Never confuse movement with action.
No contingency anywhere in the universe; no indifference; no liberty. While we act, we are, at the same time, acted upon.
There is only one proof of ability: doing it.
For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.
Our actions are neither so good nor so evil as our impulses.
In conversation one ought to follow closely what is being said; in the field of impulse to follow what is happening; in the latter case to see immediately what is the object of reference, in the former to mark closely the meaning expressed.
As soon as an individual takes an action, whatever that action may be, it begins to escape from his intentions.
The ancestor of every action is a thought.
I cannot live, experience, think, value, and act in any world which is not in some sense in me, and derives its meaning and truth from me.
Not to extinguish our free-will, I hold it to be true that fortune is the arbiter of one half of our actions, but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less.
Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.
Every action is an encroachment on the future.
By your actions, you give me reason to believe you.
Action is decision, a choice, but it is also a wager.
Whenever the true objects of action appear, they are to be heartily sought. Enthusiasm is the height of man; it is the passing from the human to the divine.
In the arena of human life the honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action.
One does not exist without doing something,
All human acts involve more chance than decision.
An action is the perfection and publication of thought.
To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream not only plan, but also believe.
That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.
In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision.
Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain.
A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.
It would seem that our actions have lucky or unlucky stars to which they owe a great part of the blame or praise which is given them.
Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, they are not so often the result of a great design as of chance.
Great and striking actions which dazzle the eyes are represented by politicians as the effect of great designs, instead of which they are commonly caused by the temper and the passions. Thus the war between Augustus and Anthony, which is set down to the ambition they entertained of making themselves masters of the world, was probably but an effect of jealousy.
What we term virtue is often but a mass of various actions and divers interests, which fortune, or our own industry, manage to arrange; and it is not always from valour or from chastity that men are brave, and women chaste.
Man wants to live, but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all his actions.
Is a faith without action a sincere faith?
