A categorical imperative would be one which represented an action as objectively necessary in itself, without reference to any other purpose.

I want to use my position of leadership to help move along at a faster pace what I believe and know the Obama administration wants to do around the urgency of climate change.

Action is character.

What you don’t do can be a destructive force.

What I’m asking for is hard. It’s easier to be cynical; to accept that change isn’t possible, and politics is hopeless, and to believe that our voices and actions don’t matter. But if we give up now, then we forsake a better future.

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.

Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow.

I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act.

To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger.

A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude. A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end.

Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.

All fiction is about people, unless it’s about rabbits pretending to be people. It’s all essentially characters in action, which means characters moving through time and changes taking place, and that’s what we call ‚the plot‘.

Both the man of science and the man of action live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it.

This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in.

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

It’s so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see one.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.

The sons of Judah have to choose that God may again choose them. The divine principle of our race is action, choice, resolved memory.

What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.

We have entered an age in which education is not just a luxury permitting some men an advantage over others. It has become a necessity without which a person is defenseless in this complex, industrialized society. We have truly entered the century of the educated man.

Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.

Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.

Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.

The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.

Narrative is linear, but action has breadth and depth as well as height and is solid.

Life was always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act.

Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life – in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.

When you go to an oasis, you go there to supply yourself with the vital things you are missing, things that you need.

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.

Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.

To hard necessity ones will and fancy must conform.

Commitment is an act, not a word.

Talk that does not end in any kind of action is better suppressed altogether.

You can’t try to do things; you simply must do them.

We give speeches and pin ribbons onto uniforms, etch names into walls. And all that is fine, but too often, all those tributes, all those words aren’t always backed up by action. And that felt like such a stark contrast to me, because, as we all know, our military is all about action.

I never worry about action, but only inaction.

The sadness of the women’s movement is that they don’t allow the necessity of love. See, I don’t personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed.

Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.

Man needs his difficulties because they are necessary to enjoy success.

Omnipotence is not knowing how everything is done; it’s just doing it.

Action is no less necessary than thought to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame.

Action is the real measure of intelligence.

So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.

You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion.

Emotion creates reality, reality demands action.

When you have enough understanding and compassion in you, then that amount of understanding and compassion will try to express itself in action. And your practice should help you to cultivate more understanding and compassion.

I know so many people who feel hopeless, and they ask me, ‚What should I do?‘ And I say: ‚Act. Do something.‘ Because that is the best medicine against sadness and depression.

The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.

It is a no-fail, incontrovertible reality: If you get, give. If you learn, teach. You can’t do anything with that except do it.

The right man is the one who seizes the moment.

Once we start to act, hope is everywhere. So instead of looking for hope, look for action. Then, and only then, hope will come.

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done!

Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do.

We are not going to be satisfied by politicians saying ‚we support you‘ and then walking away. We won’t be satisfied until they meet our demands and act. That’s why simply taking a selfie or posting support on Twitter isn’t enough. That’s why we have to keep striking.

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.

People who think too much before they act don’t act too much.

We must act out passion before we can feel it.

Men’s actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.