Action is character.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Trust should be the basis for all our moral training.

For how many things, which for our own sake we should never do, do we perform for the sake of our friends.

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.

Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.

The right man is the one who seizes the moment.

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

I’m more of an adventurous type than a relationship type.

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

One can know a man from his laugh, and if you like a man’s laugh before you know anything of him, you may confidently say that he is a good man.

Some men have a necessity to be mean, as if they were exercising a faculty which they had to partially neglect since early childhood.

In my experience, many people confuse being cowardly with being nice.

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

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.

One of the amazing things about ‚Seven Samurai‘ is that there are a lot of characters. And considering you have so many, and they all have shaved heads, and you’ve got good guys and bad guys and peasants, you get to understand a lot of them without too much being said.

Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.

I’ve always been very happy. I’ve always been easy going and I’ve always been very encouraging; it’s just my personality.

With every word we utter, with every action we take, we know our kids are watching us. We as parents are their most important role models.

It is perfectly possible to live a very moral life without a belief in God, and I think it’s perfectly possible to live a life peppered with ill-doing and believe in God.

I think Pat Robertson is a terrific fellow.

Funny is the world I live in. You’re funny, I’m interested. You’re not funny, I’m not interested.

Why does your mind conform? Have you ever asked? Are you aware that you are conforming to a pattern? It doesn’t matter what that pattern is, whether you have established a pattern for yourself or it has been established for you.

When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.

Not having hope is not an excuse for not doing something.

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

You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.

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

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.

Often people display a curious respect for a man drunk, rather like the respect of simple races for the insane… There is something awe-inspiring in one who has lost all inhibitions.

To learn something but not to do is really not to learn. To know something but not to do is really not to know.

I have a heart of gold, but I’m really a marshmallow in my heart.

The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.

I notice that my characters go out to dinner and have fun and take these great trips, but I spend so much time on their lives, I don’t have much of a personal life of my own. I have to sort of remember to fill out that little notebook on me.

I like to think my dad was easygoing and kind, and I think some of those things have been passed down. I am like him in a sense of being positive and hopeful. He was compassionate, and I’ve got a lot of that in me as well.

History is present in all my novels. And whether I am directly talking about the sociological moment or just immersing my character in the environment, I am very aware of it.

It’s better to be good than evil, but one achieves goodness at a terrific cost.

There are some people, you know, they think the way to be a big man is to shout and stomp and raise hell-and then nothing ever really happens. I’m not like that I never shoot blanks.

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.

It’s not about charisma and personality, it’s about results and products and those very bedrock things that are why people at Apple and outside of Apple are getting more excited about the company and what Apple stands for and what its potential is to contribute to the industry.

Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to propriety.

When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn’t a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.

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.

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.

When new turns of behavior cease to appear in the life of the individual, its behavior ceases to be intelligent.

Many people would be surprised that, in fact, I’m quite shy.

I want to make a good, solid kung fu movie.

The essence of Richard Nixon is loneliness.

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.

Technique is really personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the pupil cannot learn it, and why the aesthetic critic can understand it.

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‘.

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.

Character isn’t something you were born with and can’t change, like your fingerprints. It’s something you weren’t born with and must take responsibility for forming.

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

No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.

Whatever you have, you must either use or lose.

Emotion creates reality, reality demands action.

Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity successful men act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it becomes a reality. Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly, and you will be amazed at the positive results.

Well done is better than well said.

Really, I have to laugh because there was a whole set of stories that made me sound like the Dragon Lady, you know, ‚tough this and tough that.‘ Then there is this business about ‚gooey.‘ The bottom line is I am a pragmatic idealist.