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

It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful: they are found because it was possible to find them.

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

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

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.

Freedom is something that dies unless it’s used.

Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.

The original reason to start the project, which was that the Germans were a danger, started me off on a process of action, which was to try to develop this first system at Princeton and then at Los Alamos, to try to make the bomb work.

The chief condition on which, life, health and vigor depend on, is action. It is by action that an organism develops its faculties, increases its energy, and attains the fulfillment of its destiny.

War is just when it is necessary; arms are permissible when there is no hope except in arms.

Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.

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.

You see, idealism detached from action is just a dream. But idealism allied with pragmatism, with rolling up your sleeves and making the world bend a bit, is very exciting. It’s very real. It’s very strong.

Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.

Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting. And you don’t do that by sitting around.

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

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

Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.

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

The action we take and the decisions we make in this decade will have consequences far into this century. If America shows weakness and uncertainty, the world will drift toward tragedy. That will not happen on my watch.

Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.

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.

Action is character.

When all is said and done, more is said than done.

When a country has the skill and self-confidence to take action against its biggest problems, it makes outsiders eager to be a part of it.

Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong.

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing.

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

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.

Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness; on the confines of the two everlasting empires, necessity and free will.

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

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

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

Whatever you have, you must either use or lose.

Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk.

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

Meditation is not to avoid society; it is to look deep to have the kind of insight you need to take action. To think that it is just to sit down and enjoy the calm and peace, is wrong.

Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

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.

No sooner said than done – so acts your man of worth.

The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.

One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment… If it doesn’t turn out right, we can modify it as we go along.

Action expresses priorities.

Act, and God will act.

I just felt that if I went into Speed 2, I just… wouldn’t have come up out of the water.

I believe enlightenment or revelation comes in daily life. I look for joy, the peace of action. You need action. I’d have stopped writing years ago if it were for the money.

Emotion creates reality, reality demands action.

The purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced – the just demands of peace and security will be met – or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power.

To hard necessity ones will and fancy must conform.

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.

It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren’t doing.

All action takes place, so to speak, in a kind of twilight, which like a fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are.

The most effective way to do it, is to do it.

We must act out passion before we can feel it.

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

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

Action is the real measure of intelligence.

Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies. Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder.

Well done is better than well said.