Motivational Quotes

Action

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.

- Havel, Vaclav

Best Quotes about Action

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

Proverb, French

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

The secret to success is to start from scratch and keep on scratching.

Green, Dennis

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.

Mandino, Og

Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.

Picasso, Pablo

Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.

In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.

Hammarskjold, Dag

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.

Mother Teresa

Don't look back, just keep on walking.

10.

Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue.

Garibaldi, Giuseppe

11.

Talk doesn't cook rice.

Proverb, Chinese

12.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

13.

If you start soon enough, you won't have to run to catch up.

14.

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.

Ray, Marie Beyon

15.

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

Proverb, Italian

16.

You can't aim a duck to death.

Boardman, Gael

17.

The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.

Smiles, Samuel

18.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

19.

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

20.

God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.

Proverb, German

21.

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

22.

I didn't think; I experimented.

Roentgen, Wilhelm

23.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

24.

Solve it. Solve it quickly, solve it right or wrong. If you solve it wrong, it will come back and slap you in the face, and then you can solve it right. Lying dead in the water and doing nothing is a comfortable alternative because it is without risk, but it is an absolutely fatal way to manage a business.

Watson, Thomas J.

25.

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

26.

The only way to start is to start.

27.

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.

Nin, Anais

28.

Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing.

Shakespeare, William

29.

It was prettily devised of Aesop, The fly sat on the axle tree of the chariot wheel and said,what dust do I raise!

Bacon, Francis

30.

Nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested upon.

Rowan, Carl

31.

Logic will not change an emotion, but action will.

32.

Action is coarsened thought; thought becomes concrete, obscure, and unconscious.

Amiel, Henri Frederic

33.

He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin.

Horace

34.

If you want a thing done, go. If not, send. The shortest answer is doing.

Proverb, English

35.

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

36.

People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do.

Cass, Lewis

37.

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

Bible

38.

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

39.

All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. [Matthew 7:12]

Bible

40.

Footprints on the sands of time are not made by sitting down.

Proverb

41.

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

Shirley, James

42.

So many fail because they don't get started -- they don't go. They don't overcome inertia. They don't begin.

Stone, W. Clement

43.

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

44.

To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at anchor.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

45.

It's easy to work for somebody else; all you have to do is show up.

Warford, Rita

46.

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.

Robbins, Anthony

47.

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

Iacocca, Lee

48.

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

Calderon de la Barca, Pedro

49.

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.

Aikman, Leo

50.

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