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For action is the life of all, and if thou dost not act, thou dost nothing. Gerrard Winstanley, The Diggers, 1649
Great acts are made up of small deeds. Lao Tzu
Only through the conscious action of the working masses in city and country can it be brought to life, only through the people's highest intellectual maturity and inexhaustible idealism can it be brought safely through all storms and find its way to port. Rosa Luxemburg
I’m a woman of very few words, but lots of action. Mae West
Man is nothing else but what he purposes. He exists only in so far that he realises himself. He is therefore nothing else but the sum of his actions. Jean-Paul Sartre
All human actions are equivalent and all are on principle doomed to failure. Jean-Paul Sartre
We must act out our passion before we can feel it. Jean-Paul Sartre
There is no reality except in action. Jean-Paul Sartre
Suit the action to the word, and the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature. William Shakespeare, Hamlet III ii 18-19, Hamlet
Pleasure and action make the hours seem short. William Shakespeare, Othello II iii 269, Iago
The passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct, and giving his actions the morality they had formerly lacked. Then only, when the voice of duty takes the place of physical impulses and right of appetite, does man, who so far had considered only himself, find that he is forced to act on different principles, and to consult his reason before listening to his inclinations. Although, in this state, he deprives himself of some advantages which he got from nature, he gains in return others so great, his faculties are so stimulated and developed, his ideas so extended, his feelings so ennobled, and his whole soul so uplifted, that, did not the abuses of this new condition often degrade him below that which he left, he would be bound to bless continually the happy moment which took him from it for ever, and, instead of a stupid and unimaginative animal, made him an intelligent being and a man. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The future of life on earth depends on our ability to take action. Many individuals are doing what they can, but real success can only come if there’s a change in our societies and our economics and in our politics. I’ve been lucky in my lifetime to see some of the greatest spectacles that the natural world has to offer. Surely we have a responsibility to leave for future generations a planet that is healthy, inhabitable by all species. David Attenborough, State of the Planet, BBC 2000
I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them. Baruch Spinoza, Tractatus Politicus, 1677
The majority of people believe in incredible things which are absolutely false. The majority of people daily act in a manner prejudicial to their general well-being. Ashley Montagu
Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot
It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
Despite mankind’s great advances with abstract ideas and manufactured objects we remain nonetheless creatures of vigorous animal action. Desmond Morris, author The Naked Ape
Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Frederick Douglass
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. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, to absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex. Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you. ibid.
Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action comes, stop thinking and go in. Napoleon Bonaparte
Man is so intelligent that he feels impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations. So that when he acts on his theories, he behaves very often like a lunatic. Aldous Huxley
The great end of life is not knowledge but action. Thomas H Huxley
When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep. Ursula K Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
The English, and the Americans following them are paralysed by fear. That is what thwarts and distorts the Anglo-Saxon existence … Nothing could be more lovely and fearless than Chaucer. But already Shakespeare is morbid with fear, fear of consequences. That is the strange phenomenon of the English Renaissance: this mystic terror of the consequences, the consequences of action. D H Lawrence, Phoenix, 1936
What Obama and the bankers and generals and the IMF, the CIA, and CNN and BBC fear is ordinary people coming together and acting together. It’s a fear as old as democracy, fear that suddenly people convert their fear to action as they have done so often in history. John Pilger, lecture Socialism Chicago 2009, ‘Power Illusion and America’s Last Taboo’; viz also website
One must act in painting as in life, directly. Pablo Picasso
Action is the foundational key to all success. Pablo Picasso
Will our actions echo across the centuries? Troy 2004 starring Brad Pitt & Eric Bana & Orlando Bloom & Rose Byrne & Peter O'Toole & Diane Kruger & Brian Cox & Sean Bean & Julie Christie & Saffron Burrows et al, director Wolfgang Petersen, commentary
A little less analysis and more action – that’s what we need, Mr Spock. Star Trek s1e16: The Galileo Seven
After years of hemming women’s dresses a little action is a welcome change of pace. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine s3e2: The Search II *****
All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it's impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince chIII
The action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers. Francis Hutcheson, An Inquiry Into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, 1725
Let us not despair but act. Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past – let us accept our own responsibility for the future. John F Kennedy