When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.

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

The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.

It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.

Commitment is an act, not a word.

Oh the nerves, the nerves; the mysteries of this machine called man! Oh the little that unhinges it, poor creatures that we are!

To sit back hoping that someday, some way, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last – but eat you he will.

Effective action is always unjust.

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.

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

In that film, the man and the part met. As far as I’m concerned, that part is Greg’s for life. I’ve had many, many offers to turn it into musicals, into TV or stage plays, but I’ve always refused.

A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune’s inequality exhibits under this sun.

To see the right and not to do it is cowardice.

We must not sit still and look for miracles; up and doing, and the Lord will be with thee. Prayer and pains, through faith in Christ Jesus, will do anything.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

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.

Nearly everything you do is of no importance, but it is important that you do it.

I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.

Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution.

Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.

When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck to crush him.

Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.

How can one preach goodness and love to men without at the same time offering them an interpretation of the World that justifies this goodness and this love?

Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.

Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives preaching of a new gospel.

We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.

How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.

You can tell the tree by the fruit it bears. You see it through what the organization is delivering as far as a concrete program. If the tree’s fruit sours or grows brackish, then the time has come to chop it down – bury it and walk over it and plant new seeds.

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

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.

The only thing I’m afraid of is bees. I don’t like bees. I’m allergic to them.

Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it’s no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing.

Man can be understood only by ascending from physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. In other words, he is first of all a cosmic problem.

I love us so incredibly, insanely deeply; it’s almost unbearable to see what we do to ourselves.

Danger is sauce for prayers.

Like getting into a bleeding competition with a blood bank.

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.

Beauty is the greatest seducer of man.

All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.

Man, unlike anything organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments.

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

Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.

Scientists have to have a metaphor. All scientists start with imagination.

Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

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

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.

A man does not have to be an angel in order to be saint.

Men shut their doors against a setting sun.

When I have an idea, I turn down the flame, as if it were a little alcohol stove, as low as it will go. Then it explodes and that is my idea.

A man is the whole encyclopedia of facts.

Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong – these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.

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

I believe that some of us who were kept by God a long while before we found Him love Him better perhaps than we should have done if we had received Him directly, and we can preach better to others – we can speak more of His loving-kindness and tender mercy.

In this big ball of people, I’m just one grain of sand on this beach.

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

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.

The only fundamental and possible socialism is the socialisation of the selective breeding of man.

Preaching is the expression of the moral sentiment in application to the duties of life.

When I walk with you I feel as if I had a flower in my buttonhole.

Non-violence requires a double faith, faith in God and also faith in man.