there is a chance in a million that you can do something, anything, to keep what you want from ending, do it. Pry the door open or, if need be, wedge your foot in that door and keep it open.
A well begun is half ended.
— Plato
When Demosthenes was asked what were the three most important aspects of oratory, he answered, Action, Action, Action.
— Plutarch
The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort.
Either move or be moved.
The chief condition on which, life, health and vigor depend on, is action. It is by action that an organism develops its faculties, increases its energy, and attains the fulfillment of its destiny.
Footprints on the sands of time are not made by sitting down.
— Proverb
Try and trust will move mountains.
— Proverb
When deeds speak, words are nothing.
The early bird gets the worm.
After all is said and done, more is said than done.
From small beginnings come great things.
Some will, some don't, so what!
The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
Teachers open the door but you must walk through it yourself.
Talk doesn't cook rice.
I hear and I forget, I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
Better do a good deed near at home than go far away to burn incense.
To talk goodness is not good... only to do it is.
Big words seldom accompany good deeds.
If you want a thing done, go. If not, send. The shortest answer is doing.
As you make your bed, so you must lie in it.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
The greatest step is out the door.
God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.
Act quickly, think slowly.
The dog that trots about finds a bone.
What an elder sees sitting; the young can't see standing.
Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
The person who doesn't scatter the morning dew will not comb gray hairs
Between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out.
He who walks with the lame learns how to limp.
An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox.
He who strikes first, strikes twice.
The act is unjustifiable that either begs for a blessing, or, having succeeded gives no thanksgiving.
Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand -- and melting like a snowflake.
If you want to get along, go along.
Let no one be deluded that a knowledge of the path can substitute for putting one foot in front of the other.
Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good action; try to use ordinary situations.
You prove your worth with your actions, not with your mouth.
We will act consistently with our view of who we truly are, whether that view is accurate or not.
In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.
Action is the foundational key to all success.
You see, in life, lots of people know what to do, but few people actually do what they know. Knowing is not enough! You must take action.
A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action. If there's no action, you haven't truly decided.
I didn't think; I experimented.
One of the greatest and simplest tools for learning more and growing is doing more.
Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.
The few who do are the envy of the many who only watch.
When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike you, do not wait until he has struck before you crush him.
Do Something. If it works, do more of it. If it doesn't, do something else.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.
It isn't sufficient just to want -- you've got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want.
Fertilizer does no good in a heap, but a little spread around works miracles all over.
Nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested upon.
What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.
The time for action is now. It's never too late to do something.
All human actions are equivalent... and all are on principle doomed to failure.
Only the guy who isn't rowing has time to rock the boat.
— Saunders
He who considers too much will perform little.
Whoever wants to reach a distant goal must take small steps.
In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head.
Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing perfectly.
You will never win if you never begin.
Winning starts with beginning.
I'd rather attempt to do something great and fail than to attempt to do nothing and succeed.
The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.
The view only changes for the lead dog.
Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk.
Be great in act, as you have been in thought.
If it were done when 'tis done, then t'were well. It were done quickly.
Suit the action to the world, the world to the action, with this special observance, that you overstep not the modesty of nature.
Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing.
Action is eloquence.
Doing is a quantum leap from imagining. Thinking about swimming isn't much like actually getting in the water. Actually getting in the water can take your breath away. The defense force inside of us wants us to be cautious, to stay away from anything as intense as a new kind of action. Its job is to protect us, and it categorically avoids anything resembling danger. But it's often wrong. Anything worth doing is worth doing too soon.
You don't have to get it right the first time.
Only the actions of the just smell sweet and blossom in the dust.
The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.
Begin somewhere: you cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do.
The greatest of all mistakes is to do nothing because you can only do a little. Do what you can.
Heaven never helps the men who will not act.
Action is the highest perfection and drawing forth of the utmost power, vigor, and activity of man's nature.
If there be any truer measure of a man than by what he does, it must be by what he gives.
No one will do it for you.
The mark of a good action is that it appears inevitable in retrospect.
Judge each day not by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant.
It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect.
I think there is something, more important than believing: Action! The world is full of dreamers, there aren't enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision.
Thinking will not overcome fear but action will.
So many fail because they don't get started -- they don't go. They don't overcome inertia. They don't begin.
Now is the season for sailing; for already the chattering swallow is come and the pleasant west wind; the meadows bloom and the sea, tossed up with waves and rough blasts, has sunk to silence. Weigh thine anchors and unloose thy hawsers, O Mariner, and sail with all thy canvas set.
I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.
Being stuck is a position few of us like. We want something new but cannot let go of the old -- old ideas, beliefs, habits, even thoughts. We are out of contact with our own genius. Sometimes we know we are stuck; sometimes we don't. In both cases we have to DO something.
I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair.
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Have a bias toward action -- let's see something happen now. You can break that big plan into small steps and take the first step right away.
We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy.
I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.
We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.
The chief difference between words and deeds is that words are always intended for men for their approbation, but deeds can be done only for God.
If you shoot for the stars and hit the moon, it's OK. But you've got to shoot for something. A lot of people don't even shoot.
The soul is made for action, and cannot rest till it be employed. Idleness is its rust. Unless it will up and think and taste and see, all is in vain.
It is the direction and not the magnitude which is to be taken into consideration.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Two-thirds of promotion is motion
To look is one thing, to see what you look at is another, to understand what you see is a third, to learn from what you understand is still something else, but to act on what you learn is all that really matters! How do I act?
What the mind attends to, the mind considers. What the mind constantly considers, the mind believes. What the mind believes, the mind eventually does.
People sitting on top of the world, usually arrived there standing up.
None of us are responsible for all the things that happen to us, but we are responsible for the way we act when they do happen.
Do it now. Then it's done.
Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often
Activity and sadness are incompatible.
Backbone beats wishbone every time.
Be both the gardener and the rose.
Believe in boys and girls and men and women of a great tomorrow that what so ever the boy soweth the man shall reap.
Act, don't react!
Better to try something and fail than to try nothing and succeed.
Do it this very moment, Don't put it off, There's no use in doing a kindness, if you do it a day too late.
Do not ask the Lord to guide your footsteps, If you are not willing to move your feet.
Don't look back, just keep on walking.
Don't wait for your ship to come in, swim out to it.
Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.
It doesn't do any good to sit up and take notice if you keep on sitting.
I like these words -- they seem to suggest action: If you hear a kind word spoken Of some worthy soul you know, It may fill his heart with sunshine If you'd only tell him so. If a deed, however humble, helps you On your way to go, Seek the one whose hand has helped you. Seek him out and tell him so. If your heart is touched and tender Towards sinner log and low, It might help him to do better If you could only tell him so.
If you start soon enough, you won't have to run to catch up.
No rules for success will work if you don't.
Logic will not change an emotion, but action will.
Keep your head and your heart going in the right direction and you will not have to worry about your feet.
Action is character.
It's no good agreeing with a person who can't make up his mind.
If your sword's too short, add to its length by taking one step forward.
The best way to get something done is to begin.
The search for the perfect venture can turn into procrastination. Your idea may or may not have merit. The key is to get started.
The only way you can bring in the harvest in the fall is to plant in the spring, and to water, weed, fertilize in the summer
The only way to start is to start.
The road of life can only reveal itself as it is traveled; each turn in the road reveals a surprise. Man's future is hidden.
You can't plow a field by turning it over in your mind.
Some people forget to plant in the spring, idle away the summer hours and then expect to reap in the fall.
Some people grin and bear it; others smile and do it.
As one acts and conducts himself, so does he become. The doer of good becomes good. The doer of evil becomes evil. One becomes virtuous by virtuous action, bad by bad action.
When a man dies, what does not leave him? The voice of a dead man goes into fire, his breath into wind, his eyes into the sun, his mind into the moon, his hearing into the quarters of heaven, his body into the land cheerfully. earth, his spirit into space
Doing leads more surely to talking than talking to doing.
— Vinet
If you could get up the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed.
We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.
What we need is to use what we have.
One may walk over the highest mountain one step at a time.
It's easy to work for somebody else; all you have to do is show up.
Every action is either strong or weak, and when every action is strong we are successful.
Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered.
For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.
Actions lie louder than words.
In activity we must find our joy as well as glory; and labor, like everything else that is good, is its own reward.
It is better to rust out than wear out.
Periods of tranquillity are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.
Ideas won't keep, something must be done about them.
Speak out in acts; the time for words has passed, and only deeds will suffice.
Action is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.
No, Ernest, don't talk about action. It is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.
It is no use trying to sum people up. One must follow hints, not exactly what is said, nor yet entirely what is done.
Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.
Your difficulty and my difficulty and the difficulty of every individual who ever desired to achieve something worthwhile, comes in the movement.
To begin, begin.
You have to be before you can do, and do before you can have.
We will not know unless we begin.