action 2 - action 3 - action 4

Action may not always
bring happiness;
but there is no happiness
without action.

Benjamin Disraeli
(this quotation is also
attributed to William James)
   

There is a tendency among many shallow thinkers of our day to teach
that every human act is a reflex, over which we do not exercise human
control.  They would rate a generous deed as no more praiseworthy
than a wink, a crime as no more voluntary than a sneeze. . . Such a
philosophy undercuts all human dignity. . . All of us have the power of
choice in action at every moment of our lives.

Fulton J. Sheen

      

We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing.  Action always generates inspiration.  Inspiration seldom generates action.

Frank Tibolt
  

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.

Mohandas Gandhi
   
Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it; we come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts we come to be just; by doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled; and by doing brave acts, we become brave.

Aristotle

   

   

   

No one can write their real religious life with pen or pencil.  It is written only
in actions, and its seal is our character, not our orthodoxy.  Whether we,
our neighbor, or God is the judge, absolutely the only value of our religious life
to ourselves or to anyone is what it fits us for and enables us to do.

Wilfred T. Grenfell
  

The best portion of a good person's life,--
Their little nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love.

William Wordsworth
   

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.

John Wesley
  
   

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.

Will Rogers
   

We must not hope to be mowers,
And to gather the ripe old ears,
Unless we have first been sowers
And watered the furrows with tears.
It is not just as we take it,
This mystical world of ours,
Life's field will yield as we make it
A harvest of thorns or of flowers.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
   

Young people say, What is the sense of our small effort?  They cannot see that they must lay one brick at a time; we can be responsible only for the one action at the present moment. But we can beg for an increase of love in our hearts that will vitalize and transform all our individual actions, and know that God will take them and multiply them, as Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes.

Dorothy Day
   
The main thing is to be honest with yourself, know and recognize your limits
and attain maximum achievement within them.  I would for example
get more satisfaction from climbing Snowdon, which I know I could,
than from attempting Everest, which I couldn't.

Stirling Moss
   

Every successful business in the world is in existence because its founder recognized
in a problem or need an opportunity to be of service to others.  Every problem or need
in your life is in reality an opportunity to call forth inner resources
of wisdom, love, strength, and ability.

J. Sig Paulson
   

  

We are like people on a moving sidewalk which is
going the wrong way.  If we stand still, our goal
recedes.  If we walk at an easy pace we barely keep
from slipping back.  Only through extra effort
can we win real gains.

Harry K. Wolfe

action 2 - action 3 - action 4
When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems
as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is
just the place and the time that the tide will turn.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

  

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Not enjoyment and not sorrow
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us further than today. . . .

Trust no future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead past bury its dead!
Act--act in the living present!
Heart within, and God overhead!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
   

Happiness is an expression of
the soul in considered actions.

Aristotle

We have too many high sounding words,
and too few actions to correspond with them.

Abigail Adams

   

Visit our bookstore, which is full of inspirational and motivational material.
   
All life is a chance. So take it!  The person who goes
the furthest is the one who is willing to do and dare.

Dale Carnegie
  
  
Having the world's best idea will do you no good unless you act on it.
People who want milk shouldn't sit on a stool in the middle
of a field in hopes that a cow will back up to them.

Curtis Grant

  

We have to understand that the world can
only be grasped by action, not by contemplation.

Jacob Bronowski

  

Deliberation is the work of many people.
Action, of one alone.

Charles de Gaulle

   

  

The way of the sage is to act
but not to compete.

Lao-Tzu

I will not steep my speech in lies;
the test of any person lies in action.

Pindar
  

One must learn by doing the thing; though you think
you know it, you have no certainty until you try.

Sophocles

  
   

I got the blues thinking of the future, so I left off and made some marmalade.
It's amazing how it cheers one up to shred oranges and scrub the floor.

D.H. Lawrence
  

  

You know, we can't get out of life alive.
We can either die in the bleachers or die on the field.
We might as well come down on the field and go for it!

Les Brown

  
Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end.
It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing.
It's when you've had everything to do, and you've done it.

Margaret Thatcher

action 2 - action 3 - action 4
from the Bhagavad-Gita:

Activity is better than inertia.  Act, but with self-control. . . .
The world is imprisoned in its own activity, except when
actions are performed as worship of God.

Let not the fruit of action be your motive to action.
Your business is with action alone, not with the fruit of action.

Perform all necessary acts, for action is better than inaction;
none can live by sitting still and doing nought; it is by action only
that a person attains immunity from action.
  

Every moral act of love, of mercy, and of sacrifice brings
to pass the end of the world where hatred, cruelty,
and selfishness reign supreme.

Nicholas Berdyaev

   

I will act as if I do make a difference.

William James

   

If we do not change our daily lives,
we cannot change the world.

Thich Nhat Hanh

  

   
    

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I do the very best I know how--the very best I can; and I mean to keep
doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against
me won't amount to anything.  If the end brings me out wrong, ten
angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

Abraham Lincoln