Action Not Quotes & Sayings

He held his ground like a sweet gum stump trying hard to live in a spirit of love and action, not anger and reaction — Timothy B. Tyson

A once-robbed John, it won't remove its wallet from its trousers again until it gets the action it paid for. Nice try, sweet thing. NOT. — Karen Marie Moning

When you're so undecided, it's better not to do anything, the right course of action is to take no action at all — Mary Kennedy

I think strong rhetoric and strong action are two separate things. Anyone can use tough words. Anyone can go over the top and say things that sound strong. But sounding strong is not enough. You have to know exactly how you're going to do it. And if you look at some of the policies he's talked about, they would not make America stronger. — Marco Rubio

I don't care what Einstein said about God not playing dice; If he exists, he's addicted to craps. — Henry Mosquera

Men of action," whose minds are too busy with the day's work to see beyond it. They are essential men, we cannot do without them, and yet we must not allow all our vision to be bound by the limitations of "men of action. — Pearl S. Buck

The Second Amendment, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, was meant to inhibit only the federal government, not the states. The framers, as The Federalist Papers attest (see No. 28), saw the state militias as forces that might be summoned into action against the federal government itself, if it became tyrannical. — Joseph Sobran

The test of a progressive policy is not private but public, not just rising income and consumption for individuals, but widening the opportunities and what Amartya Sen calls the 'capabilities' of all through collective action. But that means, it must mean, public non-profit initiative, even if only in redistributing private accumulation. Public decisions aimed at collective social improvement from which all human lives should gain. That is the basis of progressive policy - not maximising economic growth and personal incomes. Nowhere will this be more important than in tackling the greatest problem facing us this century, the environmental crisis. Whatever ideological logo we choose for it, it will mean a major shift away from the free market and towards public action, a bigger shift than the British government has yet envisaged. And, given the acuteness of the economic crisis, probably a fairly rapid shift. Time is not on our side. — Eric Hobsbawm

They always think one
commits suicide for a reason. But it is quite possible to commit suicide for two reasons. No, that never occurs to them. So what is the good of dying
intentionally, of sacrificing yourself to the idea you want people to have of you? Once you are dead, they will take advantage of it to attribute idiotic or
vulgar motives to your action. Martyrs,cherami, must choose between being forgotten, mocked, or made use of. As for being understood
never! Besides,
let us not beat about the bush; I love life
that is my real weakness. I love it so much that I am incapable of imagining what is not life. Such avidity has
something plebeian about it, don't you think? — Albert Camus

Nobody else is wearing anything even remotely like it.'
Magnus cast a disparaging look around at all the fashion-challenged sailors. 'I feel sorry for them, of course, but I do not see why that observation should alter my current extremely stylish course of action. — Cassandra Clare

Reaction is just that - an action you have taken before. When you "re-act," what you do is assess the incoming data, search your memory bank for the same or nearly the same experience, and act the way you did before. This is all the work of the mind, not of your soul. — Neale Donald Walsch

is not a manifesto for action, a list of crimes to be avenged, a litany of positions to be reversed or a collection of rights to be wronged. — Sidin Vadukut

The ISI is above all a paramilitary organization. It doesn't do all that much collection of intelligence. It's not a very good spy agency, but it's good at running covert action. — David Ignatius

The most successful filmmakers are not always the most knowledgeable ones. They are the ones who put action to what they learnt. They do, not talk about doing. — Elliot Grove

If government knew how, I should like to see it check, not multiply, the population. When it reaches its true law of action, every man that is born will be hailed as essential. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's always hard, when introducing readers to a new world/set of rules, not to lay it all out manual-style in the opening chapters but make sure to put the action and the characters at the front. If people don't become invested in them and in the story, the world in which it's set will become a burden. — V.E Schwab

It's not that I'm opposed to doing a big-budget action movie. But it has to be the right project. — Zac Efron

Cut off entanglements.
Get rid of anger and hatred.
Do not be afraid of hard work.
Tolerate ignominy and endure dishonor.
Forgive people and defer to others.
Take possessions lightly; take life seriously.
View others and self as the same.
Do whatever you can to be helpful.

Practice developing virtue is the greatest priority; when achievement is great and practice profound, it moves heaven and earth.
Ridiculous are the foolish ones who only profit themselves; with no achievement and little action, they dream of becoming immortals. — Liu Yiming

The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways. — Gautama Buddha

Wolfe nodded. "That's a point, certainly, but it's not inexplicable. Looking at his face, which appears rigid in paralysis, I doubt if he'll explain for us, not now at least. I offer alternatives: some incident may have alarmed him and precipitated action, or he may not have known that if Miss Eads died before June thirtieth the Softdown stock, the bulk of her fortune, would go to others. I think the latter more likely, since he was offered, through Mr. Irby, a cash settlement of one hundred thousand dollars and wouldn't even discuss it. — Rex Stout

If you have an image of someone cutting off a relationship, it's the cutting off that will lead to your suffering. If you see the action as their need being expressed, then the message is within them, not you. Any interpretation you put onto another person's message (such as passive-aggressive, withholding, etc.), you will pay for because of how you took it. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

About Anna Faktorovich's "Romances of George Sand": "What a read! Not lacking in action and very imaginative. — Belinda Jack

The goal of forecasting is not to predict the future but to tell you what you need to know to take meaningful action in the present — Paul Saffo

It is the action of bodies on bodies, not bodies on minds, which the crowd enjoys. — Susan Sontag

We in the USA have been depending on prayers, pleading, and self-abasement to a deity to bring us magical advantages, and have been encouraged to attribute our prosperity and general success among nations, to that sort of action. In my opinion, hard work and dedication to logic and reason ought to be recognized as the reasons for our achievements, not appeals to a mythical friend-in-the-sky. We got where we are in spite of, not because of, those incantations. — James Randi

You don't need anger to control children. You do need action, occasionally. Furthermore, you can apply the action anywhere on the time line that is convenient, and children will live contentedly within that boundary. In fact, the closer the action moves to the front of the conflict the less punishment is required. A pinch of the trapezius muscle would not be a sufficient deterrent at the end of a two-hour struggle, whereas it is more than adequate when the conflict is minimal. — James C. Dobson

Change was not something you waited for, quietly, mutely, in a house by the ocean, nothing would ever change unless we forced it into shape. — Andrew Sean Greer

Friedrich Hayek made the point that one of the keystones of socialism is the denial of individual responsibility. Thus, the crusade for socialism always included attacks on individual responsibility. For if individuals do not have free will, and are not responsible for their actions, then their lives must be controlled somehow - preferably by the state - according to the socialists. They must be regulated, regimented and controlled - for their own good. — Thomas DiLorenzo

Love is one of those topics that plenty of people try to write about but not enough try to do. — Criss Jami

Faith is a principle of action. It is our willingness to believe in the Savior that unleashes His power in our lives. Faith is not a bulwark against tribulation, but an assurance that the Lord is overseeing all. — Sheri Dew

We expect definitions to tell us not only what is, but what to do about it; to show us how the world fits together and how its different parts connect and work ... A label is the first step toward action. — Elizabeth Janeway

A football match should be decided by an action of play. Not some contrived process whose end result is to mark a fine player such as Bossis, Baresi or Baggio for the rest of his career. — Michel Patini

In human affairs of danger and delicacy successful conclusion is sharply limited by hurry. So often men trip by being in a rush. If one were properly to perform a difficult and subtle act, he should first inspect the end to be achieved and then, once he had accepted the end as desirable, he should forget it completely and concentrate solely on the means. By this method he would not be moved to false action by anxiety or hurry or fear. Very few people learn this. — John Steinbeck

Some Western politicians are already threatening us with not just sanctions, but also the prospect of increasingly serious problems on the domestic front. I would like to know what it is they have in mind exactly: action by a fifth column, this disparate bunch of 'national traitors', or are they hoping to put us in a worsening social and economic situation so as to provoke public discontent? We consider such statements irresponsible and clearly aggressive in tone, and we will respond to them accordingly. — Vladimir Putin

Not alone to know, but to act according to thy knowledge, is thy destination,
proclaims the voice of my inmost soul. Not for indolent contemplation and study of thyself, nor for brooding over emotions of piety,
no, for action was existence given thee; thy actions, and thy actions alone, determine thy worth. — Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Rationally considered, nothing can be more absurd than the baptism of infants under any circumstances. No statement, no matter by whom it may be said to have been uttered, can make that true which is radically false. If an innocent child, unconscious of good or evil, irresponsible to God and man, incapable of thought or action, is not already, in accordance with Christian theology, a member of Christ, then no vicarious promise or priestly ablution can make him one. For if this were so, a similar ceremony under devil worship could make him a member of Satan. — Tennessee Celeste Claflin

There is no mode of action, no form of emotion, that we do not share with the lower animals. It is only by language that we rise above them, or above each other - by language, which is the parent, and not the child, of thought. — Oscar Wilde

Whenever he reads articles in newspapers or magazines written by politicians using global warming or the destruction of the environment for their electoral campaigns, he thinks:
How can we be so arrogant? The planet is, was and always will be stronger than us. We can't destroy it; if we overstep the mark, the planet will simply erase us from its surface and carry on existing.
Why don't they start talking about not letting the planet destroy us? Because "Saving the planet" gives a sense of power, action and nobility. Whereas "not letting the planet destroy us" might lead us to feelings of despair and impotence, and to a realisation of just how very limited our capabilities are. — Paulo Coelho

God's word is not just to be heard and repeated, it is to be breathed, lived, and emulated with each action. — Steve Maraboli

We can unfortunately not indefinitely extend the sphere of common action and still leave the individual free in his own sphere. Once the communal sector, in which the state controls all the means, exceeds a certain proportion of the whole, the effects of its actions dominate the whole system. Although the state controls directly the use of only a large part of the available resources, the effects of its decisions on the remaining part of the economic system become so great that indirectly it controls almost everything. — Friedrich Hayek

If I were detached about the outcome of a problem, if I turned it over to God, then He could and would work on it. If I thought I had the answer and pushed for it, either mentally or physically, then the flow was blocked by my action and I sometimes got what I pushed for and sometimes did not, but the situation was never resolved. Most things I pushed for turned out to be a mess. — Heather Cardin

His face was stern, and much flushed. If he were really not in the habit of drinking rather more than was exactly good for him, he might have brought action against his countenance for libel, and have recovered heavy damages. — Charles Dickens

Oliver couldn't walk away. Not when the wallflower needed rescuing. His goddamn Achilles heel, no matter how disastrous the outcome tended to be. He just wished his heroics would work out for once.
He kept his eyes trained on the pretty black-haired American, every muscle tensed for action. An eternity ticked by. No one approached her. She had no one to dance with, to talk to. She looked... lost. Hauntingly lonely. Frightened and defiant all at the same time.
'Twould be better for them both if he turned around right now. Never met her eye. Never exchanged a single word. Left her to her fate and him to his.
It was already too late. — Erica Ridley

Name one moral action performed by a believer that could not have been done by a nonbeliever. — Christopher Hitchens

It is terribly important to realize that the leap of faith is not so much a leap of thought as of action. For while in many matters it is first we must see then we will act; in matters of faith it is first we must do then we will know, first we will be and then we will see. One must, in short, dare to act wholeheartedly without absolute certainty. — William Sloane Coffin Jr.

But the instinct of hoarding, like all other instincts, tends to become hypertrophied and perverted; and with the institution of private property comes another institution-that of plunder and brigandage. In private life, no motive of action is at present so powerful and so persistent as acquisitiveness, which unlike most other desires, knows no satiety. The average man is rich enough when he has a little more than he has got, and not till then. — William Ralph Inge

We seek to uncover
behind the events changes in the collective consciousness. We reject wholesale references to the "spontaneity" of the movement, references which in most cases
explain nothing and teach nobody. Revolutions take place according to certain laws. This does not mean that the masses in action are aware of the laws of revolution, but it does mean that the changes in mass consciousness are not accidental, but are subject to an objective necessity which is capable of theoretic explanation, and thus makes both prophecy and leadership possible. — Leon Trotsky

Knowledge, if it does not determine action, is dead to us. — Plotinus

This guy is pretty slick, Atticus. What else do you think he has in his pockets? Maybe a thick salami for me?> I almost dropped the goblets. Gods, Oberon, it's a good thing no one can hear you. It's not polite to ask if a man has a big salami in his pants, okay? Especially this guy. Laughter bubbled forth from Jesus as he poured two generous shots for us. "I like your hound, Siodhachan." He turned his head a bit to address him. "Hello, Oberon. I can hear what you say as well, and I tell you truly, I have nothing against salami itself. It is best to know when to keep your salami in your pants and when to pull it out, however, and even my priests have had some difficulty with that issue. Fortunately for us, there is little doubt regarding the right course of action in this situation." He pulled a long soppressata from the same pocket that had produced the goblets. — Kevin Hearne

Accepting that you can't control the outcome is not the end of action - it is the opening for the boldest and most daring action. You can accept total responsibility for your choices and actions. You are free to play full-out in creating and implementing an extraordinary future for yourself and your organization. — Tracy Goss

Good Christian liturgy is friendship in action, love taking thought, the covenant relationship between God and his people not simply discovered and celebrated like the sudden meeting of friends, exciting and worthwhile though that is, but thought through and relished, planned and prepared
an ultimately better way for the relationship to grow and at the same time a way of demonstrating what the relationship is all about. — N. T. Wright

Our time has produced a need for contrast. This has been achieved not only in the external appearance of plastic expressions of coulor and matter, but also, and chiefly, in the tempo of life and in the techniques related to the daily, mechanical functions of life; namely standing, walking, driving, to lying and sitting - in short, every action which determines the content of architecture. — Theo Van Doesburg

The goal with me, and the way I challenge myself as an actor, is to go from genre to genre. I like that. A lot of actors always challenge themselves. But for me the challenge lies not only in getting better, but going from drama to comedy to action or whatever the case may be, and having a wide array of movies in terms of my filmography. — Dwayne Johnson

A person trying to meditate is doing something that's impossible since meditation is not an action. — Frederick Lenz

Tragedy is an imitation not only of a complete action, but of events inspiring fear and pity. Such an effect is best produced when the events come on us by surprise; and the effect is heightened when, at the same time, they follow as cause and effect. The tragic wonder will then be great than if they happened of themselves or by accident; for even coincidences are most striking when they have an air of design. — Aristotle.

When God's righteousness is mentioned in the gospel, it is God's action of declaring righteous the unrighteous sinner who has faith in Jesus Christ. The righteousness by which a person is justified (declared righteous) is not his own but that of another, Christ. — Martin Luther

Your colleague, Captain Grimes, has been convicted before me on evidence that leaves no possibility of his innocence - of a crime (I might almost call it a course of action) which I can neither understand nor excuse. I dare say I need not particularise. — Evelyn Waugh

The energetic action of the times develops individualism, and the religious appear isolated. I esteem this a step in the right direction. Heaven deals with us on no representative system. Souls are not saved in bundles. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now. No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle. — James Hutton

Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God- the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God. Where are these responsible people? — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The actual legacy of Desert Storm was to plunge the United States more deeply into a sea of difficulties for which military power provided no antidote. Yet in post-Cold War Washington, where global leadership and global power projection had become all but interchangeable terms, senior military officers...were less interested in assessing what those difficulties might portend than in claiming a suitably large part of the action. In the buoyant atmosphere of that moment, confidence in the efficiency of American arms left little room for skepticism and doubt. As a result, senior military leaders left unasked questions of fundamental importance. What if the effect of projecting U.S. military power was not to solve problems, but to exacerbate them? What if expectations of doing more with less proved hollow? What consequences would then ensue? Who wear bear them? — Bacevich

True influence drives action, not just awareness. — Jay Baer

of making the Grand Fleet turn away and open the range. Admiral Scheer claims that putting the van of his fleet again into action "diverted the enemy fire and rendered it possible for the torpedo-boat flotillas to take so effective a share in the proceedings," (S) but of course it is a question whether the same result might not have been obtained' by the use of the torpedo flotillas alone. In any case, it must be acknowledged that Admiral Scheer's extraordinary manoeuvres had accomplished a surprise effect upon his enemy as, besides forcing the Grand Fleet to turn away, the moral effect of this torpedo attack had a great influence upon the British conduct of the rest of the action. It is also evident that the British had not comprehended — Thomas Goddard Frothingham

The struggle of the Black people in the United States for emancipation is a component part of the general struggle of al the people of the world against U.S. imperialism, a component part of the contemporary world revolution. I call on the workers, peasants, and revolutionary intellectuals of all countries and all who are willing to fight against U.S. imperialism to take action and extend strong support to the struggle of the Black people in the United States! People of the whole world, unite still more closely and launch a sustained and vigorous offensive against our common enemy, U.S. imperialism, and its accomplices! It can be said with certainty that the complete collapse of colonialism, imperialism, and all systems of exploitation, and the complete emancipation of all the oppressed peoples and nations of the world are not far off. — Mao Tse-tung

The Bible does not want to be neatly packaged into three-hundred-and-sixty-five-day increments. It does not want to be reduced to truisms and action points. It wants to introduce dissonance into your thinking, to stretch your understanding. It wants to reveal a mosaic of the majesty of God one passage at a time, one day at a time, across a lifetime. — Jen Wilkin

Time is your most precious gift because you only have a set amount of it. You can make more money, but you can't make more time. When you give someone your time, you are giving them a portion of your life that you'll never get back. Your time is your life. That is why the greatest gift you can give someone is your time.
It is not enough to just say relationships are important; we must prove it by investing time in them. Words alone are worthless. "My children, our love should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action." Relationships take time and effort, and the best way to spell love is "T-I-M-E. — Rick Warren

The need of one human being for the approval of his fellow humans, the need for a certain cult of fellowship - a psychological, almost physiological need for approval of one's thought and action. A force that kept men from going off at unsocial tangents, a force that made for social security and human solidarity, for the working together of the human family.
Men died for that approval, sacrificed for that approval, lived lives they loathed for that approval. For without it man was on his own, an outcast, an animal that had been driven from the pack.
It had led to terrible things, of course - to mob psychology, to racial persecution, to mass atrocities in the name of patriotism or religion. But likewise it had been the sizing that held the race together, the thing that from the very start had made human society possible.
And Joe didn't have it. Joe didn't give a damn. He didn't care what anyone thought of him. He didn't care whether anyone approved or not. — Clifford D. Simak

I knew what the sanctified life was not. Not a life filled with more rituals, more scrupulously observed. Not more praying. Not becoming a better person, being more charitable, more concerned with everyone else's pains. Sanctifying had something to do with a sense of constant wonder - feeling gratitude and finding significance everywhere, in every action, relationship and object. — Vanessa L Ochs

My mother took too much, a great deal too much, care of me; she over-educated, over-instructed, over-dosed me with premature lessons of prudence: she was so afraid that I should ever do a foolish thing, or not say a wise one, that she prompted my every word, and guided my every action. So I grew up, seeing with her eyes, hearing with her ears, and judging with her understanding, till, at length, it was found out that I had not eyes, ears or understanding of my own. — Maria Edgeworth

(About Cesare Borgia) What cruelties were not the result of his? Who could count all his crimes? Such was the man that Machiavel prefers to all the great geniuses of his time, and to the heroes of antiquity, and of which he finds the life and action make a good example for those that fortune favors. — Frederick The Great

No matter what night preceded it, she had never known a morning when she did not feel the rise of a quiet excitement that became a tightening energy in her body and a hunger for action in her mind - because this was the beginning of day and it was a day of her life. — Ayn Rand

Libertarian action must recognize this dependence as a weak point and must attempt through reflection and action to transform it into independence. However, not even the best-intentioned leadership can bestow independence as a gift. The liberation of the oppressed is a liberation of women and men, not things. Accordingly, while no one liberates himself by his own efforts alone, neither is he liberated by others. Liberation, a human phenomenon, cannot be achieved by semihumans. Any attempt to treat people as semihumans only dehumanizes them. — Paulo Freire

Do not let your emotions rule you," she would say. "Rule them. Emotions are a fuel for action, not the cause of them. — Kevin L. Nielsen

We will not hesitate to speak out when we see actions that contradict those values. — Barack Obama

The firing of nerves in the amygdala, thereby dampening fear. Laughter, then, can help to temper negative emotions. And while all this might seem of purely academic interest, it could prove helpful when your partner breaks his leg at 19,000 feet in a blizzard on a Peruvian mountain. It is not a lack of fear that separates elite performers from the rest of us. They're afraid, too, but they're not overwhelmed by it. They manage fear. They use it to focus on taking correct action. Mike Tyson's trainer, Cus D'Amato, said, Fear is like fire. It can cook for you. It can heat your — Laurence Gonzales

That's politics, power: it's all verbal, a continuous blizzard of words. But it's not just speaking, it's making statements. It's action; it's doing something without doing anything. — Harry Mulisch

A thousand words leave not the same deep impression as does a single deed. — Henrik Ibsen

There is no action of man in this life that is not the beginning of so long a chain of consequences as no human providence is high enough to give a man a prospect in the end. And in this chain, there are linked together both pleasing and unpleasing events in such manner as he that will do anything for his pleasure must engage himself to suffer all the pains annexed to it. — Thomas Hobbes

Dogs invite us not only to share their joy but also to live in the moment, where we are neither proceeding from nor moving toward, where the enchantment of the past and future cannot distract us, where a freedom from practical desire and a cessation of our usual ceaseless action allows us to recognize the truth of our existence, the reality of our world and purpose-if we dare. — Dean Koontz

The underlying reason for convergence seems to be that all organisms are under constant scrutiny of natural selection and are also subject to the constraints of the physical and chemical factors that severely limit the action of all inhabitants of the biosphere. Put simply, convergence shows that in a real world not all things are possible. — Simon Conway Morris

Each of us should choose which course of action we must take; education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes, but let it not be said that we did nothing. — Ron Paul

I have spent most of my time worrying about things that have never happened. Worrying is not an action! In fact, it is action that alleviates concern and dissipates worries. Take more actions when you feel that worry is creeping in to steal your time. It need not be a huge action, any action in the direction you want to go will do. — Mark Twain

Quantum mechanics says that it is completely correct to say that the universe's
evolution is determined not by how it started in the Big Bang, but by the final
state of the universe. Every stage of universal history, including every stage of logical and human history, is determined by the ultimate goal of the universe. And
if I am correct that the universal final state is indeed God, then every stage of universal
history, in particular every mutation that has ever occurred, or ever will occur
in any living being, is determined by the action of God. — Frank J. Tipler

Not that Colin intended to take any action against the peace and dignity of pigship. In the extremely unlikely event that he even came across a hog, he figured, he'd allow it to study devilment in peace. Which was how he justified not mentioning the hog hunt to his parents during their nightly phone conversation. He wasn't really going on a hunt anyway. He was going for a stroll through the woods. With a gun. — John Green

Statesmen are not only liable to give an account of what they say or do in public, but there is a busy inquiry made into their very meals, beds, marriages, and every other sportive or serious action. — Plutarch

Exercising will builds esteem from within through action on one's own behalf; it disproves the premise that only another person can provide it. The result, long in coming and always worth the effort, is the experience of authentic agency in your own life, a sense of self that cannot be destroyed because it is not dependent on anyone else. — Jeanne Safer

Once you've done the mental work, there comes a point you have to throw yourself into the action and put your heart on the line. That means not only being brave, but being compassionate towards yourself, your teammates and your opponents. — Phil Jackson

Take a look around, then, and see that none of the uninitiated are listening. Now by the uninitiated I mean the people who believe in nothing but what they can grasp in their hands, and who will not allow that action or generation or anything invisible can have real existence. — Plato

Fake is not a word I like to use because there's nothing fake about what I do. It's a show, it's a predetermined outcome; we're putting on a television drama, action, comedy, whatever you want to call it - but it's not fake. Fake would be if I was just about to take a body slam, and my stuntman did it. Fake would be if I was going to take a chair shot to the head, and the chair was made of rubber. I'll tell the world that it's a show, but I hate the word fake. It's such an unfair term to us. — Chris Jericho

I have a Web site that parents and girls can use to learn about Title IX and take action if they find their school is not in compliance. Thirty years after Title IX passed, 80 percent of schools are not in compliance. — Geena Davis

I'm sorry, but why does Claire know how to take a punch? I'm not sure I like where this is going," Carter said nervously.
"Well, last year Jim made us watch Fight Club for like, the ten- thousandth time. And while I'm all for a little shirtless Brad Pitt action, Claire and I decided to take a shot every time Edward Norton talked in third person. By about twenty minutes in, we were trashed. I don't know whose idea it was, but Claire and I started our own fight club in the living room," Liz explained.
"It was your idea, Liz. You stood up in front of me, lifted your shirt and said "Punch me in the stomach as hard as you can, fucker. — Tara Sivec

In a world of cell phones and satellite feeds - a world in which the president can sit in the White House situation room and watch a military action unfold on the other side of the world - it is not realistic to expect TV news to be anything but what it has become: a ceaseless flow of words and images that may or may not be accurate. — David Horsey

This is the difference between an ordinary scribe and a literary writer. The highest level of literary creation is when the characters in a novel possess life in the mind of the writer. The writer is unable to control them, and might not even be able to predict the next action they will take. We can only follow them in wonder to observe and record the minute details of their lives like a voyeur. — Liu Cixin

To achieve peace, destruction is delivered. To give the gift of freedom, one promises eternal imprisonment. Adjudication obviates the need for justice. This is a studied, deliberate embrace of diametric opposition. It is a belief in balance, a belief asserted with the conviction of religion. But in this case, the proof of a god's power lies not in the cause but in the effect. Accordingly, in this world and in all others, proof is achieved by action, and therefore all action - including the act of choosing inaction - is inherently moral. No deed stands outside the moral context. At the same time, the most morally perfect act is the one taken in opposition to what has occurred before. — Steven Erikson

The president is being denounced for not taking the kind of pre-emptive action in Afghanistan that he has been so passionately denounced for taking in Iraq. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. — Ferdinand Mount

But what is our ultimate goal? We want freedom of thought, freedom of action, freedom to fashion our own destiny and build up an India - suited to the genius of her people. We do not wish to make of India a cheap and slavish imitation of the West. We have so far sought to liberalise our government on the Western model. Whether that will satisfy us in the future I cannot say.31 — Savita Narain

When I contemplate the accumulation of guilt and remorse which, like a garbage-can, I carry through life, and which is fed not only by the lightest action but by the most harmless pleasure, I feel Man to be of all living things the most biologically incompetent and ill-organized. Why has he acquired a seventy years life-span only to poison it incurably by the mere being of himself? Why has he thrown Conscience, like a dead rat, to putrefy in the well? — Cyril Connolly

Your success is not measured in terms of what all you obtained but in term of what you become, how you live and what actions you do. Upon this point reflect well and attain great happiness — Swami Vivekananda

By academic freedom I understand the right to search for truth and to publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right implies also a duty: one must not conceal any part of what on has recognized to be true. It is evident that any restriction on academic freedom acts in such a way as to hamper the dissemination of knowledge among the people and thereby impedes national judgment and action. — Albert Einstein

The phenomenon is something real and not visionary or fictitious. There are objects approximating the shape of a disc, some of which appear flat on bottom and domed on top. These objects are as large as man-made aircraft and have a metallic or light-reflecting surface. Further they exhibit extreme rates of climb and maneuverability with no associated sound and take action which must be considered evasive when contacted by aircraft and radar. — Nathan Farragut Twining