Motivational Quotes

Action

We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.

- Vivekananda, Swami

Best Quotes about Action

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

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

Wanamaker, John

Do Something. If it works, do more of it. If it doesn't, do something else.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

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

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

Edison, Thomas A.

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

We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.

Aristotle

Never mind your happiness; do your duty.

Durant, William J.

10.

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

11.

Doing leads more surely to talking than talking to doing.

Vinet

12.

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

13.

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

Iacocca, Lee

14.

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.

15.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

16.

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.

Aristotle

17.

Anything you do can get you fired; this includes doing nothing.

18.

What really matters is what you do with what you have.

Lord, Shirley

19.

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

Wilde, Oscar

20.

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

Howells, William Dean

21.

Better to try something and fail than to try nothing and succeed.

22.

Nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested upon.

Rowan, Carl

23.

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

Green, Dennis

24.

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

25.

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

Hasselhoff, David

26.

Then indecision brings its own delays, And days are lost lamenting o'er lost days. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; What you can do, or dream you can, begin it.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

27.

Reactionary: A man walking backwards with his face to the future.

Bevan, Aneurin

28.

The common conception is that motivation leads to action, but the reverse is true -- action precedes motivation. You have to prime the pump and get the juice flowing, which motivates you to work on your goals. Getting momentum going is the most difficult part of the job, and often taking the first step is enough to prompt you to make the best of your day.

Mckain, Robert J.

29.

Your actions, and your action alone, determines your worth.

Fichte, Johann G.

30.

Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.

Peale, Norman Vincent

31.

When Demosthenes was asked what were the three most important aspects of oratory, he answered, Action, Action, Action.

Plutarch

32.

The only correct actions are those that demand no explanation and no apology.

Auerbach, Red

33.

Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.

Drucker, Peter F.

34.

Go for it now. The future is promised to no one.

Dyer, Wayne

35.

Let no one be deluded that a knowledge of the path can substitute for putting one foot in front of the other.

Richards, Mary Caroline

36.

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

37.

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.

Disraeli, Benjamin

38.

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

39.

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

Whitehead, Alfred North

40.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

41.

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

Ennius, Quintus

42.

As our case is new, we must think and act anew.

Lincoln, Abraham

43.

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

44.

All the reputedly powerful reactionaries are merely paper tigers. The reason is that they are divorced from the people. Look! Was not Hitler a paper tiger? Was Hitler not overthrown? U.S. imperialism has not yet been overthrown and it has the atomic bomb. I believe it also will be overthrown. It, too, is a paper tiger.

Zedong, Mao

45.

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

Croce, Benedetto

46.

Action is the highest perfection and drawing forth of the utmost power, vigor, and activity of man's nature.

South, Bishop Robert

47.

I like these words -- they seem to suggest action: If you hear a kind word spoken Of some worthy soul you know, It may fill his heart with sunshine If you'd only tell him so. If a deed, however humble, helps you On your way to go, Seek the one whose hand has helped you. Seek him out and tell him so. If your heart is touched and tender Towards sinner log and low, It might help him to do better If you could only tell him so.

48.

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

49.

A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

50.

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

Balzac, Honore De