Quotes, aphorisms and phrases about acting, or about the act of taking an action to do or try to achieve something concrete, rather than just doing nothing or just thinking about what to do without doing it.
Quotes about acting
- Those who have never made a mistake have never done anything. (Robert Baden Powell)
- Those who think too much never do anything. (Torquato Tasso)
- You don't need to see the whole staircase. Simply start climbing the first step. (Martin Luther King)
- First tell yourself who you want to be; then do everything accordingly. (Epictetus)
- I know and feel that doing good is the true happiness that the human heart can enjoy. (Jean Jacques Rousseau)
- Wisdom is imperative, because its purpose is to determine what should and should not be done. (Aristotle)
- Ask yourself continually: "What's the best thing to do?" (Confucius)
- Success seems to be connected with action. Successful men keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't stop. (Conrad Hilton)
- You have to do more than what you're paid for because that's where success is. (Jim Rohn)
- Make use of every minute; you will be less of a slave to the future if you take over the present. Between postponements and other life goes away. (Lucio Anneo Seneca)
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- You must always act, speak and think as if that moment was the last of your life. (Marco Aurelio)
- Faith that goes into action becomes love, and love that turns into action becomes service. (Mother Teresa of Calcutta)
- Feel satisfied with acting well, and let others talk about you as they please. (Pythagoras)
- Once you decide that it can and should be done, you just have to find a way. (Abraham Lincoln)
- Do not "let yourself live", but take your life in your hands and want to decide to make it an authentic and personal masterpiece! (Pope John Paul II)
- What you can do is just a drop in the ocean, but it is what gives meaning to your life. (Albert Schweitzer)
- Whichever direction you go, go with all your heart. (Confucius)
- Do something worth remembering. (Elvis Presley)
- True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, in writing what deserves to be read; and in living to make the world happier because we are living in it. (Pliny the Elder)
- All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion and desire. (Aristotle)
- If you want to make your life bigger, you must first make your thoughts bigger, about it and about yourself. (Orison Swett Marden)
- Whenever you don't follow your inner guide, you feel a loss of energy, a loss of power, a sense of spiritual death. (Shakti Gawain)
- The value of a man is measured by the facts. (Pindar)
- Large companies often arise from small opportunities. (Demosthenes)
- Every work of love, done wholeheartedly, always brings people closer to God. (Mother Teresa of Calcutta)
- Be great in gestures, as you have been in thought. (William Shakespeare)
- Not the nature that is unique for all, distinguishes the nobles from the ignoble, but the actions of each and his way of life. (Epicurus)
Aphorisms on acting
- Your own forces are learned only by experiencing them. (Seneca)
- Act in order to consider humanity, both in your person and in each other's person, always also as a purpose, and never as a simple means. (Immanuel Kant)
- Those who can, do; those who cannot criticize the decisions of those who can. (Stephen King)
- Do every action as if it were the last of your life. (Marco Aurelio)
- It is the activity that converts men's dreams into their reality. (Jim Rohn)
- You can't just sit back and wait for people to give you the golden dream; you have to go out and make it happen. (Diana Ross)
- You educate a lot with what you say, even more with what you do, much more with what you are. (Saint Ignatius Of Antioch)
- The best way to say is to do. (José Martì)
- Everyone is given his day. The time of life is short and inexorable for all, but virtue through actions can prolong it with fame. (Virgil)
- Do what's right, although the world may perish. (Immanuel Kant)
- We must always act to the best of our ability. This is our sacred human responsibility. (Albert Einstein)
- Love and do what you want. (St. Augustine)
- It is necessary to eliminate not only actions but also unnecessary thoughts, because in this way they will not keep unnecessary actions as an inevitable consequence. (Marco Aurelio)
- You are wrong if you estimate that a man of some value should take life and death into account. In his actions he must only consider whether what he does is right or unjust and whether he behaves like an honest or evil man. (Socrates)
- If you are stimulated by what you do, you will never get tired. (Nelson Mandela)
- Always throw your hook: in the pond where you least expect it you will find a fish. (Ovid)
- In the end, they won't ask you what you have learned, but what you have done. (Juan Gerson)
- For his happiness, man needs not only to rejoice in this or that, but in hope and resourcefulness and change. (Bertrand Russell)
- We must not do anything to please or dislike men, but only to God. (Mahatma Gandhi)
- Negative thoughts and actions produce negative results and conditions, as well as positive thoughts and actions produce positive results and conditions. (Dalai Lama)
- Take time to think; but when the right moment of action arrives: stop thinking and act. (Andrew Jackson)
- It will last what I have done, not what I have written. (Mahatma Gandhi)
- The wise immediately do what the fool does last. Both do the same thing; only at different times. (Lord Acton)
- Big things are often easier than you think. (Voltaire)
- It is better to light a small candle than to curse the darkness. (Confucius)
- Often nothing is achieved because nothing is attempted. (Jacques Deval)
- Life is measured by works and not by days. (Metastasio)
Phrases about acting
- Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and putting your thoughts into practice is the most difficult thing in the world. (Goethe)
- The need for security hinders any large and noble enterprise. (Publius Cornelius Tacitus)
- Whatever you do may not make any difference, but it is very important that you do it. (Mahatma Gandhi)
- Good is the action that does not cause any regret and whose fruit is welcomed with joy and serenity. (Buddha)
- Whoever wants to move the world, first move himself. (Socrates)
- Do something you don't like every day: this is the golden rule to get used to doing your homework effortlessly. (Mark Twain)
- Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible. And suddenly you will be surprised to do the impossible. (St. Francis of Assisi)
- A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but much more useful than a life spent doing nothing. (George Bernard Shaw)
- Not everyone can do great things, but we can do small things with great love. (Mother Teresa of Calcutta)
- Take time to reflect, but when the time has come to act, stop thinking and take the field. (Napoleon Bonaparte)
- Our lives begin to end the day we are silent in the face of the things that matter. (Martin Luther King)
- I used to say: "I really hope things will change". Then I learned that the only way for things to change for me is when I change them. (Jim Ron)
- Life is not made by desires but by the acts of each. (Paulo Coelho)
- Don't be sorry for what you couldn't do, regret only when you could and didn't want to. (Mao Tse Tung)
- Every day, what you choose, what you think and what you do is what you become. (Heraclitus)
- Don't let anyone tell you that what you want is unattainable ... If you have a dream, you have to defend it ... If you want something, go and take it. Point. (Will Smith)
- Now is not the time to think about what you don't have. Think about what you can do with what is there. (Ernest Hemingway)
- Whatever you do, the important thing is that you do it with your heart, and people will understand. (Billie Joe Armstrong)
- I always do what I can't do, to learn how it should be done. (Vincent Van Gogh)
- Whatever you can do, or dream of doing, you have to start doing it. Boldness carries genius, magic and strength. (Tony Buzan)
- Human dignity requires that his works are the result of his free choice, without any external coercion. (Pope Paul VI)
- It's always the right time to do what's right. (Martin Luther King)
- He who is wise never speaks of what he cannot turn into action. (Confucius)
- As long as I have something left to do, I won't have done anything. (Julius Caesar)
- Do what you need to fulfill your most ardent desire, and you will end up fulfilling it. (Beethoven)
- Today is only an ordinary day of all the days to come, but what you will do in all the days that come depends on what you do today. It has been so many times. (Ernest Hemingway)
- Our destiny is formed by our thoughts and actions. We can't change the wind but we can steer the sails. (Anthony Robbins)
- One of the greatest discoveries a man can make, one of his greatest surprises, is finding out that he can do what he was afraid of not being able to do. (Henry Ford)
