Action - Quotes

A good action is never lost; it is a treasure laid up and guarded for the doer’s need. - Edwin Markham

Act quickly, think slowly. - Germaine Greer

Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action. - Frank Tibolt

Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all. - Norman Vincent Peale

Action is character. - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Action is the antidote to despair. - Joan Baez

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

Action is the foundational key to all success. - Tony Robbins

Action is the highest perfection and drawing forth of the utmost power, vigour, and activity of man’s nature. - Bishop Robert South

Actions lie louder than words. - Carolyn Wells

Action speaks louder than words. - Unknown

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

Action to be effective must be directed to clearly conceived ends. - Jawaharlal Nehru

Actions determine what kind of characteristics are developed. - Aristotle

Actions follow thoughts – consciously or unconsciously. Control your thoughts and the right actions will follow. - Unknown

All of our actions have in their doing the seed of their undoing. - Louise Erdrich

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire. - Aristotle

Almost every sinful action ever committed can be traced back to a selfish motive. It is a trait we hate in other people but justify in ourselves. - Stephen Kendrick

An action is the perfection and publication of thought.  - Ralph Waldo Emerson 

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory. - Friedrich Engels

As a man believes, so he will act. - Sam Harris

Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk. - Joaquin Setanti

Do not analyse things to death. Sometimes the best strategy is, “Ready, fire, aim.” Do it first, then make adjustments. The answer lies in action – not in words. - Philip Toshio Sudo

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every act is an expression of one’s self. - Eiji Yoshikawa

Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity. - Edwin Hubble Chapin 

I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts. - John Locke

I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair. - Lord Alfred Tennyson

I think there is something more important than believing: Action! The world is full of dreamers. There aren’t enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualise their vision. - W. Clement Stone

In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently. - Tony Robbins

In youth, the days are short and the years are long; in old age, the years are short and the days long. - Nikita Ivanovich Panin

Is it really so difficult to tell a good action from a bad one? I think one usually knows right away or a moment afterward, in a horrid flash of regret. - Mary McCarthy

It is a mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect. - Robert Louis Stevenson

It is better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past. - Von Clausewitz

It is circumstance and proper timing that give an action its character and make it either good or bad. - Agesilaus II

It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions. - Aristotle

It is easy to sit up and take notice. What is difficult is getting up and taking action. - Al Batt

It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. - Charlotte Bronte

It is quite impossible to understand the character of a person from one action, however striking that action may be. - Arthur Helps

It’s the action, not the fruit of the action, that’s important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result. - Mahatma Gandhi

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. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Men may boast of their great actions; but they are more often the effects of chance than of design. - Francois de la Rochefoucauld

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand. - Thich Nhat Hanh

My actions reflect who I truly am and your interpretation of them reflects who you truly are. - Unknown

Necessity of action takes away the fear of the act, and makes bold resolution the favorite of fortune. - Francis Quarles

No action will be considered blameless, unless the will was so, for by the will the act was dictated. - Seneca

Not always actions show the man; we find Who does a kindness is not therefore kind. - Alexander Pope

Our actions are like blank rhymes, to which everyone applies what sense he pleases. - Francois de la Rochefoucauld 

So many of man's actions appear to have no immediate consequence but, concealed, do their work until finally all catches up and forms a complex web of cause and effect. - Tobsha Learner 

Sometimes we have to do a thing in order to find out the reason for it. Sometimes our actions are questions, not answers. - John le Carre

Take some action that will move you forward. Action is the test of determination that goes beyond willingness. Like motivation, action generates more energy and enthusiasm to sustain you in the early stages of transition. - Unknown

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in. - Andrew Jackson

The key to successful aging is to pay as little attention to it as possible. - Judith Regan

The man of action is not the headstrong fool who rushes into danger with no thought for himself, but the man who puts into practice the things he knows. - Cesare Pavese

The mark of a good action is that it appears inevitable in retrospect. - Robert Luis Stevenson

The mind sees, the will commands, the man acts. What is it then to act? To act is to produce something. If you have produced nothing – if no result has been the fruit of your will, you have done nothing. - Henri-Dominique Larcordaire

The most decisive actions of our life – I mean those that are most likely to decide the whole course of our future – are, more often than not, unconsidered. - Andre Gide

The only things in which we can be said to have any property are our actions. Our thoughts may be bad, yet produce no poison, they may be good, yet produce no fruit. Our riches may be taken from us by misfortune, our reputation by malice, our spirits by calamity, our health by disease, our friends by death. But our actions must follow us beyond the grave; with respect to them alone, we cannot say that we shall carry nothing with us when we die, neither that we shall go naked out of the world. Our actions must clothe us with an immortality, loathsome or glorious; these are the only title-deeds of which we cannot be disinherited; they will have their full weight in the balance of eternity, when everything else is as nothing; and their value will be confirmed and established by those two sure and stateless destroyers of all other things – Time and Death. - Charles Caleb Colton

The only correct actions are those that demand no explanation and no apology. - Red Auerbach

The return we reap from generous actions is not always evident. - Francesco Guicciardini

The time for action is now. It’s never too late to do something. - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

The views of men can only be known, or guessed at, by their words or actions. - George Washington

The world behaves differently when I take action to go after what I want. - Price Pritchett

The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is more important than the eye. - Jacob Bronowski 

Thinking will not overcome fear but action will. - W. Clement Stone

Thus every action must be due to one or other of seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite. - Aristotle

Time is a factor in all action. An imperfect scheme put into action at the proper time is better than a perfect one accomplished too late. - Andre Maurois

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

We will act consistently with our view of who we truly are, whether that view is accurate or not. - Tony Robbins

When our actions are based on good intentions our soul has no regrets. - Unknown

When thought becomes excessively painful, action is the finest remedy. - Salman Rushdie

When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. - Lois McMaster Bujold

While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions. - Stephen Covey

Words may lie, but actions will always tell the truth. - Unknown

You are younger today than you ever will be again. Make use of it for the sake of tomorrow. - Unknown 

You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing there will be no results. - Mahatma Gandhi

You see, in life, lots of people know what to do, but few people actually do what they know. Knowing is not enough! You must take action. - Tony Robbins