Motivational Quotes

Action

It's better to waste one's youth than to do nothing with it at all.

- Courteline, Georges

Best Quotes about Action

Never confuse motion with action.

Franklin, Benjamin

Action without a name, a who attached to it, is meaningless.

Arendt, Hannah

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.

Dhammapada

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.

Bushnell, Nolan

Don't be a spectator, don't let life pass you by.

Holtz, Lou

How long will they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look?

Marley, Bob

Men do not value a good deed unless it brings a reward.

Ovid

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.

Khan, Pir Vilayat

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.

James, William

10.

He who has no taste for order, will be often wrong in his judgment, and seldom considerate or conscientious in his actions.

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

11.

The only way to start is to start.

12.

You will never win if you never begin.

Schuller, Robert H.

13.

Everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.

Evans, Richard L.

14.

What we need is to use what we have.

Walsh, Basil S.

15.

You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.

Gerstner, Lou

16.

There's as much risk in doing nothing as in doing something.

Crow, Trammell

17.

Suit the action to the world, the world to the action, with this special observance, that you overstep not the modesty of nature.

Shakespeare, William

18.

Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

19.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

20.

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.

Conwell, Russel H.

21.

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.

James, William

22.

Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.

Roosevelt, Theodore

23.

If you stand still long enough, you'll get stuck

Hasselhoff, David

24.

Talk doesn't cook rice.

Proverb, Chinese

25.

Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes and the grass grows by itself.

Saying, Zen

26.

That spot of earth has special charms for me, in which a limited income produces happiness, and moderate wealth abundance.

Martial, Marcus Valerius

27.

To talk goodness is not good... only to do it is.

Proverb, Chinese

28.

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.

Fosdick, Harry Emerson

29.

Most people of action are inclined to fatalism and most of thought believe in providence.

Balzac, Honore De

30.

The best way to get something done is to begin.

31.

Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our own deeds.

Cervantes, Miguel De

32.

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.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

33.

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

34.

Action is the product of the qualities inherent in nature.

Bhagavad Gita

35.

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.

36.

Our actions are like the terminations of verses, which we rhyme as we please.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

37.

Some will, some don't, so what!

Proverb, American

38.

All rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full.

Bible

39.

No sooner said than done -- so acts your man of worth.

Ennius, Quintus

40.

You don't have to get it right the first time.

Sher, Barbara

41.

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.

Collier, Robert

42.

A man's action is only a picture book of his creed.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

43.

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.

Robbins, Anthony

44.

Periods of tranquillity are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.

Whitehead, Alfred North

45.

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.

Rosen, Richard D.

46.

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.

Marden, Orison Swett

47.

You don't always win your battles, but it's good to know you fought.

Holmes, Marjorie

48.

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.

Hoffer, Eric

49.

Between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out.

Proverb, Italian

50.

Some people grin and bear it; others smile and do it.