Action Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

Elizabeth I of England

Richard Nixon

Agatha Christie

Winston Churchill

Francis Bacon

Theodore Roosevelt

Bruce Lee

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

Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.

To his children

Theodore Roosevelt

Balance your thoughts with action. — If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done.

I know the title of a King is a glorious title, but assure yourself that the shining glory of princely authority hath not so dazzled the eyes of our understanding, but that we well know and remember that we also are to yield an account of our actions before the great judge. To be a king and wear a crown is a thing more glorious to them that see it than it is pleasant to them that bear it.

Elizabeth I of England

What kind of nation we will be, what kind of world we will live in, whether we shape the future in the image of our hopes, is ours to determine by our actions and our choices.
The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker. This honor now beckons America—the chance to help lead the world at last out of the valley of turmoil, and onto that high ground of peace that man has dreamed of since the dawn of civilization.
If we succeed, generations to come will say of us now living that we mastered our moment, that we helped make the world safe for mankind.
This is our summons to greatness.

Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions.

Agatha Christie

Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong - these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.

Winston Churchill

The two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients: the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation: If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.

You ask me why I do not write something... I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions and into actions which bring results.

Florence Nightingale

A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man, that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of his friends, and that the most liberal professions of good will are very far from being the surest marks of it. I should be happy that my own experience had afforded fewer examples of the little dependence to be placed upon them.

George Washington

Definition of design = Everyone designs who devise courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones. The intellectual activity that produces material artifacts is no different fundamentally from the one that prescribes remedies for a sick patient or the one that devises a new sales plan for a company or a social welfare policy for a state.

Herbert A. Simon

He who has no taste for order, will be often wrong in his judgment, and seldom considerate or conscientious in his actions.

Johann Kaspar Lavater

An artist is a man of action, whether he creates a personality, invents an expedient, or finds the issue of a complicated situation.

We want the spirit of America to be efficient; we want American character to be efficient; we want American character to display itself in what I may, perhaps, be allowed to call spiritual efficiency—clear, disinterested thinking and fearless action along the right lines of thought. America is not anything if it consists of each of us. It is something only if it consists of all of us; and it can consist of all of us only as our spirits are banded together in a common enterprise.

For every failure, there's an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.

Words mean nothing. Action is the only thing. Doing. That's the only thing.

Ernest J. Gaines

The great living experience for every man is his adventure into the woman. The man embraces in the woman all that is not himself, and from that one resultant, from that embrace, comes every new action.

When an action is once done, it is right or wrong for ever; no accidental failure of its good or evil fruits can possibly alter that.

William Kingdon Clifford

Historians desiring to write the actions of men, ought to set down the simple truth, and not say anything for love or hatred; also to choose such an opportunity for writing as it may be lawful to think what they will, and write what they think, which is a rare happiness of the time.

If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than words.

Always remember the first rule of power tactics: Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have. The second rule is: Never go outside the experience of your people. When an action or tactic is outside the experience of the people, it results in confusion, fear, and retreat. [...] The third rule is: Whenever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.

I would say act like a man of thought and think like a man of action.

History not used is nothing, for all intellectual life is action, like practical life, and if you don't use the stuff – well, it might as well be dead.

Arnold J. Toynbee

Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times, it's enemy action.

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

Benjamin Disraeli