Ideas Without Action Quotes & Sayings

I now began for the first time to envy those young cubs at the university who had fine scholars to tell them what was what; professors who had devoted their lives to mastering and focusing ideas in every branch of learning; who were eager to distribute the treasures they had gathered before they were overtaken by the night. But now I pity undergraduates, when I see what frivolous lives many of them lead in the midst of precious fleeting opportunity. After all, a man's Life must be nailed to a cross either of Thought or Action. Without work there is no play. — Winston Churchill

Ideas without action are useless. — Helen Keller

One, you will become what you think about. Two, remember the word imagination. Let your mind soar. Three, courage. Concentrate on your goal everyday. Four, save 10 percent of what you earn and action. Ideas are worthless unless we act on them. — Earl Nightingale

The first and most important thing is to remain free, free in each line you undertake, in your ideas and in your political action, in your moral conduct. The artist especially must remain free from all outer restraints. — Hans Hartung

All of the great ideas, without action, become stale and useless. The key to turning dreams into reality is action. People who have great ideas are a dime a dozen. People who act on their dreams and ideas are the select few, but they are the ones who gain the wealth, wealth and wisdom that is available. Someone will act today. Let it be you. — Jim Rohn

Here is a definition which correctly reflects the course of thought and action of a grandmaster: - The plan in a game of chess is the sum total of successive strategical operations which are each carried out according to separate ideas arising from the demands of the position. — Alexander Kotov

Jefferson's decision to acquire Louisiana without seeking a constitutional amendment expanded the powers of the executive in ways that would likely have driven Jefferson to distraction had another man been president. Much of his political life, though, had been devoted to the study and the wise exercise of power. He did what had to be done to preserve the possibility of republicanism and progress. Things were neat only in theory. And despite his love of ideas and image of himself, Thomas Jefferson was as much a man of action as he was of theory. Indian — Jon Meacham

Every day thousands of people bury good ideas because they are afraid to act on them.
And afterwards, the ghosts of these ideas come back to haunt them. — David J. Schwartz

Without [hope and] confidence in a cause, there is no action. Ignorance may be enlightened, superstition wiped out; intolerance may become tolerant, and hate be changed into love; ideas may be quickened, intelligence widened, and men's hearts may be ennobled; but from pessimism which can see nothing but gloomy visions nothing is to be expected. — Klas Pontus Arnoldson

The fear of criticism is at the bottom of the destruction of most ideas which never reach the planning and action stage. — Napoleon Hill

I think for me when you look at the idea of being able to create a limitless world and use it almost as a playground for action and adventure and so forth, I naturally gravitate towards cinematic worlds, whether it's the Bond films and things like that. — Christopher Nolan

Remember that only when past genius is transmitted into a present power shall we meet the first truly american poet. And somewhere, born to the streets rather than the athenaeum, we will come upon the first true reader. The spirit of the american is suspected to be timid, imitative, tame
the scholar decent, indolent, complaisant. The mind of our country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. Without action, the scholar is not yet man. Ideas must work through the bones and arms of good men or they are no better than dreams. — Matthew Pearl

The whole idea of mindfulness is all about having a second-level monitoring of your thoughts and being able to recognize them as being negative or harmful before they become a part of your being, before they become some kind of action like writing an angry letter to someone or speaking too strongly to someone. — Pankaj Mishra

The power of yes: that's what allows creativity to breathe and to come in. That's what allows your ideas to become living, breathing, moving dreams in action. — Jason Mraz

Ideas without action are worthless. — Harvey MacKay

With the rationalization of culture, and the corresponding disenchantment of religious ideas and beliefs, the modern world is ordered increasingly upon instrumentally rational grounds, and hence organizes itself less and less according to value-rational principles. This leads in turn to a world in which social action is separated increasingly from the sphere of (ethical) meaning, as particular (often technical) means are employed to realize specific ends regardless of the ethical significance or meaning of such action. — Nicholas Gane

With a comprehensive action plan, a coalition can engage peole, ideas, and resources across sectorsto create a synergy of health and prevention efforts that will have a lasting effect on community health. — Frances Dunn Butterfoss

You perceive now, my friends, what your general or abstract duty is as teachers. Although you have to generate in your pupils a large stock of ideas, any one of which may be inhibitory, yet you must also see to it that no habitual hesitancy or paralysis of the will ensues, and that the pupil still retains his power of vigorous action. — William James

The usual method of creation for most human beings is a three-step process involving thought, word, and deed or action. First comes thought; the formative idea; the initial concept. Then comes the word. Most thoughts ultimately form themselves into words, which are often then written or spoken. This gives added energy to the thought, pushing it out into the world, where it can be noticed by others. Finally, in some cases words are put into action, and you have what you call a result; a physical world manifestation of what all started with a thought. — Neale Donald Walsch

I was in my late thirties and decided my intention in life had nothing to do with the acquiring of material things, but rather it was now my intention to experience the evolution of my own soul and to grow spiritually. I wanted to come to know the highest truths of life and to express those truths in action, through myself. I wanted to become the grandest version of the greatest idea I ever held about who I am in regards to my relationship with God. — Neale Donald Walsch

There are but few who have ideas and are, at the same time, capable of action. Ideas enlarge but stymie, action enlivens but confines. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A brilliant idea without action is like Mark McGwire playing baseball without a bat. — Jack Canfield

The early removal from school of future officers of Britain's seapower, leaving them unacquainted with the subject matter and ideas of the distant and recent past, may account for the incapacity of no military thinking in a world that devoted itself to military action. With little thought of strategy, no study of the theory of war or of planned objective, war's glorious art may have been glorious, but with individual exceptions, it was more or less mindless. — Barbara W. Tuchman

All good thoughts and ideas mean nothing without action — Mahatma Gandhi

A purely mental life may be destructive if it leads us to substitute thought for life and ideas for actions. The activity proper to man is purely mental because man is not just a disembodied mind. Our destiny is to live out what we think, because unless we live what we know, we do not even know it. It is only by making our knowledge part of ourselves, through action, that we enter into the reality that is signified by our concepts. — Thomas Merton

Self-development requires direct action. Knowledge must precede action. The self's relation to the world must be grounded in reality through ideas and thoughts. Self-reflection and introspection expands our appreciation of life. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Sometimes, even the very best course of action fails. — Bernard Beckett

I think when science fiction is at its worst, it's just spaceships flying around shooting at each other. There has to be a lot more going on than that ... science fiction is about exploring new worlds and new ideas, not about ray guns and action, necessarily. — Jeff Lemire

Clearly, mythology is no toy for children. Nor is it a matter of archaic, merely scholarly concern, of no moment to modern men of action. For its symbols (whether in the tangible form of images or in the abstract form of ideas) touch and release the deepest centers of motivation, moving literate and illiterate alike, moving mobs, moving civilizations. — Joseph Campbell

You can have many great ideas in your head, but what makes the difference is the action. Without action upon an idea, there will be no manifestation, no results, and no reward — Miguel Ruiz

So why do I write, torturing myself to put it down? Because in spite of myself I've learned some things. Without the possibility of action, all knowledge comes to one labeled "file and forget," and I can neither file nor forget. Nor will certain ideas forget me; they keep filing away at my lethargy, my complacency. Why should I be the one to dream this nightmare? — Ralph Ellison

Do and dare what is right, not swayed by the whim of the moment. Bravely take hold of the real, not dallying now with what might be. Not in the flight of ideas but only in action is freedom. Make up your mind and come out into the tempest of living. God's command is enough and your faith in him to sustain you. Then at last freedom will welcome your spirit amid great rejoicing. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Each decade absolutizes its own fashions of thought and action without the least pause and consideration of the fact that a decade later those very fashions and ideas will be buried in the dustbin of history as one turns to a new decade. — Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Understanding of the self only arises in relationship, in watching yourself in relationship to people, ideas, and things; to trees, the earth, and the world around you and within you. Relationship is the mirror in which the self is revealed. Without self-knowledge there is no basis for right thought and action. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Without common ideas, there is no common action, and without common action men still exist, but a social body does not. Thus in order that there be society, and all the more, that this society prosper, it is necessary that all the minds of the citizens always be brought together and held together by some principle ideas — Alexis De Tocqueville

Without action, the world would still be an idea. — Georges Doriot

I can not think for others or without others,nor can others think for me. Even if the people's thinking is superstitious or naive,it is only as they rethink their assumptions in action that they can change. Producing and acting upon their own ideas - not consuming those of others. — Paulo Freire

Our sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses. It fills the mind with the largest variety of ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longest in action without being tired or satiated with its proper enjoyments. — Joseph Addison

His unrivaled genius as an ideological novelist was this capacity to invent actions and situations in which ideas dominate behavior without the latter becoming allegorical. He possessed what I call an eschatological imagination, one that could envision putting ideas into action and then following them out to their ultimate consequences. At the same time, his characters respond to such consequences according to the ordinary moral and social standards prevalent in their milieu, and it is the fusion of these two levels that provides Dostoevsky's novels with both their imaginative range and their realistic grounding in social life. — Joseph Frank

Sentimentality, in all its forms, is the attempt to get some effect without providing due cause. (I take it for granted that the reader understands the difference between sentiment in fiction, that is, emotion and feeling, and sentimentality, emotion or feeling that rings false, usually because achieved by some form of cheating or exaggeration. Without sentiment, fiction is worthless. Sentimentality, on the other hand, can make mush of the finest characters, actions, and ideas.) The theory of fiction as a viid, uninterrupted dream in the reader's mind logically requires an assertion that legitimate cause in fiction can be of only one kind: drama; that is, character in action. — John Gardner

Idea and experience will never coincide in the center; only through art and action are they united. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Do you know the reason why poetry and philosophy are nothing but dead-letter nowadays? It is because they have severed themselves from life. In Greece, ideas went hand-in-hand with life; so that the artist's life was already a poetic realisation, the philosopher's life a putting into action of his philosophy; in this way, as both philosophy and poetry took part in life, instead of remaining unacquainted with each other, philosophy provided food for poetry, and poetry gave expression to philosophy - and the result was admirably persuasive. Nowadays beauty no longer acts; action no longer desires to be beautiful; and wisdom works in a sphere apart. — Andre Gide

Don't wait for being completely ready for the plans and ideas you may have in mind. Take action now and along the way you will learn and become ready. — Farshad Asl

The cinema has done more for my spiritual life than the church. My ideas of fame, success and beauty all originate from the big screen. Whereas Christian religion is retreating everywhere and losing more and more influence; film has filled the vacuum and supports us with myths and action-controlling images. — John Updike

The greatest events of an age are its best thoughts. Thought finds its way into action. — Christian Nestell Bovee

These Taoists' ideas have greatly influenced all our theories of action, even to those of fencing and wrestling. Jiu-jitsu, the Japanese art of self-defence, owes its name to a passage in the Tao-teking. In jiu-jitsu one seeks to draw out and exhaust the enemy's strength by non-resistance, vacuum, while conserving one's own strength for victory in the final struggle.
In art the importance of the same principle is illustrated by the value of suggestion. In leaving something unsaid the beholder is given a chance to complete the idea and thus a great masterpiece irresistibly rivets your attention until you seem to become actually a part of it. A vacuum is there for you to enter and fill up the full measure of your aesthetic emotion. — Okakura Kakuzo

I love the idea of doing comedy, whether it's action comedy or just straight comedy. It's such a big, new world for me that I'm starting to realize that any character that I relate to, in any way, shape or form, or that I have any appreciation for, given enough preparation, I can find that person. — Zoe Bell

Ideas are ultimately worthless unless you activate them with focused and consistent action. The best leaders never leave the site of a good idea without doing something - no matter how small - to breathe some life into it. Lots of people have good ideas. But the masters become masters because they had the courage and conviction to act on ideas. — Robin S. Sharma

The idea right now - and it may evolve - would be a live-action movie where some of his characters would be animated. To me, this movie is very much about the creative process. — Christopher Meledandri

When you take action, particularly bold action, the boundaries of what you believe to be possible (your belief system) expand. Which, in turn, gives you the capacity to consider new ideas, new possibilities, and new concepts that you previously thought to be impossible. — Robert Ringer

That combination of thought and action defines creative confidence: the ability to come up with new ideas and the courage to try them out. — Tom Kelley

The best achievement of a man is that he converts his ideas into action. — Frank Underwood

The tender plant of spirituality will die if exposed too early to the action of a constant change of ideas and ideals. Many people, in the name of what may be called religious liberalism, may be seen feeding their idle curiosity with a continuous succession of different ideals. With them, hearing new things grows into a kind of disease, a sort of religious drink-mania. They want to hear new things just by way of getting a temporary nervous excitement, and when one such exciting influence has had its effect on them, they are ready for another. Religion is with these people a sort of intellectual opium-eating, and there it ends. — Swami Vivekananda

Try out your ideas by visualizing them in action. — David Seabury

The world leaves no track in space, and the greatest action of man no mark in the vast idea. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of our difficulties is, surely, that we want to be happy through something, through a person, through a symbol, through an idea, through virtue, through action, through companionship. We think happiness, or reality, or what you like to call it, can be found through something. Therefore we feel that through action, through companionship, through certain ideas, we will find happiness. So being lonely, I want to find someone or some idea through which I can be happy. But loneliness always remains; it is ever there.
If I use you for my fulfillment for my happiness, you become very unimportant, because it is my happiness I am concerned with. So when the mind is concerned with the idea that it can have happiness through somebody, through a thing or through an idea, do I not make all these means transitory? Because my concern is then something else, to go further, to catch something beyond. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

God has so framed us as to make freedom of choice and action the very basis of all moral improvement, and all our faculties, mental and moral, resent and revolt against the idea of coercion. — William Matthews

The fear of speculation, the ostensible rush from the theoretical to the practical, brings about the same shallowness in action that it does in knowledge. It is by studying a strictly theoretical philosophy that we become most acquainted with Ideas, and only Ideas provide action with energy and ethical significance. — Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

I think pushing the ideas is important. I wouldn't say it's more important than action. You can't really separate the two. — John Zerzan

The more romance novelists that are out there, making romanticized ideas of vampirism for the kids, the more people want to see a real action movie, putting the bad guys where they belong, as the bad guys, and looking for a hero to come along and defend our very souls. — Corey Feldman

The superhero genre speaks to a vast swath of humanity these days, and studios are in the business of constantly renewing their money-printing licenses. I sense we're nearing a saturation point with some of these icons, where it becomes more about the action figures and Happy Meals than it does the mythological heartbeat of the core ideas. — Mark Frost

This is my answer to the gap between ideas and action - I will write it out. — Hortense Calisher

When you imagine and clearly articulate your goals in writing, you access the creative energy of your right brain. Imagination and creativity allow you to find solutions to problems that were not previously available to you and give your left brain an opportunity to be receptive to new ideas. — Julie Connor

It's all based around the idea that basically VW cars are space age. They're the worst cars to use in action movie, because all the things you want to traditionally do in an action movie they won't allow you to do, because they make you drive safely if you want to or not. — Paul W. S. Anderson

Some philosophers have been of opinion that our immortal part acquires during this life certain habits of action or of sentiment, which become forever indissoluble, continuing after death in a future state of existence ... I would apply this ingenious idea to the generation, or production of the embryon, or new animal, which partakes so much of the form and propensities of the parent. — Erasmus Darwin

You appear to me not to have understood the nature of my body & mind. Partly from ill-health, & partly from an unhealthy & reverie-like vividness of Thoughts, & (pardon the pedantry of the phrase) a diminished Impressibility from Things, my ideas, wishes, & feelings are to a diseased degree disconnected from motion & action. In plain and natural English, I am a dreaming & therefore an indolent man. I am a Starling self-incaged, & always in the Moult, & my whole Note is, Tomorrow, & tomorrow, & tomorrow. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

For notes related to books I'm writing, I've wondered whether I should organize my notes better, but I do find that the action or scrolling through them and seeing odd juxtapositions of ideas helps to stimulate my own ideas and creativity. I worry that if I kept the notes in a highly-structured way, I might lose some of these benefits. — Gretchen Rubin

Good intentions might sound nice, but it's positive actions that matter. — Tim Fargo

This idea fascinates me. The idea that a few seconds of watching a photographer in action can tell you his/her status in the medium. And it's true. If you watch a photographer of merit working an event he/she does not look like an amateur ... — David Hurn

Nast is an artist of uncommon abilities. His works evince originality of conception, freedom of manner, lofty appreciation of national ideas and action, and a large artistic instinct. — James Jackson Jarves