Quotations about Action

  • I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts. ~John Locke
  • Well done is better than well said. ~Benjamin Franklin
  • Between saying and doing many a pair of shoes is worn out. ~Italian Proverb
  • After all is said and done, a lot more will have been said than done. ~Author Unknown
  • The shortest answer is doing. ~Lord Herbert
  • Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words. Trust movement. ~Alfred Adler
  • We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action. ~Frank Tibolt
  • A promise is a cloud; fulfillment is rain. ~Arabian Proverb
  • An idea not coupled with action will never get any bigger than the brain cell it occupied. ~Arnold Glasow
  • Inspirations never go in for long engagements; they demand immediate marriage to action. ~Brendan Francis
  • Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned. ~Peter Marshall
  • Never mistake motion for action. ~Ernest Hemingway
  • Action is eloquence. ~William Shakespeare
  • There are so many things that we wish we had done yesterday, so few that we feel like doing today. ~Mignon McLaughlin
  • A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion. ~Washington
  • Irving, adapted from a verse in the BibleAction is the last resource of those who know not how to dream. ~Oscar Wilde
  • Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action. ~Walter Anderson, The Confidence Course, 1997
  • Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold - but so does a hard-boiled egg. ~Author Unknown
  • If ifs were gifts, every day would be Christmas. ~Charles BarkleyExample is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other. ~Edmund Burke
  • Talk doesn't cook rice. ~Chinese Proverb
  • Be content to act, and leave the talking to others. ~Baltasar Gracian
  • All know the way; few actually walk it. ~Bodhidharma
  • Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live. ~Nicolas de Chamfort
  • The first step binds one to the second. ~French Proverb
  • I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on man unless they act. ~G.K. Chesterton
  • If your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt. ~Henry J. Kaiser
  • There is no moment like the present. The man who will not execute his resolutions when they are fresh upon him can have no hope from them afterwards: they will be dissipated, lost, and perish in the hurry and scurry of the world, or sunk in the slough of indolence. ~Maria Edgeworth
  • Deliberation is a function of the many; action is the function of one. ~Charles de Gaulle, War Memoirs, 1960
  • Action is the antidote to despair. ~Joan Baez
  • Ironically, making a statement with words is the least effective method. ~Grey Livingston
  • He liked to go from A to B without inventing letters between. ~John McPhee
  • Action worships the deed. ~Nathaniel LeTonnerre, translated
  • The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. Beethoven, Wagner, Bach and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand with as much regularity as an accountant settles down each day to his figures. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration. ~Ernest Newman
  • We are all inclined to judge ourselves by our ideals; others, by their acts. ~Harold Nicolson
  • A nod,a bow,and a tip of the lidto the person who couldaand shouldaand did.~Robert Brault
  • The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps - we must step up the stairs. ~Vance Havner
  • He who has made a thousand things and he who has made none, both feel the same desire: to make something. ~Antonio Porchia
  • Don't find fault. Find a remedy. ~Henry Ford
  • What ought to have been done, and what shall be done, often stifle doing between them. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare
  • Success will never be a big step in the future, success is a small step taken just now. ~Jonatan Mårtensson
  • Nature takes away any faculty that is not used. ~William R. Inge
  • He that waits upon fortune is never sure of a dinner. ~Benjamin Franklin
  • If I set for myself a task, be it so trifling, I shall see it through. How else shall I have confidence in myself to do important things? ~George Clason
  • In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • One's action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be a mere rushing on. ~D.H. Lawrence
  • Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. ~James Baldwin
  • Action will remove the doubts that theory cannot solve. ~Tehyi Hsieh
  • Men expect too much, do too little. ~Allen Tate
  • When deeds speak, words are nothing. ~African Proverb
  • As I grow older I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do. ~Andrew Carnegie
  • All problems become smaller if you don't dodge them but confront them. ~William F. Halsey
  • The best way out of a problem is through it. ~Author Unknown
  • I believe half the unhappiness in life comes from people being afraid to go straight at things. ~William J. Lock
  • People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do. ~Lewis Cass
  • We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once. ~Calvin Coolidge