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Action Quotes

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Action Quotes

“The present relationship existing between husband and wife, where one claims a command over the actions of the other, is nothing more than a remnant of the old leaven of slavery. It is necessarily destructive of refined love; for how can a man continue to regard as his type of the ideal a being whom he has, be denying an equality of privilege with himself, degraded to something below himself?”

MenActionMarriageWifeTypeHusbandIdealsClaimsRegardSlaveryPrivilegeCommandDestructiveHusband And WifeRefinedRemnants
Book:An Autobiography: By Herbert Spencer
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“Unlike private enterprise which quickly modifies its actions to meet emergencies - unlike the shopkeeper who promptly finds the wherewith to satisfy a sudden demand - unlike the railway company which doubles its trains to carry a special influx of passengers; the law-made instrumentality lumbers on under all varieties of circumstances at its habitual rate. By its very nature it is fitted only for average requirements, and inevitably fails under unusual requirements.”

MadeActionLawCompanyFailingSpecialCircumstancesDemandTrainRateAverageVarietyEnterpriseUnusualRequirementsEmergenciesPassengersHabitualRailwayPrivate EnterpriseLumberShopkeepers
Book:Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative
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“As there must be moderation in other things, so there must be moderation in self-criticism. Perpetual contemplation of our own actions produces a morbid consciousness, quite unlike that normal consciousness accompanying right actions spontaneously done; and from a state of unstable equilibrium long maintained by effort, there is apt to be a fall towards stable equilibrium, in which the primitive nature reasserts itself. Retrogression rather than progression may hence result.”

MayLongSelfStatesDoneActionFallResultsEffortConsciousnessProduceNormalCriticismContemplationStablePerpetualPrimitiveModerationProgressionEquilibriumUnstableMorbidRight ActionSelf Criticism
Author:Herbert Spencer
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“There are few who would need advisers, if they were only accustomed to appeal to themselves in their calmest, holiest moments. If, when embarrassed with doubt as to any course of action, they would turn aside from the immediate tumult of the world, and from the vain speaking of those who "darken counsel by words without knowledge;" and would then commune with their hearts alone, at night, the heavens their silent counsellors, they would act not always in accordance with the wise men of this world, but with that wisdom which bringeth peace.”

IfsMenWorldNeedsHeartMomentsWisdomActionNightTurnsCoursesHeavenDoubtWiseThis WorldSilentAppealsVainEmbarrassedAccustomedAdviserCommunesTumultCounsellors
Book:Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
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“There is no action of man in this life that is not the beginning of so long a chain of consequences as no human providence is high enough to give a man a prospect in the end. And in this chain, there are linked together both pleasing and unpleasing events in such manner as he that will do anything for his pleasure must engage himself to suffer all the pains annexed to it.”

MenGivingHumansLongEndsEnoughActionPainTogetherSufferingPleasureEventsConsequenceChainsThis LifeProvidenceLinked
Book:The Essential Leviathan: A Modernized Edition
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“Good and Evil are names that signify our appetites and aversions, which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different: And diverse men differ not only in their judgment, on the senses of what is pleasant and unpleasant to the taste, smell, hearing, touch, and sight, but also of what is conformable, or disagreeable to Reason, in the actions of the common life. Nay, the same man, in diverse times, differs from himself, and one time praiseth, that is, calleth Good, what another time he dispraiseth, and calleth Evil.”

MenDifferentReasonActionEvilNamesCommonTasteJudgmentSightHearingSmellSensesDoctrinePleasantGood And EvilCustomsAppetiteOne TimeTemperDiverseDisagreeableAversionAnother TimeCommon Life
Author:Thomas Hobbes
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“The statement of ideas in a poem may have to do with logic. More profoundly, it may be identified with the emotional progression of the poem, in terms of the music and images, so that the poem is alive throughout. Another, more fundamental statement in poetry, is made through the images themselves those declarations, evocative, exact, and musical, which move through time and are the actions of a poem.”

MayMadeIdeasActionMovingTermAliveEmotionalLogicFundamentalsMusicalStatementsPoetry IsDeclarationProgressionRough Times
Author:Muriel Rukeyser
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“Law, in its most general and comprehensive sense, signifies a rule of action; and is applied indiscriminately to all kinds of action, whether animate, or inanimate, rational or irrational. Thus we say, the laws of motion, of gravitation, of optics, or mechanics, as well as the laws of nature and of nations. And it is that rule of action, which is prescribed by some superior, and which the inferior is bound to obey.”

WellsKindActionLawNationsBoundsSuperiorsRationalAll KindsInferiorsIrrationalMechanicLaws Of NatureComprehensiveGravitationOpticsLaws Of Motion
Book:Commentaries on the Laws of England
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“We must face the bitter fact that we have forsaken our great dream of a life of, for, and by the people; that the burning passions and ideals of the American dream lie congealed by cold cynicism. Great parts of the masses of our people no longer believe that they have a voice or a hand in shaping the destiny of this nation. They have not forsaken democracy because of any desire or positive action of their own; they have been driven down into the depths of a great despair born of frustration, hopelessness, and apathy. A democracy lacking in popular participation dies of paralysis.”

PeopleBelieveHas BeensFactsDreamHandsActionAmericaFacesLyingDesireDiesPassionNationsVoiceBornDestinyDemocracyColdDespairMassIdealsDepthDrivenBitterBurningFrustrationApathyCynicismAmerican DreamLackingParticipationHopelessnessParalysisForsakenBurning Passion
Author:Saul Alinsky
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“Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason.”

ReasonActionPassionMoralProduceParticularMoralityConclusion
Book:A Treatise on Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning Into Moral Subjects; and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
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“Although a person acting under authority performs actions that seem to violate standards of conscience, it would not be true to say that he loses his moral sense. Instead, it acquires a radically different focus. He does not respond with a moral sentiment to the actions he performs. Rather, his moral concern now shifts to a consideration of how well he is living up to the expectations that the authority has of him.”

WellsPersonsDoeDifferentSeemsActionLosesActingMoralFocusAuthorityStandardsExpectationsConscienceConcernBeing TrueAcquireConsiderationSentiments
Author:Stanley Milgram
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“The distribution of troops devoted to the defence of a place includes a garrison, an occupying force, numerically as weak as possible; a reserve as strong as possible, designed for counterattacking and for providing itself, at the moment it goes into action, with a security service which will guard it from any possible surprise.”

MomentsActionStrongForceSecurityWeakSurpriseDevotedProvidingTroopsReservesDistributionDefence
Book:The Principles of War
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“The white population could not possibly be unaffected by those events - some whites more stubborn in their defense of segregation, but others beginning to think in different ways. And the black population was transformed, having risen up in mass action for the first time, feeling its power, knowing now that if the old order could be shaken it could be toppled.”

IfsThinkingWayFirstsDifferentFeelingsActionOrderBlackWhiteKnowingEventsMassFirst TimePopulationDefenseDifferent WaysTransformedStubbornSegregationRisen
Author:Howard Zinn
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“Not only did waging war against Hitler fail to save the Jews, it may be that the war itself brought on the Final Solution of genocide. This is not to remove the responsibility from Hitler and the Nazis, but there is much evidence that Germany's anti-Semitic actions, cruel as they were, would not have turned to mass murder were it not for the psychic distortions of war, acting on already distorted minds. Hitler's early aim was forced emigration, not extermination, but the frenzy of it created an atmosphere in which the policy turned to genocide.”

MindMayWarActionActingResponsibilityFailingPolicyMassSolutionsEvidenceMurderAimFinalsJewAtmosphereGermanyRemoveGenocideNaziPsychicsDistortionFrenzyExterminationAnti SemiticEmigrationWaging War
Book:The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy
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“In conscious life, we achieve some sense of ourselves as reasonably unified, coherent selves, and without this action would be impossible. But all this is merely at the 'imaginary' level of the ego, which is no more than the tip of the iceberg of the human subject known to psychoanalysis. The ego is function or effect of a subject which is always dispersed, never identical with itself, strung out along the chains of the discourses which constitute it.”

HumansSelfWould BeActionLevelsKnownImpossibleAchieveSubjectsEffectsEgoConsciousFunctionChainsImaginaryDiscourseIdenticalPsychoanalysisUnifiedIcebergTip Of The Iceberg
Book:Literary Theory: An Introduction
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