Men Of Action Quotes

We are men of action. Lies do not become us.
Westley ~ William Goldman

Men of action usually win - that is one of their distinctive features. ~ Napoleon Hill

In my mind at that time, at 14, the men who were successful were Stallone and Schwarzenegger and guys like that - Harrison Ford - who were these men of action. I was like, "Okay, they're successful, they're not getting evicted, they built their bodies - I'm gonna go build my body." It was like that. ~ Dwayne Johnson

War is an evil thing; but to submit to the dictation of other states is worse ... Freedom, if we hold fast to it, will ultimately restore our losses, but submission will mean permanent loss of all that we value ... To you who call yourselves men of peace, I say: You are not safe unless you have men of action on your side. ~ Thucydides

Thinkers too often disparage men of action in ways that do them no credit. ~ Michael Ignatieff

Though it were proved that there was never an Aryan race in the past, yet we desire that in the future there may be one. This is the decisive standpoint for men of action. ~ Houston Stewart Chamberlain

You know the direct, legitimate fruit of consciousness is inertia, that is, conscious sitting-with-the-hands-folded. I have referred to this already. I repeat, I repeat with emphasis: all "direct" persons and men of action are active just because they are stupid and limited. How explain that? I will tell you: ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

It is a singular fact that most men of action incline to the theory of fatalism, while the greater part of men of thought believe in providence. ~ Honore De Balzac

Few men of action have been able to make a graceful exit at the appropriate time. ~ Malcolm Muggeridge

I'm a long way from being evicted [at the age of 14], but I'll never forget it. I'll never forget the feeling. I'll never forget my mom crying and I'll never forget the thought I had: 'Well the only thing I can do is just go build my body,' because the men who were successful that I knew of - Stallone, Arnold, Bruce Willis - they were men of action. ~ Dwayne Johnson

I repeat, I repeat with emphasis: all "direct" persons and men of action are active just because they are stupid and limited. How explain that? I will tell you: in consequence of their limitation they take immediate and secondary causes for primary ones, and in that way persuade themselves more quickly and easily than other people do that they have found an infallible foundation for their activity, and their minds are at ease and you know that is the chief thing. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Until the men of action clear out the talkers we who have social consciences are at the mercy of those who have none. ~ George Bernard Shaw

The successful men of action are not sufficiently self-observant to know exactly on what their success depends. ~ Joseph Jacobs

Men of action must be led by men of virtue, else there is no honor, merely chaos and barbarism. ~ Curtis Craddock

Here is nature once more at her old game of self-preservation. This train of thought, she perceives, is threatening mere waste of energy, even some collision with reality, for who will ever be able to lift a finger against Whitaker's Table of Precedency? The Archbishop of Canterbury is followed by the Lord High Chancellor; the Lord High Chancellor is followed by the Archbishop of York. Everybody follows somebody, such is the philosophy of Whitaker; and the great thing is to know who follows whom. Whitaker knows, and let that, so Nature counsels, comfort you, instead of enraging you; and if you can't be comforted, if you must shatter this hour of peace, think of the mark on the wall. 11
I understand Nature's game - her prompting to take action as a way of ending any thought that threatens to excite or to pain. Hence, I suppose, comes our slight contempt for men of action - men, we assume, who don't think. Still, there's no harm in putting a full stop to one's disagreeable thoughts by looking at a mark on the wall. ~ Virginia Woolf

Success doesn't come to procrastinators, but only to men of action ~ Topsy Gift

Napoleon, the greatest of the conquerors, is a sufficient proof that great men of action are criminals, and therefore, not geniuses. One can understand him by thinking of the tremendous intensity with which he tried to escape from himself. There is this element in all the conquerors, great or small. Just because he had great gifts, greater than those of any emperor before him, he had greater difficulty in stifling the disapproving voice within him. The motive of his ambition was the craving to stifle his better self. ~ Otto Weininger

Was it a doubt - a fear - a wandering uncertainty seeking rest, but finding none - so tear-blinded were its eyes - Mr. Thornton, instead of being shocked, seemed to have through that very stage of thought himself, and could suggest where the exact ray of light was to be found, which should make the dark places plain. Man of action as he was, busy in the world's great battle, there was a deeper religion binding him to God in his heart, in spite of his strong willfulness, through all his mistakes, than Mr. Hale ever dreamed. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

Men of action," whose minds are too busy with the day's work to see beyond it. They are essential men, we cannot do without them, and yet we must not allow all our vision to be bound by the limitations of "men of action. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Dreamers are half-way men of thought, and men of thought are half-way men of action. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

ACT as men of thought; THINK as men of action. ~ Henri Bergson

Another time, twice, in fact, I tried hard to be in love. I suffered, too, gentlemen, I assure you. In the depth of my heart there was no faith in my suffering, only a faint stir of mockery, but yet I did suffer, and in the real, orthodox way; I was jealous, beside myself... and it was all from ENNUI, gentlemen, all from ENNUI; inertia overcame me. You know the direct, legitimate fruit of consciousness is inertia, that is, conscious sitting-with-the-hands-folded. I have referred to this already. I repeat, I repeat with emphasis: all 'direct' persons and men of action are active just because they are stupid and limited. How explain that? I will tell you: in consequence of their limitation they take immediate and secondary causes for primary ones, and in that way persuade themselves more quickly and easily than other people do that they have found an infallible foundation for their activity, and their minds are at ease and you know that is the chief thing. To begin to act, you know, you must first have your mind completely at ease and no trace of doubt left in it. Why, how am I, for example, to set my mind at rest? Where are the primary causes on which I amto build? Where are my foundations? Where am I to get them from? I exercise myself in reflection, and consequently with me every primary cause at once draws after itself another still more primary, and so on to infinity. That is just the essence of every sort of consciousness and
reflection. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

All "direct" persons and men of action are active just because they are stupid and limited. How explain that? I will tell you: in consequence of their limitation they take immediate and secondary causes for primary ones, and in that way persuade themselves more quickly and easily than other people do ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Men of ideas and men of action have much to learn from each other, and the truly great are men of both action and abstraction. ~ Jack Donovan

I do not in general have the impression that sexual abstinence helps produce energetic, independent men of action or original thinkers, bold liberators and reformers. Far more often it produces well-behaved weaklings who later merge into the great mass of those who habitually, if reluctantly, follow the lead given by strong individuals. ~ Sigmund Freud

I don't believe in luck. Luck comes to men of action. ~ Tom Platz

There are big men, men of intellect, intellectual men, men of talent and men of action; but the great man is difficult to find, and it needs
apart from discernment
a certain greatness to find him. ~ Margot Asquith

Poets and men of action differ: the former yield to their feelings in order to reproduce them in lively colors, and therefore judge only ex post facto; the latter feel and judge at one and the same time. ~ Honore De Balzac

Generally among intelligent people are found nothing but paralytics and among men of action nothing but fools. ~ Andre Gide

Exasperation with the threefold frustration of action
the unpredictability of its outcome, the irreversibility of the process, and the anonymity of its authors
is almost as old as recorded history. It has always been a great temptation, for men of action no less than for men of thought, to find a substitute for action in the hope that the realm of human affairs may escape the haphazardness and moral irresponsibility inherent in a plurality of agents. ~ Hannah Arendt

Everything about them is blighted, dead. Feelings flake off & fall in dust. The senses, vitrified, can no longer experience pleasure; they crack at the least provocation. Each of us, within, was as if devoured by conflagration, & our hearts were no more than a pinch of ashes. Our souls were laid waste. For a long time now we had believed in nothing, not even nothingness. The nihilists of 1880 were a sect of mystics, dreamers, the routineers of universal happiness. We, of course, were poles apart from these credulous fools & their vaporous theories. We were men of action, technicians, specialists, the pioneers of a modern generation dedicated to death, the preachers of world revolution, the precursors of universal destruction, realists, realists. And there is no reality. What then? Destroy to rebuild or destroy to destroy? Neither the one nor the other. Angels or devils? No. You must excuse my smile: we were automats, pure & simple. We ran on like an idling machine until we were exhausted, pointlessly pointlessly, like life, like death, like a dream. Not even adversity had any charm for us. ~ Blaise Cendrars

Men of action are favored by the Goddess of luck. ~ George S. Clason

Great men of action ... never mind on occasion being ridiculous; in a sense it is part of their job, and at times they all are. ~ Oswald Mosley

No single man makes history. History cannot be seen, just as one cannot see grass growing. Wars and revolutions, kings and Robespierres, are history's organic agents, its yeast. But revolutions are made by fanatical men of action with one-track mind, geniuses in their ability to confine themselves to a limited field. They overturn the old order in a few hours or days, the whole upheaval takes a few weeks or at most years, but the fanatical spirit that inspired the upheavals is worshiped for decades thereafter, for centuries. ~ Boris Pasternak

All men of action are dreamers. ~ James Huneker

Men of action, above all those whose actions are guided by love, live forever. ~ Jose Marti

Mark this well, you proud men of action: You are nothing but the unwitting agents of the men of thought who often, in quiet self-effacement, mark out most exactly all your doings in advance. ~ Heinrich Heine

A movement is pioneered by men of words, materialized by fanatics and consolidated by men of action. ~ Eric Hoffer

By the end of that first day, the advance landing forces at Gallipoli had already suffered nearly four thousand casualties, or considerably more than the total number of men Lawrence had projected would be needed to secure Alexandretta. ~ Scott Anderson

What is it about Islam, I thought, that can make a woman so strong that she no longer strives to be noticed by men, no longer needs the admiring gaze to feel attractive, no longer puts herself on display when the rest of the world is doing just that? ~ Na'ima B. Robert

The action of giving is in a certain vibratory level, meaning giving exists in a certain plane of consciousness. ~ Frederick Lenz

This is not our fight', the old man said. 'British or American, that is not the choice. You must choose your own side, find your road through the valley of darkness that will lead you to the river Jordan ... Look hard for your river Jordan, my child. You'll find it. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson

Enthusiasm, being the infirmity of bold and ambitious tempers, is naturally accompanied with a spirit of liberty; as superstition,on the contrary, renders men tame and abject, and fits them for slavery. ~ David Hume

We have consistently supported a legalization program which is both generous to the alien and fair to the countless thousands of people throughout the world who seek legally to come to America. The legalization provisions in this act will go far to improve the lives of a class of individuals who now must hide in the shadows, without access to many of the benefits of a free and open society. Very soon many of these men and women will be able to step into the sunlight and, ultimately, if they choose, they may become Americans. ~ Ronald Reagan

There is a magnificent intensity in life that comes when we are not in control but are only reacting, living, surviving. I am not a religious man per se ... but for me, to go to sea is to get a glimpse of the face of God. At sea I am reminded of my insignificance-of all men's insignificance. It is a wonderful feeling to be so humbled. ~ Steven Callahan

I also believe that man's continued domestication (if you care to use that silly euphemism) of dogs is motivated by fear: fear that dogs, left to evolve on their own, would, in fact, develop thumbs and smaller tongues, and therefore would be superior to men, who are slow and cumbersome, standing erect as they do. This is why dogs must live under the constant supervision of people ... From what Denny has told me about the government and its inner workings, it is my belief that this despicable plan was hatched in a back room of none other than the White House, probably by an evil adviser to a president of questionable moral and intellectual fortitude, and probably with the correct assessment - unfortunately, made from a position of paranoia rather than of spiritual insight - that all dogs are progressively inclined regarding social issues. ~ Garth Stein

We've become a nation of con men, living by selling double glazing to each other. ~ Fred Dibnah

Nothing is more condemnable than selfishness. A man who thinks of himself alone is the most unlucky person of all. ~ Anand Neelakantan

Ethan, but I'm certainly not the type of woman to just go home with two men whether I know them or not. It would be highly inappropriate, not to mention stupid."
"And you're not stupid."
"Not as far as I can tell" ... ~ MK McClintock

The true enemy of man is generalization. ~ Czeslaw Milosz

He has to know what she's saying is too good to be true. Good Lord, if this were the kindest way to break u with a woman, that would be the greatest thing that ever happened to men. Maybe she should write an advice book for men, one that tells them everything they want to hear, as opposed to all those books for women, which tell them to be the opposite of what they are, no matter what that is. ~ Laura Lippman

If she is pleasing to one man, a girl is taken care of. ~ Propertius

I am a German nationalist, that means I am openly committed to my Volkstrum. All of my thoughts and actions belong to it. I am a socialist. I see before me no class or rank, but rather a community of people who are connected by blood, united by language, and subject to the same collective fate. ~ Adolf Hitler

It would seem that men always need some idiotic fiction in the name of which they can hate one another. Once it was religion. Now it is the State. ~ Albert Einstein

She could not rise. But there she lay content. The scent of the bog myrtle and the meadow-sweet was in her nostrils. The rooks' hoarse laughter was in her ears. "I have found my mate," she murmured. "It is the moor. I am nature's bride," she whispered, giving herself in rapture to the cold embraces of the grass as she lay folded in her cloak in the hollow by the pool. "Here I will lie. (A feather fell upon her brow.) I have found a greener laurel than the bay. My forehead will be cool always. These are wild birds' feathers - the owls, the nightjars. I shall dream wild dreams. My hands shall wear no wedding ring," she continued, slipping it from her finger. "The roots shall twine about them. Ah!" she sighed, pressing her head luxuriously on its spongy pillow, "I have sought happiness through many ages and not found it; fame and missed it' love and not known it; life - and behold, death is better. I have known many men and many women," she continued; "none have I understood. It is better that I should lie at peace here with only the sky above me - as the gipsy told me years ago. ~ Virginia Woolf

Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship. ~ Aristotle.

Assumptions that racism is more oppressive to black men than black women, then and now ... based on acceptance of patriarchal notions of masculinity. ~ Bell Hooks

Priesthood is the means whereby the Lord acts through men to save souls. One of the defining features of the Church of Jesus Christ, both anciently and today, is His authority. There can be no true Church without divine authority. ~ David A. Bednar

The response of the men who were introduced into polygamy between 1841 and 1846 was anything but enthusiastic. The same was true of the women who were offered the chance of becoming plural wives. Apart from the fact that the new system collided with moral assumptions they had grown up with, there were practical difficulties that made polygamy less attractive. For the men to support additional wives was seldom easy. ~ Leonard J. Arrington

The same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful in society, had that society been well organized. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft

I have seen without perceiving I have been another man Let me pierce the realm of glamour So I know just what I am. ~ Van Morrison

A man renowned for repartee will seldom scruple to make free with friendship's finest feeling, will thrust a dagger at your breast, and say he wounded you in jest, by way of balm for healing. ~ William Cowper

Once California belonged to Mexico and its land to Mexicans; and a horde of tattered feverish Americans poured in. And such was their hunger for land that they took the land, stole Sutter's land, Guerrero' s land, took the grants and broke them up and growled and quarreled over them, those frantic hungry men; and they guarded with guns the land they had stolen. They put up houses and barns, they turned the earth and planted crops. And these things were possession, and possession was ownership.
The Mexicans were weak and fed. They could not resist, because they wanted nothing in the world as frantically as the Americans wanted land. ~ John Steinbeck

It is not necessarily those lands which are the most fertile or most favored in climate that seem to me the happiest, but those in which a long struggle of adaptation between man and his environment has brought out the best qualities of both. ~ T. S. Eliot

If a woman goes out with different men on different days, women only will question her character and call her all sort of names. ~ Esha Gupta

Any physical action, properly studied and practiced, could no doubt be accomplished with a reasonable amount of skill, if not flair. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

The import is not the kind of work woman does, but rather the quality of the work she furnishes. She can give suffrage or the ballot no new quality, nor can she receive anything from it that will enhance her own quality. Her development, her freedom, her independence, must come from and through herself. First, by asserting herself as a personality, and not as a sex commodity. Second, by refusing the right to anyone over her body; by refusing to bear children, unless she wants them; by refusing to be a servant to God, the State, society, the husband, the family, etc., by making her life simpler, but deeper and richer. That is, by trying to learn the meaning and substance of life in all its complexities, by freeing herself from the fear of public opinion and public condemnation. Only that, and not the ballot, will set woman free, will maker her a force hitherto unknown in the world, a force for real love, for peace, for harmony; a force of divine fire, of life-giving; a creator of free men and women.

from Woman Suffrage- 1910 ~ Emma Goldman

The good Education of Youth has been esteemed by wise Men in all Ages, as the surest Foundation of the Happiness both of private Families and of Common-wealths. Almost all Governments have therefore made it a principal Object of their Attention, to establish and endow with proper Revenues, such Seminaries of Learning, as might supply the succeeding Age with Men qualified to serve the Publick with Honour to themselves, and to their Country. ~ Benjamin Franklin