ACTION
Quotes
1
As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.
— Andrew Carnegie
2
The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.
— Paul Valery
3
Be willing to make decisions. That’s the most important quality in a good leader. Don’t fall victim to what I call the “ready-aim-aim-aim-aim syndrome.” You must be willing to fire.
— T. Boone Pickens
4
The world’s great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor great scholars great men.
— Oliver Wendell Holmes
5
Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.
— Thomas Alva Edison
6
One must act in painting as in life, directly.
— Pablo Picasso
7
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
— Harriet Beecher Stowe
8
Be not simply good; be good for something.
— Henry David Thoreau
9
It is difficult to keep quiet if you have nothing to do.
— Arthur Schopenhauer
10
No one is more liable to make mistakes than the man who acts only on reflection.
— Luc de Clapiers de Vauvenargues
11
An artist is a man of action, whether he creates a personality, invents an expedient, or finds the issue of a complicated situation.
— Joseph Conrad
12
You don’t learn to hold your own in the world by standing on guard, but by attacking and getting well hammered yourself.
— George Bernard Shaw
13
The great end of life is not knowledge but action.
— Thomas Henry Huxley
14
It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic.
— Winston Churchill
15
Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.
— Will Rogers
16
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
— William Blake
17
A man who has to be convinced to act before he acts is not a man of action...You must act as you breathe.
— Georges Clemenceau
18
It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect.
— Robert Louis Stevenson
19
No sooner said than done--so acts your man of worth.
— Quintus Ennius
20
Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.
— James 1:22
21
A person may cause evil to others not only by his action but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.
— John Stuart Mill
22
We have petitioned and our petitions have been disregarded; we have entreated and our entreaties have been scorned. We beg no more, we petition no longer, we now defy.
— William Jennings Bryan
23
Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.
— Charles Dudley Warner
24
I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.
— John Locke
25
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats.
— H. L. Mencken
26
Don’t just do something, stand there.
— Daniel Berrigan, on the importance of thought as well as action during the 1960's war protests
27
Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
28
Talk without effort is nothing.
— Maria W. Stewart
29
Violence of language leads to violence of action. Angry men seldom fight if their tongues do not lead the fray.
— Charles Victor Roman
30
Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.
— Frantz Fanon
31
Always behave like a duck--keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like the devil underneath.
— Lord Barbizon
32
If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
— Eldridge Cleaver
Sayings
1
Just do it.
— Nike Slogan
2
You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.
3
Excuses interest no one except the competition.
4
Actions speak louder than words.
5
Only people who do things get criticized.
6
He who waits for a roast duck to fly into his mouth must wait a very, very long time.
— Chinese proverb
7
Your food is close to your stomach, but you must put it in your mouth first.
— West African saying
8
When the snake is in the house, one needs not discuss the matter of length.
— West African saying
Joke
Husband, lounging in recliner, to wife: “I’ll think about cleaning out the garage in a little while, hon. Right now, I’m thinking about mowing the lawn.”