quotations about action
Start by spending a day questioning yourself, your actions, and the words that escape your mouth. When you take a moment to reflect on this, ask yourself how it feels now that you are mindful of it? Secondly, reflect on the others around you, and how they might feel as it relates to your words and actions. Also, take a moment to ask yourself how productive your actions are. Do you find yourself honking the horn in the car often? If so, analyze its effectiveness. Last time I checked, when there was traffic and people started honking, nothing happened. I would imagine that the only thing that may have taken place is the rise of stress hormone in the driver, and other drivers around them. The cars don't disappear and clear the way for you. The horn is not magical.
BRETT BERHOFF
"3 Skills That Will Change Your Life", Huffington Post, February 8, 2016
Our deeds still travel with us from afar, And what we have been makes us what we are.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
Our deeds are fetters that we forge ourselves.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can quietly become a power no government can suppress, a power than can transform the world.
HOWARD ZINN
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
Mindfulness includes paying attention to your thoughts and controlling them, rather than letting them dictate your actions.
ERIC RAVENSCRAFT
"You Don't Have A Procrastination Problem, You Have An Impulsivity Problem", Lifehacker, March 1, 2016
The attempt is all the wedge that splits its knotty way betwixt the impossible and possible.
ALICE CARY
"The Maiden of Tlalscala"
From thinking proceeds speaking; thence to acting is often but a single step. But how irrevocable and tremendous!
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to John Jay, Aug. 1, 1786
A thought which does not result in an action is nothing much, and an action which does not proceed from a thought is nothing at all.
GEORGES BERNANOS
Last Essays
Actions speak louder than words.
ANONYMOUS
The Melancholy State of this Province Considered, in a Letter, from a Gentleman in Boston to His Friend in the Country, 1736
A man's intentions should be allowed in some respects to plead for his actions.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to the Speaker of the House of Burgesses, Dec. 1756
Let's plunge ourselves into the roar of time, the whirl of accident; may pain and pleasure, success and failure, shift as they will -- it's only action that can make a man.
GOETHE
Faust
In a virtuous action, I properly am; in a virtuous act, I add to the world; I plant into deserts conquered from Chaos and Nothing, and see the darkness receding on the limits of the horizon.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Compensation", Essays
Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Rousseau and the Sentimentalists
The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is more important than the eye.
JACOB BRONOWSKI
The Ascent of Man
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
WILLIAM BLAKE
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Your actions are largely dictated by whatever your most immediate desire is, regardless of the long-term consequences of that action.
ERIC RAVENSCRAFT
"You Don't Have A Procrastination Problem, You Have An Impulsivity Problem", Lifehacker, March 1, 2016
A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken new action. If there's no action, you haven't truly decided.
MICHAEL G. CIOPPA
Success Is Not a Miracle
What a man does is the real test of what a man is.
WILLIAM MATHEWS
Hints on Success in Life
Act is the blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruits; thus does a man garner in the sweet and bitter fruitage of his own husbandry.
JAMES ALLEN
As a Man Thinketh
When you live a meaningful life, you make your actions, your choices, and your moments count. You achieve this by deciding who do you want to be, and what experiences do you want to create.
J. D. MEIER
"Happiness Is Actually Pretty Easy to Find", Time, February 29, 2016