Quotes about taking action

If you are in the grip of the ego, you believe that by doing more and more you will eventually accumulate enough “doings” to make yourself feel complete at some point in the future. You won't. You will only lose yourself in doing. The entire civilization is losing itself in doing that is not rooted in Being and thus becomes futile. p. 64

Implement now, perfect later.

Don't be the ammunition wagon, be the rifle … knowledge exists primarily for use.

It is deeds not words which must purchase my affection and esteem.

Without the possibility of action, all knowledge comes to one labeled "File and forget."

A hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action.

I don’t care one way or the other if the big A is using you to scratch an itch, but think very carefully of actions, Wonky. They have a dismaying tendency to be followed by consequences, and sometimes quite bad ones.

For centuries I’ve been worrying about audiences seeing me as a mouthy spoiled brat who can’t make up his mind about anything, but, having seen the real world, I can understand the appeal. My play is popular because my failings are your failings, my indecision the indecision of you all. We all know what has to be done; it’s just that sometimes we don’t know how to get there. Acting without thought doesn’t really help in the long run. I might dither for a while, but at least I make the right decision in the end: I bear my troubles and take arms against them. And thereby lies a message for all mankind, although I’m not exactly sure what it is. Perhaps there’s no message. I don’t really know. Besides, if I don’t dither, there’s no play.

"David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in."

You cannot change what you are, only what you do.

“Details matter, though, don’t you think?” he said. “Sometimes what appear to be utterly inconsequential actions have the most enormous results. Chance makes the casual momentous. It is the fulcrum upon which the levers of action rest.”

That was another thing she taught me. That you are what you do. To Providence—or Progress or the Future or before any other sort of judgment apart from our own conscience—what we have done, not what we have thought, is the result we are judged by.