Motivational Quotes

Action

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

- Galsworthy, John

Best Quotes about Action

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

Mark this well, you proud men of action! you are, after all, nothing but unconscious instruments of the men of thought.

Heine, Heinrich

Dreams will get you nowhere, a good kick in the pants will take you a long way.

Graffiti

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

Gorski, Nick

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.

Cicero, Marcus T.

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.

Sher, Barbara

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what people say. I just watch what they do.

Carnegie, Andrew

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

Lu Xun

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.

Collier, Robert

10.

A good action is never lost; it is a treasure laid up and guarded for the doer's need.

Calderon de la Barca, Pedro

11.

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.

Aristotle

12.

Just as there is no loss of basic energy in the universe, so no thought or action is without its effects, present or ultimate, seen or unseen, felt or unfelt.

Cousins, Norman

13.

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

Iacocca, Lee

14.

The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

15.

Narrative is linear, but action has breadth and depth as well as height and is solid.

Carlyle, Thomas

16.

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.

Gramsci, Antonio

17.

Teachers open the door but you must walk through it yourself.

Proverb, Chinese

18.

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.

Hill, Napoleon

19.

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. [Matthew 7:12]

Bible

20.

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

Proverb, Chinese

21.

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.

Iacocca, Lee

22.

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.

Traherne, Thomas

23.

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

24.

I never worry about action, but only inaction.

Churchill, Winston

25.

Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue.

Garibaldi, Giuseppe

26.

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.

Stone, W. Clement

27.

It is no use trying to sum people up. One must follow hints, not exactly what is said, nor yet entirely what is done.

Woolf, Virginia

28.

Backbone beats wishbone every time.

29.

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

Galsworthy, John

30.

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

31.

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

32.

Do the things you know, and you shall learn the truth you need to know.

Macdonald, George

33.

Don't wait for your ship to come in, swim out to it.

34.

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

35.

Action and faith enslave thought, both of them in order not be troubled or inconvenienced by reflection, criticism, and doubt.

Amiel, Henri Frederic

36.

No one will do it for you.

Stein, Ben

37.

I am easily satisfied with the very best.

Churchill, Winston

38.

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

39.

The greatest potential for control tends to exist at the point where action takes place.

Allen, Loius A.

40.

Thought is the organizing factor in man, intersected between the causal primary instincts and the resulting actions.

Einstein, Albert

41.

No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence.

Carlyle, Thomas

42.

Begin somewhere: you cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do.

Smith, Liz

43.

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.

Gielgud, John

44.

You can never get enough of the things you don't need, because the things you don't need can never satisfy.

Ashton, Marvin J.

45.

If you want a trait, act as if you already have the trait.

James, William

46.

Allow motion to equal emotion.

Hubbard, Elbert

47.

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