Action That Can Be Observed Quotes & Sayings

I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be said of the dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen. There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade, for learned as well as for unlearned hands. And labor is everywhere welcome; always we are invited to work; only be this limitation observed, that a man shall not for the sake of wider activity sacrifice any opinion to the popular judgments and modes of action. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

When the code of laws is once fixed, it should be observed in the literal sense, and nothing more is left to the judge than to determine whether an action is or is not conformable to the written law. — Cesare Beccaria

Nature has with a Motherly Tenderness observed this, that the Action she has enjoyned us for our Necessity should be also pleasant to us, and invites us to them, not only by Reason, but also by Appetite: and 'tis Injustice to infringe her Laws. — Michel De Montaigne

What is this intermediate step? Just after we observe what others do and just before we feel some emotion about it, we tell ourselves a story. We add meaning to the action we observed. We make a guess at the motive driving the behavior. Why were they doing that? We also add judgment - is that good or bad? And then, based on these thoughts or stories, our body responds with an emotion. — Kerry Patterson

You can take the tiger out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the tiger.
The question is, how can you get the tiger back in the jungle? — Bill Watterson

Life is a place where it is necessary to move gently. Whether it be in thought, speech, or action, the rhythm must be controlled; the law of harmony must be observed in all that one does. If there is anything that will bring satisfaction it is diving deep into Love, and then we shall realize that there is nothing which is not just; we shall never again say that anything is unjust. This is the point the wise reach, and they call it the culmination of wisdom. — Hazrat Inayat Khan

My life would be allegiance instead of love, fealty instead of friendship. I would weigh each decision, consider every action, trust no one. It would be life observed from a distance. — Leigh Bardugo

Every need got an ego to feed. — Bob Marley

When properly applied, the kamae reflects the ninja's heart.
This means that our physical nature conforms to our intentions,
and there is no division between our interior and exterior
aspects. This state of integrated mind and body action is
totally natural, and can be observed readily in the movements
of animals as they interact with their environment. Only human
beings seem to develop the need to be trained in natural body
motion. — Masaaki Hatsumi

I have observed over the years that the unanticipated consequences of social action are always more important, and usually less agreeable, than the intended consequences. — Irving Kristol

I observed mildness of temper, and unchangeable resolution in the things that he had determined after due deliberation; and no vainglory in those things that men call honors; and a love of labor and perseverance; and a readiness to listen to those who had anything to propose for the common weal; and undeviating firmness in giving to every man according to his deserts; and a knowledge derived from experience of the occasions for vigorous action and for remission. — Marcus Aurelius

Rightness of judgment is bitterness to the heart. — Euripides

Some months ago we discovered that certain light elements emit positrons under the action of alpha particles. Our latest experiments have shown a very striking fact: when an aluminium foil is irradiated on a polonium preparation [alpha ray emitter], the emission of positrons does not cease immediately when the active preparation is removed: the foil remains radioactive and the emission of radiation decays exponentially as for an ordinary radio-element. We observed the same phenomenon with boron and magnesium. — Frederic Joliot-Curie

I have since often observed, how incongruous and irrational the common temper of mankind is, especially of youth ... that they are not ashamed to sin, and yet are ashamed to repent; not ashamed of the action for which they ought justly to be esteemed fools, but are ashamed of the returning, which only can make them be esteemed wise men. — Daniel Defoe

Still, for long the love of science triumphed over all other feelings. He became an artist deeply impressed by the marvels of art, a philosopher to whom no one of the higher sciences was unknown, a statesman versed in the policy of European courts. To the eyes of those who observed him superficially he might have passed for one of those cosmopolitans, curious of knowledge, but disdaining action; one of those opulent travelers, haughty and cynical, who move incessantly from place to place, and are of no country. — Jules Verne

Love is not dependent on someone or something outside of you. One chooses to be Love in each moment as the moment unfolds, regardless of what happened in that moment. — Cardwell C. Nuckols

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

The day of her long interview with Tietjens, amongst the amassed beauties of Macmaster furnishings, she marked in the calendar of her mind as her great love scene. That had been two years ago; he had been going into the army. Now he was going out again. From that she knew what a love scene was. It passed without mention of the word 'love'; it passed in impulses; warmths; rigors of the skin. Yet with every word they had said to each other they had confessed their love; in that way, when you listen to the nightingale you hear the expressed craving of your lover beating upon your heart. — Ford Madox Ford

Many years ago I developed a theory of mutual exclusivity. I had observed in my own life that either God solved a problem or I solved the problem but both God and I did not work on the same problem at the same time. If I decided to solve it then God had better things to do than to help me. If I decided to turn the problem over to God then God would resolve the issue. When I refer to my solving the problem, I am referring to taking wilful action and deciding what the correct resolution is. If my family needs food, go out and work to earn money and feed them. There is a great difference between detachment and doing nothing. — Heather Cardin

Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations. Plot is observed after the fact rather than before. It cannot precede action. It is the chart that remains when an action
is through. That is all Plot ever should be. It is human desire let
run, running, and reaching a goal. It cannot be mechanical. It can
only be dynamic. So, stand aside, forget targets, let the characters, your fingers, body, blood, and heart do. — Ray Bradbury

Upon learning that Washington intended to reject the mantle of emperor, no less an authority than George III allegedly observed, "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world." True to his word, on December 22, 1783, Washington surrendered his commission to the Congress, then meeting in Annapolis: "Having now finished the work assigned me," he announced, "I now retire from the great theater of action." In so doing, he became the supreme example of the leader who could be trusted with power because he was so ready to give it up. — Joseph J. Ellis

It looked as though you did not act in a certain way because you thought in a certain way, but rather you thought in a certain way because you were made in a certain way. Truth had nothing to do with it. — W. Somerset Maugham

He did not know what to do. Not just now, he thought, not just in this, not just about this, today and tomorrow, but every day on the earth. — Raymond Carver

Two chimpanzees were observed maltreating a chicken: One would extend some food to the fowl, encouraging it to approach; whereupon the other would thrust at it with a piece of wire it had concealed behind its back. The chicken would retreat but soon allow itself to approach once again
and be beaten once again. Here is a fine combination of behavior sometimes thought to be uniquely human: cooperation, planning a future course of action, deception and cruelty. — Carl Sagan

This, then, is the legacy of January 1973. The "me generation" found its voice, religion became a political force, poverty and civil rights became someone else's problem, and the national will for concerted action for the common good of all its citizens was scattered into "a thousand points of light."

At some point, perhaps those scattered lights will re-form and reunite to give birth to a rededicated nation, one that includes a place for everyone, opportunity for all, and help for those who need it. After all, it only takes a moment in time and some simultaneity. As Lyndon Johnson so aptly observed in his greatest speech - the "We Shall Overcome" speech - there are times in America when "history and fate meet at a single time in a single space to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom."

Let us hop such a time is nearing. — James Robenalt