Motivational Quotes

Action

When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike you, do not wait until he has struck before you crush him.

- Roosevelt, Franklin D.

Best Quotes about Action

Initiative is doing the right thing without being told.

Hugo, Victor

The deed is everything, the glory is naught.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

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

Buffett, Warren

Before you can do something you must first be something.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

Arendt, Hannah

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

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.

Carroll, Lewis

To sit back hoping that someday, some way, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last --but eat you he will.

Reagan, Ronald

10.

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

11.

Nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested upon.

Rowan, Carl

12.

Build today, then strong and sure, With a firm and ample base; And ascending and secure. Shall tomorrow find its place.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

13.

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.

Iacocca, Lee

14.

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

Courteline, Georges

15.

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

16.

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

Proverb, German

17.

He who considers too much will perform little.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

18.

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.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

19.

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

Proverb

20.

Life leaps like a geyser for those who drill through the rock of inertia.

Carrel, Alexis

21.

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.

Calvin, John

22.

Take action in order to move toward your goals.

Brown, Les

23.

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

Allen, Loius A.

24.

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.

Hoffer, Eric

25.

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

Bible

26.

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

Smith, Liz

27.

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

28.

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

Proverb, Italian

29.

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.

Clemenceau, Georges

30.

The search for the perfect venture can turn into procrastination. Your idea may or may not have merit. The key is to get started.

31.

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

Carnegie, Andrew

32.

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

Hammarskjold, Dag

33.

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

Galsworthy, John

34.

Resolved, never to do anything which I should be afraid to do, if it were my last of life.

Edwards, Edward

35.

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

36.

We are always getting ready to live, but never living.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

37.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

38.

The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.

Bronowski, Jacob

39.

It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect.

Stevenson, Robert Louis

40.

I didn't think; I experimented.

Roentgen, Wilhelm

41.

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

Iacocca, Lee

42.

Action is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.

Wilde, Oscar

43.

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

Mother Teresa

44.

Never confuse motion with action.

Franklin, Benjamin

45.

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.

Graham, Martha

46.

Action makes more fortune than caution.

Clapiers, Luc De

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

Ovid

50.

The end of man is action, and not thought, though it be of the noblest.

Carlyle, Thomas