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 (1897–1937) American Aviator
The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.
—Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) Scottish-American Industrialist
Mark this well, ye proud men of action! ye are, after all, nothing but unconscious instruments of the men of thought.
—Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German Poet, Writer
In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
When I have fully decided that a result is worth getting I go ahead of it and make trial after trial until it comes.
—Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American Inventor, Scientist, Entrepreneur
All human actions are equivalent… and all are on principle doomed to failure.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80) French Philosopher, Playwright, Novelist, Screenwriter, Political Activist
All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are speedily punished—by fear…be honest with a man and you have no fear. Try to deceive and the relationship deteriorates.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Do good by stealth and blush to find fame.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
People say to me, “You were a roaring success. How did you do it?” I go back to what my parents taught me. Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then, by God, do something. Don’t just stand there, make something happen.
—Lee Iacocca (1924–2019) American Businessperson
It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before… to test your limits… to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
—Anais Nin (1903–77) French-American Essayist
I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
The experiences of camp life show that a man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress. We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way. The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity—even in the most difficult circumstances—to add a deeper meaning to life.
—Viktor Frankl (1905–97) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist
It is nothing to give pension and cottage
to the widow who has lost her son;
it is nothing to give food and medicine to the workman
who has broken his arm, or the decrepit woman wasting in sickness.
But it is something to use your time and strength to war
with the waywardness and thoughtlessness of mankind;
to keep the erring workman in your service till you
have made him an unerring one, and to direct your
fellow-merchant to the opportunity which
his judgment would have lost.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
When you can do the common things of life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.
—George Washington Carver (1864–1943) American Scientist, Botanist, Educator, Inventor
The only things in which we can be said to have any property are our actions. Our thoughts may be bad, yet produce no poison; they may be good, yet produce no fruit. Our riches may be taken away by misfortune, our reputation by malice, our spirits by calamity, our health by disease, our friends by death. But our actions must follow us beyond the grave; with respect to them alone, we cannot says that we shall carry nothing with us when we die, neither that we shall go naked out of the world.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
Don’t duck the most difficult problems. That just ensures that the hardest part will be left when you are most tired. Get the big one done—it’s downhill from then on.
—Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American Clergyman, Self-Help Author
Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn’t be done.
—Amelia Earhart (1897–1937) American Aviator
Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–81) Russian Novelist, Essayist, Writer
You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.
—Leo Aikman (1908–78) American Columnist
Do not ask the Lord to guide your footsteps, If you are not willing to move your feet.
—Indian Proverb
You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act.
—Lee Iacocca (1924–2019) American Businessperson
The effects of our actions may be postponed but they are never lost. There is an inevitable reward for good deeds and an inescapable punishment for bad. Meditate upon this truth, and seek always to earn good wages from Destiny.
—Unknown
Logic will not change an emotion, but action will.
—Indian Proverb
If you keep thinking about what you want to do or what you hope will happen, you don’t do it, and it won’t happen.
—Desiderius Erasmus (c.1469–1536) Dutch Humanist, Scholar
A man of action forced into a state of thought is unhappy until he can get out of it.
—John Galsworthy (1867–1933) English Novelist, Playwright
If you wait, all that happens is that you get older.
—Larry McMurtry (1936–2021) American Novelist, Screenwriter
In a world where there is so much to be done, I felt strongly impressed that there must be something for me to do.
—Dorothy Dix (1861–1951) American Journalist, Columnist
Unless there be correct thought, there cannot be any action, and when there is correct thought, right action will follow.
—Henry George (1839–97) American Political Economist, Journalist
Never mistake motion for action.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
Dreams will get you nowhere, a good kick in the pants will take you a long way.
—Baltasar Gracian (1601–58) Spanish Scholar, Prose Writer