Motivational Quotes

Action

The view only changes for the lead dog.

- Sergeant Preston of The Yukon

Best Quotes about Action

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

Wanamaker, John

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

Picasso, Pablo

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

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

Proverb, Italian

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

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

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as courses, and they come back to us as effects.

Melville, Herman

I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.

Thoreau, Henry David

Big words seldom accompany good deeds.

Proverb, Danish

10.

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

Iacocca, Lee

11.

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

Howells, William Dean

12.

It is the direction and not the magnitude which is to be taken into consideration.

Troward, Thomas

13.

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

14.

Nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested upon.

Rowan, Carl

15.

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

16.

Let your hook always be cast. In the pool where you least expect it, will be a fish.

Ovid

17.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

18.

For as one star another far exceeds, So souls in heaven are placed by their deeds.

Greene, Robert

19.

Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

Turner, Ted

20.

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

Proverb, Chinese

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.

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

23.

You will never win if you never begin.

Schuller, Robert H.

24.

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

25.

I never worry about action, but only inaction.

Churchill, Winston

26.

Be both the gardener and the rose.

27.

Either move or be moved.

Powell, Colin

28.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

29.

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

Smiles, Samuel

30.

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

31.

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

Gorski, Nick

32.

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

33.

My friend, why have you drifted so far away? All motion is relative, maybe it is you who have moved away by standing still.

34.

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

Clarke, James Freeman

35.

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

36.

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

37.

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

38.

Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.

Edison, Thomas A.

39.

The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river.

Perot, H. Ross

40.

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

Marley, Bob

41.

Words may show a man's wit but actions his meaning.

Franklin, Benjamin

42.

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

Proverb, German

43.

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

Bible

44.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

45.

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

Galsworthy, John

46.

It is vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

Bronte, Charlotte

47.

I will act as if what I do makes a difference.

James, William

48.

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

Wilde, Oscar

49.

Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.

50.

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