Action Quotes


Action quotes and sayings about taking action are meant to get you moving. Without action ideas are impotent. These quotes can be the teeny tiniest baby step. No wild leaps are required. Just step out of your ‘stuckness’ in some small way every day. Everything will change in very exciting ways. I promise!

Read over these action quotes in snippets. Even one or two per day will do. Next, take some conscious action micro-mini steps. Pay attention to little shifts that start to happen. Record happy coincidences and express gratitude for miracles on their way to you. Keep in mind blessings – seen and unseen – surround you.

One small action will start a chain reaction that’s a lot like dominos. Just give one domino a little push and you’ll have dozens dropping.

Remember creative action equals joy attraction. What joy would you like to attract today? Close your eyes and ask yourself, “What baby step can I take today in the direction of this joy?” and do what comes to you. Strive always for compassionate action. Staying harmless will keep you on your true path to joy.Now it’s time to go out and play! Create a fabulous day.

Your personal joy and inspiration coach,



If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, you are a leader.
John Quincy Adams

Action indeed is the sole medium of expressing for ethics.
Jane Addams

Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts will inevitably bring about right results.
James Allen

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.
Mary Kay Ash

Start wherever you are and start small.
Rita Baily

Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world!
Joel Barker

We find greatest joy, not in getting, but in expressing what we are... Men do not really live for honors or for pay; their gladness is not the taking and holding, but in doing, the striving, the building, the living. It is a higher joy to teach than to be taught. It is good to get justice, but better to do it; fun to have things but more to make them. The happy man is he who lives the life of love, not for the honors it may bring, but for the life itself.
R.J. Baughan

Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.
Simone De Beauvoir

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
Samuel Beckett

Words are a form of action, capable of influencing change.
Ingrid Bengis

Vision animates, inspires, transforms purpose into action.
Warren Bennis

He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
William Blake

To be happy, drop the words 'if only' and substitute instead the words 'next time'.
Smiley Blanton

Before you can do something that you’ve never done before, you have to imagine it’s possible.
Jean Shinoda Bolen

There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, Yes, I've got dreams, of course I've got dreams. Then they put the box away and bring it out once in awhile to look in it, and yep, they're still there. These are great dreams, but they never even get out of the box. It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line, to hold them up and say, How good or how bad am I? That's where courage comes in.
Erma Louise Bombeck

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.
Napoleon Bonaparte

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious and anything self-conscious is lousy. You cannot try to do things. You simply must do things.
Ray Bradbury

The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do.
Sarah Ban Breathnach

It is brave to be involved.
Gwendolyn Brooks

An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.
Buddha

What you are is what you have been. What you'll be is what you do now.
Buddha

The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.
Nolan Bushnell

I have learned, as a rule of thumb, never to ask whether you can do something. Say, instead, that you are doing it. Then fasten your seat belt. The most remarkable things follow.
Julia Cameron

Wherever you are is always the right place. There is never a need to fix anything, to hitch up the bootstraps of the soul and start at some higher place. Start right where you are.
Julia Cameron

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
Dale Carnegie

Si, se puede! (Yes, we are able!)
Cesar Chavez

I do not believe in fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in fate that falls on them unless they act.
G.K. Chesterton

Each of us possesses a creative self. Claiming that is a transformational art. When you begin to act on your creativity,what you find inside may be more valuable than what you produce for the external world. The ultimate creative act is to express what is most authentic and individual about you.
Eileen M. Clegg

Each human being was given two possibilities: action and contemplation. Both lead to the same place.
Paulo Coelho

Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect.
Alan Cohen

When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.
Confucious

Plant a thought, reap an act. Plant an act, reap a habit. Plant a habit, reap a character. Plant a character, reap a destiny.
Confucius

All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.
Calvin Coolidge

Make a little, sell a little, take small steps.
3M Corporation Creed

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.
Leonardo da Vinci

Just as iron rusts from disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect.
Leonardo da Vinci

It is time to fill the world with strong and powerful deeds. It is common knowledge that no great captain in the world has ever destroyed all of his enemies and lived with a sense of satisfaction. If one enemy is killed, two more will appear. It is important we cultivate love and compassion to all the sentient beings which is the way to bring peace to all.
Dalai Lama

It's not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.
Miles Davis

Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay.
Simone de Beauvoir

Action makes more fortune than caution.
Luc De Clapiers

It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action that man finds his supreme joy.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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

The only things that stand between a person and what they want in life are the will to try it and the faith to believe it's possible.
Richard M. DeVos

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
Walt Disney

Action may not always being happiness; but there is no happiness without action.
Benjamin Disraeli

Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it.
Will Durant

The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.
Will Durant

If love is truly a verb, if help is a verb, if forgiveness is a verb, if kindness is a verb, then you can do something about it.
Betty Eadie

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life, and the procedure, the process is its own reward.
Amelia Earhart

Action and becoming are one.
Meister Eckhart

Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.
Meister Eckhart

If we did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves.
Thomas Edison

I have far more respect for the person with a single idea who gets there than for the person with a thousand ideas who does nothing....
Thomas Alva Edison

Thoughts lead to feelings. Feelings lead to actions. Action leads to results.
T. Harv Eker

A goal without a plan is just a wish.
Larry Elder

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
Duke Ellington

Always do what you are afraid to do.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Explore. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ideas must word through the brains and the arms of good and brave men, or they are no better than dreams.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thought is the seed of action.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experience.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do the thing and you will have the power.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Real action is in the silent moments.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The ancestor of every action is a thought.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
Epictetus

All men and women are born, live, suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about…We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing...But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live.
Joseph Epstein

The fluttering of a butterfly’s wings can effect climate changes on the other side of the planet.
Paul Erlich

Creativity is an act of self-discovery.
Sebastion Esteverena

Use the word perhaps to change your negative beliefs to possibilities that invite action and, ultimately, to positive beliefs and probabilities.
Anita Foley

It is good to dream, but it is better to dream and work. Faith is mighty, but action with faith is mightier. Desiring is helpful, but work and desire are invincible.
Thomas Robert Gaines

Have a bias toward action – let’s see something happen now. You can break that big plan into small steps and take the first step right away.
Indira Gandhi

Action is my domain.
Mahatma Gandhi

In doing something, do it with love or never do it at all.
Mahatma Gandhi

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.
Mahatma Gandhi

Don't let yourself be lulled into inaction.
Bill Gates

Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions.
Harold S. Geneen

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.
Kahlil Gibran

Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.
Elizabeth Gilbert

It's all right to have butterflies in your stomach. Just get them to fly in formation.
Rob Gilbert

There are many wonderful things that will never be done if you do not do them.
Charles D. Gill

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred…unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Action has magic, grace and power in it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do. To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Whatever you do or dream you can do – begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go.
Natalie Goldberg

Happiness consists in activity. It is a running stream, not a stagnant pool.
John Mason Good

Enjoyment is not a goal, it is a feeling that acompanies important ongoing activity.
Paul Goodman

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost.
Martha Graham

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

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
Wayne Gretzky

Greatness is always built on this foundation: the ability to appear, speak and act, as the most common man.
Hafiz

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something I can do.
Edward Everett Hale

My actions are my only true belongings.
Thich Nhat Hanh

When we come into contact with the other person, our thoughts and actions should express our mind of compassion, even if that person says and does things that are not easy to accept. We practice in this way until we see clearly that our love is not contingent upon the other person being lovable.
Thich Nhat Hanh

To will is to select a goal, determine a course of action that will bring one to that goal, and then hold to that action till the goal is reached. The key is action.
Michael Hanson

It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs.
Vaclav Havel

All anyone can see in a birthchart are tendencies that will become facts if he does not do something to alter them.
Isabel Hickey

Don't wait. The time will never be just right.
Napoleon Hill

First comes thought; then organization of that thought into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.
Napoleon Hill

Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit.
Conrad Hilton

We learn to do something by doing it. There is no other way.
John Holt

If it’s a good idea, go ahead and do it. It’s much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
Grace Hopper

Concern should drive us into action, not into depression.
Karen Horney

Oh, my friend, it's not what they take away from you that counts - it's what you do with what you have left.
Hubert Humphrey

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.
Thomas Henry Huxley

So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don’t sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.
Lee Iacocca

You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act.
Lee Iacocca

It’s time to start living the life you’ve imagined.
Henry James

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
William James

Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.
William James

To change one’s life: 1. Start immediately. 2. Do it flamboyantly. 3. No exceptions.
William James

Saying yes means getting up and acting on your belief that you can create meaning and purpose in whatever life hands you.
Susan Jeffers

Take a risk a day – one small or bold stroke that will make you feel great once you have done it.
Susan Jeffers

You are innately designed to use your personal power. When you don't, you experience a sense of helplessness, paralysis, and depression-which is your clue that something is not working as it could. You, like all of us, deserve everything that is wonderful and exciting in life. And those feelings emerge only when you get in touch with your powerful self.
Susan Jeffers

If you want something you've never had, you must be willing to do something you've never done.
Thomas Jefferson

Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must first be overcome.
Samuel Johnson

Wisdom is knowing what to do next, virtue is doing it.
David Star Jordan

When you have the constant focus of going within and then acting, your life will unfold in magical ways.
Elizabeth Joy

There are some things one can only achieve by a deliberate leap in the opposite direction.
Franz Kafka

Ideas without action are worthless.
Helen Keller

There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the risks of inaction.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy

When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better.
Pauline R. Kezer

There can be no richer man or woman than the individual who has found his or her labor of love. Personal fulfillment through the virtue of work is the highest form of desire. Work is the conduit between the supply and the demand of all human needs, the forerunner of human progress, and the medium by which the imagination is given the wings of action. A labor of love is exalted because it provides joy and self-expression to those who perform it.
Dennis Kimbro

If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.
Martin Luther King Jr.

Success, happiness, peace of mind and fulfillment – the most priceless of human treasures – are available to all among us, without exception, who make things happen – who make ‘good’ things happen – in the world around them.
Joe Klock

It is love alone that leads to right action. What brings order in the world is to love and let love do what it will.
Krishnamurti

Learning is movement from moment to moment.
Krishnamurti

Meditation is the action of silence.
Krishnamurti

You are desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, to preserve moments of grace or joy or transcendence, to make real or imagined events come alive. But you cannot will this to happen. It is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work. So you might as well just go ahead and get started.
Anne Lamott

If you wait for inspiration, you're not a writer, but a waiter.
Louis L'Amour

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
Lao Tzu

It may be those who do most... dream most.
Stephen Leacock

Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass.
Fran Lebowitz

Knowing is not enougth, you must apply; willing is not enough, you must do.
Bruce Lee

Our world is incomplete until each one of us discovers what moves us - our passion. No other person can hear our calling. We must listen and act on it for ourselves.
Richard J. Leider

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?
Stephen Levine

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.
George Lois

All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
James Russell Lowell

The question should be, is it worth trying to do, not can it be done.
Allard Lowenstein

Some of life’s biggest and most positive changes are propelled by mini conspiracies of a few well-meaning folks.
Dr. Bernard Lown

You can’t do it unless you imagine it.
George Lucas

We won't always know whose lives we touched and made better for our having cared, because actions sometimes have unforeseen ramifications. What's important is that you do care and you act.
Charlotte Lunsford

Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one's better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk - and to act.
Maxwell Maltz

We must have the courage to bet on our ideas, to take the calculated risk, and to act. Everyday living requires courage if life is to be effective and bring happiness.
Maxwell Maltz

I can feel guilty about the past, apprehensive about the future, but only in the present can I act. The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.
Abraham Maslow

Trust the process of the subtle push toward art and creative expression from inside you – it is the gentle call of your heart and renewed search for soul. It is an opening to expansion of your expressive abilities and the discovery of hidden limitations ready to be challenged. Be open to what it means, it has many possibilities for action in every part of your life. Ultimately it will lead to significant personal changes – to living life in a new way with new tools of creative expression.
Donald William Mathews

The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the thing, that's when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it.
John C. Maxwell

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among these fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.
Herman Melville

Crystallize your goals. Make a plan for achieving them and set yourself a deadline. Then, with supreme confidence, determination and disregard for obstacles and other people's criticisms, carry out your plan.
Paul Meyer

It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do.
Moliere

A goal is not the same as a desire, and this is an important distinction to make. You can have a desire you don't intend to act on. But you can't have a goal you don't intend to act on.
Tom Morris

Don't wait for something big to occur. Start where you are, with what you have, and that will always lead you into something greater.
Mary Manin Morrissey

You cannot change anything in your life with intention alone, which can become a watered-down, occasional hope that you’ll get to tomorrow. Intention without action is useless.
Caroline Myss

What is creativity? I define creativity as the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing. Innovation is the production or implementation of a creative idea. If you have ideas, but don't act on them, you are imaginative but not creative.
Linda Naiman

Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will.
Jawaharal Nehru

To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.
Isaac Newton

One's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.
Florence Nightingale

Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the action stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.
Anaïs Nin

Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious, and they must be brought into connection with action. They must be woven together.
Anaïs Nin

Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.
Sean O'Casey

Creative action leads to ‘joy attraction’.
Marta Davidovich Ockuly

Creativity is imagining possibilities and making them real.
Marta Davidovich Ockuly

Joy is your destiny. You were created for joy. Pay attention to what brings you joy and take joyful actions daily. Creative action equals joy attraction. Joy is the path to your true purpose.
Marta Davidovich Ockuly

The dream and the dreamer are always matched. You could not have a dream without the means, right now, to begin it.
Marta Davidovich Ockuly

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Frank Outlaw

Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the making of action in spite of fear.
M. Scott Peck

The difference between try and triumph is just a little umph!
Marvin Phillips

Every act of creation begins with an act of destruction.
Pablo Picasso

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.
Pablo Picasso

Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.
Plato

The innovation point is the pivotal moment when talented and motivated people seek the opportunity to act on their ideas and dreams.
W. Arthur Porter

No action, no change. Limited action, limited change. Lots of action, change occurs.
Catherine Pulsifer

Personal action is your pathway to success, even if it is a little bit at a time!
Catherine Pulsifer

We all find ourselves in situations that at times seem hopeless. And, we all have the choice to do nothing or take action.
Catherine Pulsifer

What motivates you to change, to take action? Those who wait to take action until they find themselves in a desperate situation face more difficulties than they need to.
Catherine Pulsifer

You can adopt the attitude there is nothing you can do, or you can see the challenge as your call to action.
Catherine Pulsifer

Begin doing what you want to do now. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand – and melting like a snowflake.
Marie Beyon Ray

Courage is doing what you’re afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you are scared.
Eddie Rickenbacker

I don’t have a lot of respect for talent. Talent is genetic. It’s what you do with it that counts.
Martin Ritt

A real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken a new action. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided.
Anthony Robbins

Action is the foundational key to all success.
Anthony Robbins

Goals are a means to an end, not the ultimate purpose of our lives. They are simply a tool to concentrate our focus and move us in a direction. They only reason we really pursue goals is to cause ourselves to expand and grow. Achieving goals by themselves will never make us happy in the long term; it’s who you become, as you overcome the obstacles necessary to achieve your goals, that can give you the deepest and most long-lasting sense of fulfillment.
Anthony Robbins

Live life fully while you’re here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You’re going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. Don’t try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human.
Anthony Robbins

Lots of people know what to do, but few people actually do what they know. Knowing is not enough! You must take action.
Anthony Robbins

You are now at a crossroads. This is your opportunity to make the most important decision you will ever make. Forget your past. Who are you now? Who have you decided you really are now? Don't think about who you have been. Who are you now? Who have you decided to become? Make this decision consciously. Make it carefully. Make it powerfully.
Anthony Robbins

If you take any activity, any art, any discipline, any skill-take it and push it as far as it will go, push it beyond where it has ever been before, push it to the wildest edges of edges, then you force it into the realm of magic.
Tom Robbins

If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place.
Nora Roberts

Patience is also a form of action.
Auguste Rodin

Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas.
Dale Evans Rogers

Even if you are on the right track you’ll get run over if you just sit there.
Will Rogers

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.
Jim Rohn

If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse.
Jim Rohn

You need courage to be creative. You need the courage to see things differently, courage to go against the crowd, courage to take a different approach, courage to stand alone, if you have to, courage to choose activity over inactivity.
Jim Rohn

You do not need to be affected by the economy or man-made conditions. You can create your own personal economic environment of prosperity. If you are willing to listen to and take action on your inner guidance, you will do well no matter what the economy around you is doing.
Sanaya Roman

You gain strength, courage, and confidence in every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Get action, do things; be sane; don't fritter away your time; create, act, take a place wherever you are and be somebody: get action.
Theodore Roosevelt

In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.
Theodore Roosevelt

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy course; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt

The kind of spirituality I value is one in which you get great joy out of contributing to life, not just sitting and meditating, although meditation is certainly valuable. But from meditation, from the resulting consciousness, I would like to see people in action creating the world they want to live in.
Marshall Rosenberg

You can't just sit there and wait for people to give you that golden dream; you've got to get out there and make it happen for yourself.
Diana Ross

If you just set people in motion, they’ll heal themselves.
Gabrielle Roth

It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
J. K. Rowling

If all you can do is crawl, start crawling.
Rumi

What we think or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do.
John Ruskin

You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.
Joe Sabah

You are, by accident of fate, alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet. Anything else you’re interested in is not going to happen if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water. Don’t sit this one out. Do something.
Carl Sagan

The important thing is not to think much, but to love much; and so, do that which best stirs you to love.
Saint Teresa of Avila

To live creatively free, do what you know how to do now, then ‘act as if’ you know how to do the rest.
SARK

Again and again, the impossible problem is solved when we see that the problem is only a tough decision waiting to be made.
Robert H. Schuller

High achievers spot rich opportunities swiftly, make big decisions quickly and move into action immediately. Follow these principles and you can make your dreams come true.
Robert H. Schuller

You can't hit a home run unless you step up to the plate. You can't catch a fish unless you put your line in the water. You can't reach your goals if you don't try.
Kathy Seligman

Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, so get on your way.
Dr. Seuss

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.
William Shakespeare

Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.
William Shakespeare

Every single one of us can do things that no one else can do - can love things that on one else can love. We are like violins. We can be used for doorstops, or we can make music. You know what to do.
Barbara Sher

Go out and make a difference in your community. You don’t need endless time and perfect conditions. Do it now. Do it today. Do it for twenty minutes and watch your heart start beating.
Barbara Sher

Now is the operative word. Everything you put in your way is just a method of putting off the hour when you could actually be doing your dream.
Barbara Sher

The first step is to find out what you love – and don’t be practical about it. The second step is to start doing what you love immediately, in any small way possible.
Barbara Sher

You don’t need endless time and perfect conditions. Do it now. Do it today. Do it for twenty minutes and watch your heart start beating.
Barbara Sher

You must go after your wish. As soon as you start to pursue a dream, your life wakes up and everything has meaning.
Barbara Sher

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you’re doomed if you don’t try.
Beverly Sills

To be courageous means to be afraid but to go a little step forward anyway.
Beverly Smith

Begin somewhere; you cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do.
Liz Smith

The likelihood that your acts of resistance cannot stop the injustice does not exempt you from acting in what you sincerely and reflectively hold to be the best interests of your community.
Susan Sontag

Every action alters the soul of the doer.
Oswald Spengler

A time comes when you need to stop waiting for the man you want to become and start being the man you want to be.
Bruce Springsteen

Man is not free to refuse to do the thing which gives him more pleasure than any other conceivable action.
Stendhal

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 actualize their vision.
W. Clement Stone

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

In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?
Igor Stravinsky

Everybody's frightened a bit. But how many of us just go through the fear and do it anyway?
Barbra Streisand

You can’t cross a sea by merely staring into the water.
Rabindranath Tagore

It's not the having, it's the getting.
Elizabeth Taylor

The person who really wants to do something finds a way; the other finds an excuse.
Sir John Marks Templeton

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.
Mother Teresa

Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.
Mother Teresa

If you can’t feed a hundred people, then just feed one.
Mother Teresa

I feel that the most important step in any major accomplishment is setting a specific goal. This enables you to keep your mind focused on your goal and off the many obstacles that will arise when you're striving to do your best.
Kurt Thomas

Try a thing you haven't done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time to figure out whether you like it or not.
Virgil Thomson

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined.
Henry David Thoreau

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?
Henry David Thoreau

Don’t wait for inspiration. Take action! Action generates inspiration.
Frank Tibolt

It doesn't matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going.
Brian Tracy

Dream! Dream! And then go for it!
Desmond Tutu

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret to getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks and then starting on the first one.
Mark Twain

What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself. All day long, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts, not those of other things, are his history. These are his life, and they are not written. Everyday would make a whole book of 80,000 words -- 365 books a year. Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man -- the biography of the man himself cannot be written.
Mark Twain

In the universe, great acts are made up of small deeds.
Lao Tzu

There is a positive you and there is a negative you. When you begin to realize which you is responsible for specific actions that you take, you can finally eliminate the negative and build upon the positive.
Michelle C. Ustaszeski

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?
Vincent van Gogh

I had to make my own living and my own opportunity! But I made it! Don't sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!
Madam C.J. Walker

A five-word sentence that could change the world tomorrow is What would love do now?
Neale Donald Walsch

All glory comes from daring to begin.
Eugene F. Ware

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
Alan Watts

The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won’t keep. Something must be done about them.
A. N. Whitehead

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
Harold Thurman Whitman

Like a great athlete, we must have a very clear vision of what we want to accomplish before we make a move. Vision, in preparation for an action, is as important as the action itself.
Marianne Williamson

Nothing but what you volunteer has the essence of life, the springs of pleasure in it. These are the things you do because you want to do them, the things your spirit has chosen for its satisfaction. The more you are stimulated to such action the more clearly does it appear to you that you are a sovereign spirit, put into the world, not to wear a harness, but to work eagerly without it.
Woodrow Wilson

What I know for sure is that your life is a multipart series of all your experiences- and each experience is created by your thoughts, intentions, and actions to teach you what you need to know. Your life is a journey of learning to love yourself first and then extending that love to others in every encounter.
Oprah Winfrey

Worrying is wasted time. Use the same energy for doing something about whatever worries you.
Oprah Winfrey

When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. When you improve conditioning a little each day, eventually you have a big improvement in conditioning. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way it happens – and when it happens, it lasts.
John Wooden

Do or do not. There is no ‘try.’
Yoda

Take action on your ideas. Procrastination is the mortal enemy of spontaneous brilliance.
Dan Zadra

If you love someone, hurry up and show it.
Rosie Zadra

Will what I am about to do, bring me closer to, or take me further from my goals?
Zig Ziglar



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