actions Quotes

“The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.”

“I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.”

“I don’t want just words. If that’s all you have for me you’d better go.”

“It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you.”

“It isn’t what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.”

“There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.”

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars But in ourselves.”

“What’s done cannot be undone.”

“Things without all remedy should be without regard: what’s done is done.”

“Can’t you ever do things without reason, just like everybody else?”

“Do anything, but let it produce joy.”

“Our words have power, but our actions shape our lives.”

“We can’t take any credit for our talents. It’s how we use them that counts.”

Never explain what you do. It speaks for itself. You only muddle it by talking about it.

“And once you are in motion, do not allow your thoughts to distract you. Think without thinking, so that you act as if out of instinct and not reason.”

“You are responsible for what you say and do. You are not responsible for whether or not people freak out about it.”

“I have not wanted syllables where actions have spoken so plainly.”

“Perhaps it is impossible for a person who does no good not to do harm.”

“Treat ‘em like dogs, and you’ll have dogs’ works and dogs’ actions. Treat ‘em like men, and you’ll have men’s works.”

“Scenes of blood and cruelty are shocking to our ear and heart. What man has nerve to do, man has not nerve to hear.”

“There warn’t anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, for there warn’t any lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summer-time because it’s cool. If you notice, most folks don’t go to church only when they’ve got to: but a hog is different.”

“Yes, we should have a full day to-day,” he remarked, and he rubbed his hands with the joy of action.”

“My dear Watson, you were born to be a man of action. Your instinct is always to do something energetic.”

“Every action we take has consequences, Vin,” Kelsier said. “I’ve found that in both Allomancy and life, the person who can best judge the consequences of their actions will be the most successful.”

“Their greatest danger was in the disbelief of their teachers. Though every one had a copy of the law, few read it; all were ready, by some excuse, to avoid this duty. Some asserted they knew it, yet never thought on it: some called these the laws of past times; not of the present. Other said the Great King did not regard the actions of his subjects, that he had neither mines nor dungeons, and that all would certainly be taken to the Heavenly City.”

“By and by Tom’s reading wrought such a strong effect upon him that he began to act the prince, unconsciously. His speech and manners became curiously ceremonious and courtly, to the vast admiration and amusement of his intimates. But Tom’s influence among these young people began to grow, now, day by day; and in time he came to be looked up to, by them, with a sort of wondering awe, as a superior being.”

“By and by Tom’s reading wrought such a strong effect upon him that he began to act the prince, unconsciously. His speech and manners became curiously ceremonious and courtly, to the vast admiration and amusement of his intimates. But Tom’s influence among these young people began to grow, now, day by day; and in time he came to be looked up to, by them, with a sort of wondering awe, as a superior being.”

“But if we’d told you then, you might not have gone.”

“‘Things are always different than what they might be,’ said the old man. ‘If you wait for them to change, you will never do anything.‘”

His countenance possessed in the highest degree what physiognomists call “repose in action,” a quality of those who act rather than talk.

Please, a definition: A hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action.

And action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all.

“Many of the Ents are younger than I am, by many lives of trees. They are all roused now, and their mind is all on one thing: breaking Isengard. But they will start thinking again before long; they will cool down a little . . . But let them march now and sing! We have a long way to go, and there is time ahead for thought. It is something to have started.”

“Let them march now and sing! We have a long way to go, and there is time ahead for thought. It is something to have started.”

“The things we do outlast our mortality. The things we do are like monuments that people build to honor heroes after they’ve died. They’re like the pyramids that the Egyptians built to honor the pharaohs. Only instead of being made of stone, they’re made out of the memories people have of you.”

“And suddenly she knew exactly why Catherine had fallen in love with him. It wasn’t that he was unusually attractive, or ambitious, or even charming. He was partly those things, but more important, he seemed to live life on his own terms.”

“You can only find out what you actually believe (rather than what you think you believe) by watching how you act. You simply don’t know what you believe, before that. You are too complex to understand yourself.”

“When I was a boy my grandfather died....He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them just the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I’ve never gotten over his death. Often I think, what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands. He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.”

“Sometimes, she knew, the most important battles for dignity, pride, and progress were fought with the simplest of actions.”

You can have many great ideas in your head, but what makes the difference is the action. Without action upon an idea, there will be no manifestation, no results, and no reward.

“Not to extinguish our free will, I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions, but that she still leaves us to direct the other half.”

“for you will always gravitate toward that which you, secretly, most love.”

“Even in him, even in your great teacher, I prefer the thing to the words, his actions and his life are more important than his speech, the gestures of his hand more important than his opinions.”

“In order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it.”

“Here was neither peace, nor rest, nor a moment’s safety. All was confusion and action, and every moment life and limb were in peril.”

“The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.”

“Abandon anything about your life and habits that might be holding you back, Learn to create your own opportunities. Know that there is no finish line; fortune favors action.”

“Every moment and every situation challenges us to action and to obedience. We have literally no time to sit down and ask ourselves whether so-and-so is our neighbour or not. We must get into action and obey - we must behave like a neighbour to him.”

“Without action, the best intentions in the world are nothing more than that: intentions.”

“Act as if! Act as if you’re a wealthy man, rich already, and then you’ll surely become rich. Act as if you have unmatched confidence and then people will surely have confidence in you. Act as if you have unmatched experience and then people will follow your advice. And act as if you are already a tremendous success, and as sure as I stand here today - you will become successful!”

“Actions speak louder than words, and a smile says, ‘I like you. You make me happy. I am glad to see you.”

“Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.”

“Love is a verb. Love – the feeling – is the fruit of love the verb or our loving actions. So love her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her.”

“Even if you kill an enemy, if it is not based on what you have learned it is not the true Way.”

“The important thing in strategy is to suppress the enemy’s useful actions but allow his useless actions.”

“No man that hath sovereign power can justly be put to death, or otherwise in any manner by his subjects punished. For seeing every subject is author of the actions of his sovereign, he punisheth another for the actions committed by himself.”

“To be smart is not a sin. But to be smart and not use it, that, Peekay, is a sin.”

“I can’t stand myself for doing it, but I do it anyway.”

“Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing right.”

“It may seem strange to some man that has not well weighed these things that Nature should thus dissociate and render men apt to invade and destroy one another : and he may therefore, not trusting to this inference, made from the passions, desire perhaps to have the same confirmed by experience. Let him therefore consider with himself: when taking a journey, he arms himself and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep, he locks his doors; when even in his house he locks his chests; and this when he knows there be laws and public officers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall be done him; what opinion he has of his fellow subjects, when he rides armed; of his fellow citizens, when he locks his doors; and of his children, and servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not there as much accuse mankind by his actions as I do by my words?”

“At first I would not go because there might be something I could do and I would not go because there might be something I could do and I would have to haul her back.”

“Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally.”

″While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of those actions. Consequences are governed by natural law….We can decide to step in front of a fast-moving train, but we cannot decide what will happen when the train hits us.″

“For the actions of men proceed from their opinions, and in the well governing of opinions consisteth the well governing of men’s actions in order to their peace and concord.”

“A man may have knowledge like an angel and yet not be Christian. So your sign of knowledge as evidence is not valid. Indeed, to know is a thing that pleases talkers and boasters, but to do is what pleases God.”

“Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away!”

“Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life-learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even little seed in the Styrofoam up-they all die. So do we. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned-the biggest word of all-LOOK.”

Vladimir: “Well? What do we do?” Estragon: “Don’t let’s do anything. It’s safer”

“You think ... yesterday don’t count. But yesterday is all that does count. ”

Estragon: “Let’s go.” Vladimir: “We can’t.” Estragon: “Why not?” Vladimir: “We’re waiting for Godot.”

“Seek to perform your duties to your highest ability, this way your actions will be blameless.”

“Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.”

“I’m going. (He does not move).”

“I believe that whatever you do in your life it will get back to you. If you live long enough it will. ”

“Speak in statements instead of apologetic questions. No one wants to go to a doctor who says, ‘I’m going to be your surgeon? I’m here to talk to you about your procedure? I was first in my class at Johns Hopkins, so?’ Make statements, with your actions and your voice.”

How I treat a brother or sister from day to day, how I react to the sin-scarred wino on the street, how I respond to interruptions from people I dislike, how I deal with normal people in their normal confusion on a normal day may be a better indication of my reverence for life than the antiabortion sticker on the bumper of my car.

“Let it be thy earnest and incessant care as a Roman and a man to perform whatsoever it is that thou art about, with true and unfeigned gravity, natural affection, freedom and justice.”

“Thou must also take heed of another kind of wandering, for they are idle in their actions, who toil and labour in this life, and have no certain scope to which to direct all their motions, and desires.”

“The one who has the little need is the one who controls the whole relationship. You can see this dynamic so clearly because usually in every relationship there is one who loves the most and the other who doesn’t love, who only takes advantage of the one who gives his or her heart. You can see the way they manipulate each other, their actions and reactions, and they are just like the provider and the drug addict.”

“It’s not a question of whether you will hurt, or of how much you will hurt; it’s a question of what you will do, and how well you will do it, while pain has her wanton way with you.”

“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.”

“Promise yourself to think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud words but great deeds.”

“But also because the underlying struggle - between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty toward those not like us...”

“Rest in reason; move in passion.”

“But in the meantime, you got to remember, you can’t always judge people by the things they done. You got to judge them by what they are doing now.”

“‘Men are what they are because of what they do. Not what they say.‘”

“Really knowing is good. Not knowing, or refusing to know, is bad, or amoral, at least. You can’t act if you don’t know.”

“Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another.”

“I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how.”

“Your life depends on their actions. I have never busted a cap on a woman or anybody much under sixteen years but I will do what I have to do.”

“Our wise acts accompany us through life to please us and to help us. Just as surely, our unwise acts follow us to plague and torment us. Alas, they cannot be forgotten. In the front rank of the torments that do follow us are the memories of the things we should have done, of the opportunities which came to us and we took not.”

“Our acts can be no wiser than our thoughts.”

“Men of action are favored by the Goddess of good luck.”

″ Love is as love does. Love is an act of will – namely, both an intention and an action. ”

“After a while, I learned that when you wake up like that, you don’t ask what happened, you just say that you’re sorry: you’re sorry for what you did and who you are and you’re never, ever going to behave like that again.”

“It is not selfishness or unselfishness that distinguishes love from non-love; it is the aim of the action.”

“The mind is the leader or forerunner of all actions.”

“I can give you convincing evidence of what I say, not words only, but what you value far more—actions.”

“ Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em.”

“Ask yourself: What is the best I can do? And then do that.”

“Things that are done, it is needless to speak about; things that have had their course, it is needless to remonstrate about; things that are past, it is needless to blame.”

“He acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his actions.”

“How should a Christian act when evil was in power?”

“Men are not justified by calling those actions involuntary, which are done by reason of Anger or Lust.”

“The character of the tribunes was, in every respect, different from that of the consuls. The appearance of the former was modest and humble; but their persons were sacred and inviolable. Their force was suited rather for opposition than for action. They were instituted to defend the oppressed, to pardon offences, to arraign the enemies of the people, and, when they judged it necessary, to stop, by a single word, the whole machine of government.”

“If I didn’t want the violence to remain, I had to do . . . a lot more than just say the right things and not say the wrong things.”

“I have sent Menoeceus’ son, Creon, my consort’s brother, to inquire Of Pythian Phoebus at his Delphic shrine, How I might save the State by act or word.”

“Words scare not him who blenches not at deeds.”

“You need to know it’s your actions that will make you a good person, not desire.”

“My mom says it’s time for me to give up now, and that what I’m doing is futile.”

“Somebody has to start. Somebody has to step forward and do what is right, because it is right.”

“Remember this: the number one cause of failure in this country is the fear of failure. Fear paralyzes you from taking action.”

“The truth is you can acquire any quality you want by acting as though you already have it.”

“Any action of the human heart must trigger an equal and opposite reaction.”

“But if you really want to get God’s attention, put actions behind what you believe in.”

“The warrior knows that peace does not come from control but from relinquishing control. Everything in life that you try to control that is outside your control will steal from you your peace. You must choose to take hold of what you can control and let go of what you cannot. You cannot control your circumstances, but you can control your character. You cannot control the actions of others, but you can control the choices you make. You cannot control the outcome, but you can control the process.”

“First the force; and then The agent; next, the various instruments; Fourth, the especial effort; fifth, the God. What work soever any mortal doth Of body, mind, or speech, evil or good, By these five doth he that.”

“There is ‘dark’ Action: when one doth a thing Heedless of issues, heedless of the hurt Or wrong for others, heedless if he harm His own soul--‘tis of Tamas, black and bad!”

“If one should desire to live in this world a hundred years, one should live performing Karma (righteous deeds). Thus thou mayest live; there is no other way. By doing this, Karma (the fruits of thy actions) will not defile thee.”

“It’s a temptation that exists for everyone- for talk and hype to replace action.”

“How, if I know all this, you may ask, could I hound him--shatter him again and again. dive him deeper and deeper into woe? I have no answer, except perhaps this: why should I not? Has he made any move to deserve my kindness?”

“Our mind is powerful. Think Bigger. Dream bigger. Act bigger – and you’ll live a much bigger version of your life!”

“That is how it seemed to young George Webber, who was never so assured of his purpose as when he was going somewhere on a train. And he never had the sense of home so much as when he felt that he was going there. It was only when he got there that his homelessness began.”

“Bigger felt that he was sitting and holding his life helplessly in his hands, waiting for Max to tell him what to do with it; and it made him hate himself. An organic wish to cease to be, to stop living, seized him. Either he was too weak, or the world was too strong; he did not know which. Over and over he had tried to create a world to live in and over and over he had failed. Now once again he was waiting for someone to tell him something; once more, he was poised on the verge of action and commitment.”

“Here was another peculiar Trump attribute: an inability to see his actions the way most others saw them. Or to fully appreciate how people expected him to behave.”

“Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. ”

“His words were just the catalyst that kick-started me into action. (...) The fact is he was probably just a bloke on a bus. But chatty. And wise.”

“Our first impressions are generated by our experiences and our environment, which means that we can change our first impressions - we can alter the way we think-slice - by changing the experiences that comprise those impressions...It requires that you change your life so that you are exposed to minorities on a regular basis and become comfortable with them and familiar with the best of their culture, so that when you want to meet, hire, date, or talk with a member of a minority, you aren’t betrayed by your hesitation and discomfort. Taking rapid cognition seriously - acknowledging the incredible power, for good and ill, that first impressions play in our lives - requires that we take active steps to manage and control those impressions.”

“You can only control two things in life: Your attitude and your actions.”

“Track every action that relates to the area of your life you want to improve. All winners are trackers.”

“Step by step, day by day, your choices will shape your actions until they become habits where practice makes them permanent.”

“Ask yourself each day: If I only did 3 things today, what are the actions that will produce the greatest results in moving me closer to my big goals?”

“Good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are.”

“I only knew that it was time to go, so I opened the door and stepped into the light.”

“Act, reflect. Act, reflect. NEVER act and reflect at the same time.”

“Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on the stage. But active love is labor and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science.”

“And the worst of it was, and the root of it all, that it was all in accord with the normal fundamental laws of over-acute consciousness, and with the inertia that was the direct result of those laws, and that consequently one was not only unable to change but could do absolutely nothing.”

“Where the head goes, the body follows. Perception precedes action. Right action follows the right perspective.”

“You’ve been doing something all along. All this time, and now you are at an important place in this story.”

“I invented adventures for myself and made up a life, so as at least to live in some way. […] I tried hard to be in love. I suffered, too, gentlemen, I assure you. In the depth of my heart there was no faith in my suffering, only a faint stir of mockery […], and it was all from ennui, […]; inertia overcame me. You know the direct, legitimate fruit of consciousness is inertia, that is, conscious sitting-with-the-hands-folded.”

“In all my years in the streets, I’d been looking at the exploitation that for the first time I really saw and understood.”

“I don’t wanta hear all your word descriptions of words words words you made up all winter, man I wanta be enlightened by actions.”

“Action is what converts human dreams into significance.”

“The two main criminals are France and the United States. They owe Haiti enormous reparations because of actions going back hundreds of years. If we could ever get to the stage where somebody could say, ‘We’re sorry we did it,’ that would be nice.”

“IF I HAD KNOWN IT WAS HARMLESS I WOULD HAVE KILLED IT MYSELF.”

“Only by managing my thinking and shifting my thoughts from desire to deeds would I be able to bring about positive change. I needed to go from wanting to doing.”

“Every time we choose action over ease we develop an increasing level of self-worth, self-respect, and self-confidence.”

“When people are engaged in something they are not proud of, they do not welcome witnesses.”

“It’s not a person’s actions that hurt the most. It’s the love. If there was no love attached to the action, the pain would be a little easier to bear.”

“A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.”

“If you make a deal with a fool, don’t be surprised when they act foolishly.”

“True love is always backed up with actions.”

“What matters to you is not necessarily what you say or believe, but what your actions and reactions reveal as important and serious to you…If small things have the power to disturb you, then who you think you are is exactly that: small. That will be your unconscious belief.”

“Such amusing fiction, these stories they tell. It always comes to this. If they really had a desire to live, they would’ve been more aware of how easy it is to die, would’ve chosen their actions more wisely. In these moments, you can tell they’re not regretting having hurt you, they regret doing it to your face.”

“This moment right now-is where we decide what kind of city Artemis is going to be. We can either act now, or let our home degenerate into syndicate rule for generations. This isn’t some theoretical scenario. They burned down a business. They murdered two people. There’s a huge amount of money in play - they’re not going to stop.”

“Foreordain it? No. The man’s circumstances and environment order it. His first act determines the second and all that follow after.”

“Regardless of WHAT we do in our lives, our WHY—our driving purpose, cause or belief—never changes.”

“Eventually we all have to accept full and total responsibility for our actions, everything we have done, and have not done. ”

“We’ve got to base our future actions not on some desired Utopia but on what we have.”

“He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him look at the works.”

“But let’s keep big feelings from becoming big actions.”

“I envy thee not thy faith, which is ever in thy mouth, but never in thy heart nor in thy practice.”

“I have never allowed a gentleman to dictate to me, or to interfere with anything I do.”

″‘Possibly you were responding to unconscious stereotypes of black men as large, threatening, dangerous?’ ‘No. I acted with just cause.‘”

“Even those with fewer freedoms still face countless daily choices about which urges to indulge, what actions they’ll take, what they’ll accept or demand from themselves.”

“Parents, educators, other adults, institutions- the culture itself- may say one thing to children about nature’s gifts, but so many of our actions and messages- especially the ones we cannot hear ourselves deliver- are different. And children hear very well.”

″...she knew now that she was afraid of what she had done, not afraid of loving Will, but of having turned herself out of Flambards, which was the only real home she had ever known.”

″...it’s not so much what you do, as what you mean.”

“The best you do does not counterbalance the worst.”

“I remember alike those who sought my life with stones and those who gave me food- lay aside therefore your fears. I return as an enemy only to those who injured me.”

“You can’t judge a person by the job they do or by their station in life; you must judge a person by their actions.”

“Where does it ever say, anywhere, that only bad can come from bad actions? Maybe sometimes— the wrong way is the right way? You can take the wrong path and it still comes out where you want to be?”

“Good doesn’t always follow from good deeds, nor bad deeds result form bad, does it? Even the wise and good cannot see the end of all actions. Scary idea!”

“And you’ll find yourself wishing that you were out there in Fotta-fa-Zee and not here in this chair.”

Pooh felt that he ought to say something helpful about it, but didn’t quite know what. So he decided to do something helpful instead.

“Come, we must see and act. Devils or no devils, or all the devils at once, it matters not; we fight him all the same.”

“Do as you will, friend; do as you will. There can be no horror like this ever any more;”

“A familiar phenomenon,” interposed Zossimov, “actions are sometimes performed in a masterly and most cunning way, while the direction of the actions is deranged and dependent on various morbid impressions—it’s like a dream.”