Motivational Quotes

Action

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.

- Aquinas, St. Thomas

Best Quotes about Action

I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.

Lewis, Harvey Spencer

The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

Proverb, Chinese

Reactionary: A man walking backwards with his face to the future.

Bevan, Aneurin

Do Something. If it works, do more of it. If it doesn't, do something else.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

Whatever you do may seem insignificant, but it is most important that you do it.

Gandhi, Mahatma

Only the actions of the just smell sweet and blossom in the dust.

Shirley, James

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.

Upanishads, Veda

As people are walking all the time, in the same spot, a path appears.

Lu Xun

But their intervention makes our acts to serve ever less merely the immediate claims of our instincts.

Einstein, Albert

10.

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.

Maltz, Maxwell

11.

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.

Einstein, Albert

12.

Some people forget to plant in the spring, idle away the summer hours and then expect to reap in the fall.

13.

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.

Arendt, Hannah

14.

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.

Inge, Dean William R.

15.

Go for it now. The future is promised to no one.

Dyer, Wayne

16.

You can't pick cherries with your back to the tree.

Morgan, John Pierpont

17.

Fertilizer does no good in a heap, but a little spread around works miracles all over.

Ross, Percy

18.

He who believes is strong; he who doubts is weak. Strong convictions precede great actions.

Clarke, James Freeman

19.

The time for action is now. It's never too late to do something.

Sandburg, Carl

20.

Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

21.

A man of action forced into a state of thought is unhappy until he can get out of it.

Galsworthy, John

22.

The greatest step is out the door.

Proverb, German

23.

One may walk over the highest mountain one step at a time.

Wanamaker, John

24.

An acre of performance is worth a whole world of promise.

Howells, William Dean

25.

Unless a capacity for thinking be accompanied by a capacity for action, a superior mind exists in torture.

Croce, Benedetto

26.

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.

Francis De Sales, St.

27.

A sedentary life is the real sin against the Holy Spirit. Only those thoughts that come by walking have any value.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

28.

There is a tendency for things to right themselves.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

29.

Sometimes something worth doing is worth overdoing.

Letterman, David

30.

Doing nothing is the most tiresome job in the world because you cannot quit and rest.

31.

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.

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

32.

The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.

Iacocca, Lee

33.

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.

Long, Haniel

34.

When we don't have what we like, we must like what we have.

Proverb, French

35.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. [James 1:22]

Bible

36.

Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

Buffett, Warren

37.

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.

Taylor, Russell C.

38.

Ideas won't keep, something must be done about them.

Whitehead, Alfred North

39.

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.

Pine, Arthur

40.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

41.

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.

42.

Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then, by God, do something. Don't just stand there, make it happen.

Iacocca, Lee

43.

Judge each day not by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant.

Stevenson, Robert Louis

44.

Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.

Jerome, St.

45.

The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.

Schwarzkopf, Norman