Great Throughts Treasury

"Judaism looks upon all human beings as children of one Father; thinks of them as all created in the image of God, and insists that a man be judged not by his religion, but his action." - Samuel David Luzzatto, aka by acronym of SHaDaL or SHeDaL

"Few of the many wise apothegms which have been uttered, from the time of the seven sages of Greece to that of poor Richard, have prevented a single foolish action." -

"Being is something we hold dear, and being consists in movement and action. Wherefore each man in some sort exists in his work." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

"Make your best thoughts into action." -

"Collective action usually entails the development of a critical mass - a small segment of the population that chooses to make big contributions to the collective action... that will tend to explode, to draw in the other less interested or less resourceful members of the population and to carry the event toward its maximum potential." - Pamela Oliver and Gerald Maxwell

"In strictness of language there is a difference between knowledge and wisdom; wisdom always supposing action and action directed by it." - William Paley, Archdeacon of Saragossa

"No man’s spirits were ever hurt by doing his duty; on the contrary, one good action, one temptation resisted and overcome, one sacrifice of desire or interest, purely for conscience’ sake, will prove a cordial for weak and low spirits, far beyond what either indulgence or diversion or company can do for them." - William Paley, Archdeacon of Saragossa

""Knowledge," says Bacon, "is power"; but mere knowledge is not power; it is only possibility. Action is power; and its highest manifestation is when it is directed by knowledge." - Thomas W. Palmer

"Meditation is the life of the soul; action is the soul of meditation; honor is the reward of action; so meditate, that thou mayst do; so do, that thou mayst purchase honor; for which purchase, give God the glory." - Francis Quarles

"Necessity of action takes away fear of the act, and makes bold resolution the favorite of fortune." - Francis Quarles

"When two loving hearts are torn asunder, it is a shade better to be the one that is driven away into action than the bereaved twin that petrifies at home." - Charles Reade

"Only in the sacredness of inward silence does the soul truly meet the secret, hiding God. The strength of resolve, which afterward shapes life, and mixes itself with action, is the fruit of those sacred, solitary moments. There is a divine depth in silence. We meet God alone." -

"Teach him to live a life rather than to avoid death; life is not breath but action." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"Esteem is the harvest of a whole life spent in usefulness; but reputation is often bestowed upon a chance action, and depends most on success." - George Augustus Sala, fully George Augustus Henry Sala

"Time drinketh up the essence of every great and noble action, which ought to be performed, and is delayed in the execution." - Vishnu Sarma

"By woe the soul to daring action steals; by woe in plaintless patience it excels." - Richard Savage

"Teachers should be held in the highest honor. They are the allies of legislators; they have agency in the prevention of crime; they aid in regulating the atmosphere, whose incessant action and pressure cause the life-blood to circulate, and to return pure and healthful to the heart of the nation." - Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley

"Wit gives to life one of its best flavors; common-sense leads to immediate action, and gives society its daily motion; large and comprehensive views, its annual rotation; ridicule chastises folly and imprudence, and keeps men in their proper sphere; subtlety seizes hold of the find threads of truth; analogy darts away in the most sublime discoveries; feeling paints all the exquisite passions of man’s soul, and rewards him by a thousand inward visitations for the sorrows that come from without." - Sydney Smith

"Strength is power in action. Beauty is the assemblage of all graces. The strength and the beauty, being connected with God’s sanctuary, must be divine strength and divine beauty. In what, then, consist this strength and beauty which so emphasize and make distinctive His sanctuary?" - W. B. Stevens, fully William Baker Stevens or William Bacon Stevens

"It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect." - Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson

"Constitutions are checks upon the hasty action of the majority. They are the self-imposed restraints of a whole people upon a majority of them to secure sober action and a respect for the rights of the minority." - William Howard Taft

"Eventually we'll have to confront the fact that world suffering is the result of ill-conceived thoughts taking form through misdirected action. If we're going to survive as a species, we must relinquish - to unprecedented levels, - qualities such as greed, hatred, and delusion. In other words, our very survival depends on accelerated levels of psychological and spiritual maturation." - Roger N. Walsh

"The basis of action is lack of imagination. It is the last resource of those who know not how to dream." -

"The one person who has more illusions than the dreamer is the man of action." -

"There is poetry and there is beauty in real sympathy; but there is more - there is action. The noblest and most powerful form of sympathy is not merely the responsive tear, the echoed sigh, the answering look; it is the embodiment of the sentiment of actual help." - Octavius Winslow

"Israel has a mission still; Truth-seeking in the world of thought, and right-doing in the world of action!" - Stephen Samuel Wise

"Cares are employments; and without employ the soul is on a rack; the rack of rest, to souls most adverse; action all their joy." - Edward Young

"We can listen to the voice of the Earth as she shakes and sings her song expressing her tiredness. She is calling us to attention, to be alert, to recognize that now is the time to transform selfish thought and action to compassionate caretaking. Do we want a world of peace and harmony? Are we willing to make that peace within ourselves? Will we call it forth? It is your choice. Your thought and action make a difference." - Dhyani Ywahoo

"Thought and action are the redeeming features of our lives." - Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

"We protract the career of time by employment, we lengthen the duration of our lives by wise thoughts and useful actions. Life to him who wishes not to have lived in vain is thought and action." - Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

"God considers not the action, but the spirit of the action. It is the intention, not the deed wherein the merit or praise of the doer consists." - Peter Abelard, Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailard; French: Pierre Abélard

"Those even who persecuted Christ or His followers, whom they considered it their duty to persecute, are said to have sinned in action; but they would have committed a graver fault if, contrary to their conscience, they had spared them." - Peter Abelard, Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailard; French: Pierre Abélard

"In fact we say that an intention is good, that is, right in itself, but that an action does not bear any good in itself but proceeds from a good intention. Whence when the same thing is done by the same man at different times, by the diversity of his intention, however, his action is now said to be good, now bad." - Peter Abelard, Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailard; French: Pierre Abélard

"Even on the path to God, All is God. You are freed from your own desires only when God frees you. This is not effected by your own exertion, but by the grace of God... Then you entirely recognize that you do not have the right to say “I” or “mine.” At this stage you behold your helplessness; desires fall away from you and you become free and calm. You desire what God desires; your own desires are gone, you are emancipated from your wants, and I have gained peace and joy in both worlds. First, action is necessary, then knowledge, in order that you may know that you know nothing and are no one. This is not easy to know. It is a thing that cannot be rightly learned by instruction, nor sewed on with needle nor tied on with thread. It is the gift of God." -

"To some degree or other, every neurotic restricts his sphere of action, his contacts with the whole situation. He tries to keep at a distance the real confronting problems of life and confines himself to circumstances in which he feels able to dominate. In this way he builds for himself a narrow stable, closes the door, and spends his life away from the wind, the sunlight, and the fresh air." -

"Focus on being grateful… Whatever you focus on with true appreciation and gratitude – you are generating a higher frequency of energy. By living and taking action in a higher frequency (which is also a deeper and richer frequency) you are more aligned with your purpose." - Carol Adrienne

"Karma is a multidimensional complex of forces beyond any simple explanation. Karma is action. An action has consequences. Our identity comes from past actions, which create memories. Those memories create desires, which give rise to new choices and new actions." - Carol Adrienne

"Purpose is about developing relationships. Purpose is about bringing attention and intention into the present moment, moving ahead with new ideas, giving and receiving support, volunteering, mentoring, listening to the imagination and intuition, communicating, taking action based on inner direction and hints from the external, being adaptable, taking responsibility and ending the victim stance forever surrendering to the divine will and working with the lessons developing fluidity, tolerance, compassion, and the ability to love." - Carol Adrienne

"Love designs, thought sketches, action sculptures the works of spirit. Love is divine, conceiving, creating, completing, all things. Love is the Genius of Spirit." -

"Action limits us; whereas I the state of contemplation we are endlessly expansive." - Henri Frédéric Amiel

"Today’s action becomes tomorrow’s habit." - Michael E. Angier

"Since all justice is rightness, the justice, which brings praise to the one who preserves it, is in nowise in any except rational beings… This justice is not rightness of knowledge, or rightness of action, but rightness of will." - Anselm of Canterbury, aka Saint Anselm or Archbishop of Canterbury NULL

"Action not backed by knowledge and knowledge not translatable into action, both can not stand the test of time." - Pandurang Shastri Athavale, fully Pandurang Vaijnath Shastri Athavale

"All action must be done in a more and more Godward and finally a God-possessed consciousness; our work must be a sacrifice to the Divine." -

"Life’s meaning has to be found in the living of life itself, and the promise of eventual death is necessary to make any action worthwhile at all." - Julian Baggini

"When we contemplate the meaning of life, we are thinking on the plane of action, of practical decisions and choices we have to make. No matter what the metaphysicians say about free will, we have to experience the world as one with choices and dilemmas and we have to resolve them as beings able to think them through and make decisions" - Julian Baggini

"All organizations depend on the existence of shared meanings and interpretations of reality, which facilitate coordinated action." - Warren Bennis, fully Warren Gamaliel Bennis

"Think that day lost whose descending sun views from thy hand no noble action done." - Jacob Bobart the Younger

"Inaction in a deed of mercy becomes an action in a deadly sin." - Book of Golden Precepts, aka The Book of Golden Precepts NULL

"Saturate yourself with your subject and the camera will all but take you by the hand." - Margaret Bourke-White