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Virtue is not to be considered in the
light of mere innocence,
or abstaining from harm; but as the exertion of
our faculties
in doing good.
Joseph Butler |
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Too many times we stand aside
And let the waters slip away
'Til what we put off for tomorrow
Has now become today
So don't you sit upon the shoreline
And say you're satisfied
Choose to chance the rapids
And dare to dance the tide. . . .
And there's bound to be rough waters
And I know I'll take some falls
But with the good Lord as my captain
I can make it through them all
Victoria Shaw, Garth Brooks |
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John Milton
I cannot praise a fugitive
and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out
and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where the immortal garland
is to be run for, not without dust and heat.
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It
is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that
human
history is shaped.
Each time a person stands up for
an ideal or strikes out
against injustice, he or she sends forth
a tiny ripple of hope,
and crossing each other from a million
different centers of energy
and daring those ripples build
a current which can sweep down the
mightiest walls
of oppression and resistance.
Robert F. Kennedy |
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One hour of life, crowded
to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole
years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through
existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honour or
observation.
Sir
Walter Scott |
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| Ari Kiev
Parents impose their own limited concepts
on their children, often ignoring
their temperaments, special needs, and
abilities. Your parents and teachers
may have mistakenly ignored your strengths
or may not have encouraged you
to develop them. You can discover your basic
capacities by experimenting
with things that you always wanted to do. Don't
be discouraged by notions
that seem "silly" or "foolish" or "not you." Do
it! Who knows what will happen?
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The fishermen know
that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found
these dangers
sufficient reason for remaining ashore.
Vincent van Gogh |
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Few are they who have never
had a chance to achieve happiness--
and fewer those who have taken that
chance.
Andre Maurois |
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If one is forever cautious,
can one remain a human being?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn |
If you're never scared or embarrassed
or hurt, it means you never take any chances.
Julia Sorel |
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Accept that all of us
can be hurt, that all of us can--
and surely will at times--fail. Other
vulnerabilities,
like being embarrassed or risking love, can be terrifying,
too.
I think we should follow a simple rule:
if we can take the worst, take
the risk.
Joyce Brothers |
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Risk! Risk anything! . . . Do the hardest
thing on earth for you.
Act for yourself. Face the truth.
Katherine Mansfield |
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We can do no great
things;
only small things with great love.
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Mother
Teresa
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I've been very blessed in life because I've never been
afraid to take action. Often it turns out poorly or painfully and I have
to deal with consequences, but I would much prefer to deal with those than
to sit around doing nothing. Passivity has been around forever, but it seems
to have become much more predominant in a culture in which we expect to be
entertained and informed by the mass media and actors and athletes, fed by
restaurants and an ever-increasing amount of ready-to-serve, microwaveable
meals, served by the people who run stores and want our return business.
We're fortunate to live in the United States, one of the few countries in
the world where taking a risk is valued, but if we're going to get anything
out of life, we have to be among those who take the risks, not those who
watch others do so. I can truly say that the positive aspects of who I am
have come about because I've been willing to take risks and be hurt, while
those negative parts of me are still there because I'm afraid to face them,
and I'd rather be passive than act to change them.
I meet many people who seem to be unwilling or unable to take
action, no matter how unpleasant their current situation. They're
completely dissatisfied with the way things are, yet they're unwilling to
do anything to change their situations. Most of them are unwilling
to risk their "security," for their incomes are more important
to them than their quality of life. Yet we hear over and over again
that if we're truly to get what we want out of life, we have to take
action. We have to do something, and we can't do it halfway--we must
take the risk.
It's somewhat ironic that many people who refuse to act are
forced into positions in which they must act, either by layoffs, the death
or departure of a spouse, or other changes. Usually, these people
get by quite well, and many of them actually thrive, for they're finally
in a position in which they have to depend upon themselves, in which they
have to act, to be assertive in getting what they want out of life.
They have to act, and they have to act today--it's a position most people
don't want to find themselves in, but in which many people find
themselves--find out who they are and what they're capable of.
Longfellow said it well: "Act, act in the living
present." Right now is all we have, isn't it? And we
can't sit around waiting for life to happen to us--I learned long
ago that that is not the way things work. Actions give us
results to work with, and actions.
tdw |
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Conditions are never
just right. People who delay action
until all factors are favorable
do nothing.
William Feather |
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There are risks and costs to
a program of action. But they are far less
than the long-range risks
and costs of comfortable inaction.
John F.
Kennedy |
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To
know what has to be done, then do it,
comprises the whole philosophy of practical life.
Sir
William Osler |
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The person who will not execute
his or her resolutions when they are
fresh upon him or her can have no hope from them
afterwards;
they will be dissipated, lost and perish in the hurry and
scurry of the world,
or sunk in the slough of indolence.
Marie
Edgeworth |
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The wise person does at once
what the fool
does finally.
Baltasar Gracian |
Action is the
antidote to despair.
Joan Baez |
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There
is only one proof
of ability: action.
Marie
von Ebner-Eschenbach |
Everything
comes to those
who hustle while they wait.
Thomas Alva
Edison |
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When you're
frightened don't sit still, keep on doing something.
The act of
doing will give you back your courage.
Grace
Ogot |
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It
will never rain roses: when we want
to have more roses we must plant more trees.
George
Eliot |
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Life begets life.
Energy creates energy.
It is by spending oneself that one becomes
rich.
Sarah Bernhardt |
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Life was not given
for indolent contemplation and study of self,
nor for brooding over
emotions of piety:
Actions and actions only determine the worth.
Immanuel Fichte |
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I shall pass through
this world but once. If therefore
there can be any kindness I can
show, or any good thing
I can do, let me do it now; let me not defer or
neglect it.
Etienne de Grellet |
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| Speak little; do
much. Well done is better than well said.
Benjamin
Franklin |
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In the
performance of a good action, we not only benefit ourselves,
but we confer
a blessing upon others.
Philip Sydney |
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No one
knows what they can do until they try. |
While
we stop to think,
we often miss our opportunity. |
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Publilius
Syrus |
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Forget about likes and
dislikes.
They are of no consequence.
Just do what must be
done.
This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.
George Bernard Shaw |
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We have to understand
that the world can only be grasped
by action, not by contemplation.
The hand is more important
than the eye. . . . The hand is the
cutting edge of the mind.
Jacob
Bronowski |
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If
our conscience tells us that we ought to perform a particular act,
it is our moral duty to perform it.
Frederick
Copleston |
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Every
person feels instinctively that all
the beautiful sentiments in the
world
weigh less than a single lovely action.
James
Russell Lowell |
Origen
It
is in our power to stretch out our arms
and, by doing good in our
actions,
to seize life and set it in our soul. |
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| My
view is that to sit back and let fate play its hand out and never
influence it is not the way people were meant to operate.
John
Glenn
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judge you by your actions, not your intentions.
You may have a heart of
gold, but so has a hard-boiled egg.
Good Reading
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We
are responsible for what we are, and we wish ourselves to be,
we have the power to make ourselves.
If what we are now has been the result of our past actions,
it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be
produced
by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.
Swami
Vivekananda |
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I
think there is something more important than believing:
Action!
The world is full of dreamers, but there aren't enough who
will
move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize
their vision.
W. Clement
Stone |
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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 wondering about yourself.”
Katherine
Hepburn |
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