Action Quotes

The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his actions.

Confucius, The Confucian Analects

It is an odd thing, but everyone who disappears is said to be seen at San Francisco. It must be a delightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world.

Oscar Wilde

Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.

Herbert Hoove

One, a robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm Two, a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law Three, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

Isaac Asimov

Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self - Satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.

John Wooden

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.

Sir Winston Churchill, Radio speech, 1939

My fellow Americans, I must speak to you tonight about a mounting danger in Central America that threatens the security of the United States. This danger will not go away it will grow worse, much worse, if we fail to take action now.

Ronald Reagan

There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A decision is the action an executive must take when he has information so incomplete that the answer does not suggest itself.

Arthur W. Radford

Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious, and they must be brought into connection with action. They must be woven together.

Anais Nin

Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.

G. M. Trevelyan

There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.

Bertrand Russell

I begin to think, that a calm is not desirable in any situation in life.... Man was made for action and for bustle too, I believe.

Abigail Adams, letter to her sister, Mary Smith Cranch, 1784

The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.

Confucius

Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of illusions.

Joseph Conrad

Any religion... is for ever in danger of petrifaction into mere ritual and habit, though ritual and habit be essential to religion.

T. S. Eliot

What a piece of work is a man how noble in reason how infinite in faculty in form and moving how express and admirable in action how like an angel in apprehension how like a god.

William Shakespeare

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

George Washington

As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.

Noam Chomsky, in a television interview

We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.

Frank Tibolt

Never mistake motion for action.

Ernest Hemingway

My father always told me that all businessmen were sons of bitches, but I never believed it till now. - - Comment made 10 April 1962 in reaction to news that U. S. Steel was raising prices by $6 per ton, right after the unions negotiated a modest new contract under pressure from JFK to keep inflation down.

John F. Kennedy, "A Thousand Days, " by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. [1965]

It is a poor wit who lives by borrowing the words, decisions, inventions and actions of others.

Johann Kaspar Lavate

By these things examine thyself. By whose rules am I acting; in whose name; in whose strength; in whose glory? What faith, humility, self - Denial, and love of God and to man have there been in all my actions?

Jackie Mason