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

You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug, especially when its waving a razor sharp hunting knife in your eye.

Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed – chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones.

So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge.

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

It’s fun to be hopelessly in love. It’s dangerous, but it’s fun.

Considering their impact, you might expect mosquitoes to get more attention than they do. Sharks kill fewer than a dozen people every year, and in the U.S. they get a week dedicated to them on TV every year.

Justice is truth in action.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.

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

Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.

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.

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.

Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.

The United States and our allies are determined: we refuse to live in the shadow of this ultimate danger.

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.

Vulnerability is not weakness. And that myth is profoundly dangerous.

Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.

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

Talking isn’t doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.

No one knows who is listening, say nothing you would not wish put in the newspapers.

Danger is sauce for prayers.

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.

If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.

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.

I think that that’s the wisest thing – to prevent illness before we try to cure something.

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

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

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.

John F. Kennedy was the victim of the hate that was a part of our country. It is a disease that occupies the minds of the few but brings danger to the many.

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.

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.

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

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

Encouragement to all women is – let us try to offer help before we have to offer therapy. That is to say, let’s see if we can’t prevent being ill by trying to offer a love of prevention before illness.

I’ve learned people are watching, so don’t do nothing stupid.

Many people have been getting too casual about climbing Everest. I forecast a disaster many times.

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

I started in action, and then I went to comedy school.

Beware the tyranny of the weak. They just suck you dry.

It seems strange that bears, so fond of all sorts of flesh, running the risks of guns and fires and poison, should never attack men except in defense of their young. How easily and safely a bear could pick us up as we lie asleep! Only wolves and tigers seem to have learned to hunt man for food, and perhaps sharks and crocodiles.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.

It was because the chimps are so eye-catching, so like us and teach us so much that my work was recognised worldwide.

Man is only great when he acts from passion.

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

I’ve always seen first responders as unsung heroes and very special people because, when everyone else is running away from danger, they run into it.

To a profound pessimist about life, being in danger is not depressing.

I have warned many times about the guaranteed dangers of betting with your heart instead of your head – big darkness, soon come – but every once in a while you get a fair chance to have it both ways, and the annual NCAA basketball Tournament is one of them.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

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

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

There are no small accidents on this circuit.

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

Canada was built on dead beavers.

If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.

Never was anything great achieved without danger.

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.

Action is character.

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.