Actionless Quotes & Sayings

I love the thought of not knowing how things will turn out but the willingness to invest anyway. — Kristin Armstrong

Warriorship is an infinitely nuanced subject. A true warrior desires nothing so much as to be perfectly appropriate, "in sync" with space and time in each and every moment. The perfection of warrior timing results in a kind of invisibility. Walking between the super strings of karma, or bound activity, the warrior engages in kriya, or spontaneous action. This is the actionless action spoken of so eloquently by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. Only the natural perfection of kriya ensures that a warrior's actions will be of real benefit to those she serves. Walking between and in a state of total non-distraction, a warrior's invisibility is identical to her invincibility. In the warrior heart is a dynamic stillness that is unperturbed by any arising of this world, by any impediment or seeming obstacle. Even when we have not realized this perfection, it is our warrior hearts, still mostly unknown to us, that lead us steadily on to realization. — Shambhavi Sarasvati

The way to liberation lies through this realization of the Self, by God-communion and by remaining in this God-aware state of the soul while performing dutiful actions. Any individual can reach this supreme actionless state by the renunciation of all fruits of actions: performing all dutiful acts without harbouring in his heart any likes and dislikes, possessing no material desires, and feeling God, not the ego, as the Doer of all actions. — Paramahansa Yogananda

It will shock many - I've lived a full life and really enjoyed my time as a pop star. — Belinda Carlisle

In Europe there's been a kind of social contract. It's now declining, but it has been largely imposed by the strength of the unions, the organised work force and the relative weakness of the business community (which, for historical reasons, isn't as dominant in Europe as it has been here). European governments do see primarily to the needs of private wealth, but they also have created a not insubstantial safety net for the rest of the population. They have general health care, reasonable services, etc. We haven't had that, in part because we don't have the same organised work force, and we have a much more class-conscious and dominant business community. — Noam Chomsky

If you don't fit into a certain type, there's a lot of strength in just being who you are. — Kim Gordon

America means far more than a continent bounded by two oceans. It is more than pride of military power, glory in war, or in victory. It means more than vast expanse of farms, of great factories or mines, magnificent cities, or millions of automobiles and radios. — Herbert Hoover

Unless a capacity for thinking be accompanied by a capacity for action, a superior mind exists in torture. — Charles Horton Cooley

If you are not like everybody else, then you are abnormal, if you are abnormal , then you are sick. These three categories, not being like everybody else, not being normal and being sick are in fact very different but have been reduced to the same thing — Michel Foucault

The sciences are like a beautiful river, of which the course is easy to follow, when it has acquired a certain regularity; but if one wants to go back to the source, one will find it nowhere, because it is everywhere; it is spread so much [as to be] over all the surface of the earth; it is the same if one wants to go back to the origin of the sciences, one will find only obscurity, vague ideas, vicious circles; and one loses oneself in the primitive ideas. — Lazare Carnot

My romances were all pleasant and brief. I cannot say why brief, except to state the obvious: that I do not have much in me that might encourage a woman to make a long habit of my company. — Patrick Rothfuss

James condemns any form of Christianity that drifts into a sterile, actionless "orthodoxy." Faith, not what we do, is fundamental in establishing a relationship with God. But faith, James insists, must be given content. Genuine faith, he insists, always and inevitably produces evidence of its existence in a life of righteous living. — Douglas J. Moo

Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no advantage in them? that it was a vain endeavor? — Henry David Thoreau

I've come to understand the cumulative dialogue of my work as a kind of cartography of wisdom about our emerging world. This book is a map in words to important territory we all are on now together. It's a collection of pointers that treat the margins as seriously as the noisy center. For change has always happened in the margins, across human history, and it's happening there now. Seismic shifts in common life, as in geophysical reality, begin in spaces and cracks. — Krista Tippett

The whole world is incapable of judging either right or wrong. but it is certain that actionless action can judge both right and wrong. — Zhuangzi