"Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think." - Hannah Arendt, quoted in W.H. Auden's A Certain World

"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire." - Aristotle

"Act as if it were impossible to fail." - Dorothy Broude

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke, attributed

"Good actions ennoble us, we are the sons of our own deeds." - Cervantes

"Every act of will is an act of self-limitation. To desire action is to desire limitation. In that sense, every act is an act of self-sacrifice. When you choose anything, you reject everything else." - G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

"Whatever you do, do with all your might." - Cicero, De Senectute

"In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking." - Georges Clemenceau, quoted in Clemenceau, The Events of His Life As Told by Himself to His Former Se

"A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions." - Confucius

"This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in." - Charles Dickens

"Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favourable do nothing." - William Feather

"Inspirations never go in for long engagements; they demand immediate marriage to action." - Brendan Francis

"The fundamental principle of human action - the law that is to political economy what the law of gravitation is to physics - is that men seek to gratify their desires with the least exertion." - Henry George, Progress and Poverty

"Action is the product of the Qualities inherent in Nature." - Bhagavad Gita

"Knowledge, the object of knowledge and the knower are the three factors which motivate action; the senses, the work and the doer comprise the threefold basis of action." - Bhagavad Gita

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

"That action is best which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers." - Francis Hutcheson, Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue

"Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in." - Andrew Jackson

"To do nothing is in every man's power." - Samuel Johnson

"The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident." - Charles Lamb, Table Talk

"We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kavanagh

"Your life will be no better than the plans you make and the action you take. You are the architect and builder of your own life, fortune, destiny." - Alfred A. Montapert

"Act in the valley so that you need not fear those who stand on the hill." - Danish Proverb

"It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect." - Robert Louis Stevenson

"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest." - BIBLE, Ecclesiastes 9:10

"The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is more important than the eye. . . The hand is the cutting edge of the mind." - JACOB BRONOWSKI, The Ascent of Man

"Think'st thou existence doth depend on time?
It doth; but actions are our epochs."
- LORD BYRON, Manfred

"Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions." - JOSEPH CONRAD, Nostromo

"The great end of life is not knowledge but action." - THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY, Technical Education

"I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts." - JOHN LOCKE, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

"Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action." - JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, Among My Books

"Action is eloquence." - SHAKESPEARE, Coriolanus

"If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men's cottages princes' palaces." - SHAKESPEARE, The Merchant of Venice

"Action is transitory
a step, a blow,
The motion of a muscle, this way or that
'Tis done, and in the after-vacancy
We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed."
- WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, The Borderers

"It is better for your career to do nothing, than to do something and attract criticism. Big Book of Business', illustrated by Scott Adams" - Dogbert in 'Building a Better Life by Stealing Office Supplies: Dogbert's 1991

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

"When a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it." - Howe, E. W.

"Few have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of those acts, will be written the history of this generation." - Kennedy, Robert F.

"The people may be made to follow a path of action, but they may not be made to understand it." - Kung Fu-tse [Confucius] (551-479 B.C.)

"The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions." - Kung Fu-tse [Confucius] (551-479 B.C.)

"Tao invariably takes no action, and yet there is nothing left undone. Reversion is the action of Tao. Weakness is the function of Tao. All things in the world come from being. And being comes from non-being." - Lao-tse [Lao-tzu] (c604-c531 B.C.)

"Everything that is done in the world is done by hope." - Luther, Martin (1483-1546)

"If you have love you will do all things well." - Merton, Thomas

"A duty dodged is like a debt unpaid; it is only deferred, and we must come back and settle the account at last." - Newton, Joseph F.

"Our dignity is not in what we do, but what we understand." - Santayana, George (1863-1952)

"Do or do not. There is no try." - Yoda [character from 'Star Wars']