Quotes

Quotes about Action


Action based on reason, action therefore which is only to be understood by reason, knows only one end, the greatest pleasure of the acting individual.

Ludwig Von Mises

Reason and action are congeneric and homogenous, two aspects of the same phenomenon.

Ludwig Von Mises

It is impossible to describe any human action if one does not refer to the meaning the actor sees in the stimulus as well as in the end his response is aiming at.

Ludwig Von Mises

From the psychological point of view, the self-asserting emotions, derived from emergency reactions, involve a narrowing of consciousness; the participatory emotions an expansion of consciousness by identificatory processes of various kinds.

Arthur Koestler

In the world of reality, life, and human action there is no such thing as interests independent of ideas, preceding them temporarily and logically. What a man considers his interest is the result of his ideas.

Ludwig Von Mises

This is the constitutional limitation of man's knowledge and interests, the fact that he cannot know more than a tiny part of the whole of society and that therefore all that can enter into his motives are the immediate effects which his actions will have in the sphere he knows.

F.a. Hayek

Instinct is action taken in pursuance of a purpose, but without conscious perception of what the purpose is.

Van Hartmann

The first step in freeing yourself from social restrictions is the realization that there is no such thing as a "safe" code of conduct - one that would earn everyone's approval. Your actions can always be condemned by someone - for being too bold or too apathetic, for being too conformist or too nonconformist, for being too liberal or too conservative. So it's necessary to decide whose approval is important to you.

Harry Browne

Since the social victim has been oppressed by society, he comes to feel that his individual life will be improved more by changes in society than by his own initiative. Without realizing it, he makes society rather than himself the agent of change. The power he finds in his victimization may lead him to collective action against society, but it also encourages passivity within the sphere of his personal life.

Shelby Steele

By annihilating the desires, you annihilate the mind. Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.

Claud-adrian Helvetius

Blaming "society" makes it awfully easy for a person of weak character to shrug off his own responsibility for his actions.

Stanley Schmidt

Habits... the only reason they persist is that they are offering some satisfaction. You allow them to persist by not seeking any other, better form of satisfying the same needs. Every habit, good or bad, is acquired and learned in the same way—by finding that it is a means of satisfaction.

Juliene Berk

Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well. The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion- in the long run, these are the only people who count.

Robert Heinlein

The individual's most vital need is to prove his worth, and this usually means an insatiable hunger for action. For it is only the few who can acquire a sense of worth by developing and employing their capacities and talents. The majority prove their worth by keeping busy.

Eric Hoffer

Quite often in history action has been the echo of words. An era of talk was followed by an era of events. The new barbarism of the twentieth century is the echo of words bandied about by brilliant speakers and writers in the second half of the nineteenth.

Eric Hoffer

There is apparently some connection between dissatisfaction with oneself and proneness to credulity. The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious. The refusal to see ourselves as we are develops a distaste for facts and cold logic. There is no hope for the frustrated in the actual and the possible. Salvation can come to them only from the miraculous, which seeps through a crack in the iron wall of inexorable reality. They asked to be deceived.

Eric Hoffer

When watching men of power in action it must be always kept in mind that, whether they know it or not, their main purpose is the elimination or neutralization of the independent individual- the independent voter, consumer, worker, owner, thinker- and that every device they employ aims at turning men into a manipulable "animated instrument" which is Aristotle's definition of a slave.

Eric Hoffer

The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others.

Eric Hoffer

It is the acquisition of skills in particular, irrespective of their utility, that is potent in making life meaningful. Since man has no inborn skills, the survival of the species has depended on the ability to acquire and perfect skills. Hence the mastery of skills is a uniquely human activity and yields deep satisfaction.

Eric Hoffer

Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.

Henri Bergson

Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

Immanuel Kant

The supreme satisfaction is to be able to despise one's neighbor and this fact goes far to account for religious intolerance. It is evidently consoling to reflect that the people next door are headed for hell.

Aleister Crowley

If one of us could ascend to the heavenly realm and for a few hours accompany the divine on His daily rounds, he would see below millions of his fellow humans busily hurling themselves into the passions, sports, and action of those around him. But if our observer had the power and omniscience of the Lord, he would also feel and sense, pulsing through and vibrating from every one of us here below, a desperate and unending plea, "Notice me! I want to be known admired, and loved by the whole world!" And it is this, this glorious weakness, this dependence of ours on each other, that makes some of us usually heroes and fools at the same time.

Rev. Michael Burry

There is a lust in man no charm can tame: Of loudly publishing his neighbor's shame: On eagles wings immortal scandals fly, while virtuous actions are born and die.

William Harvey

In man's life, the absence of an essential component usually leads to the adoption of a substitute. The substitute is usually embraced with vehemence and extremism, for we have to convince ourselves that what we took as second choice is the best there ever was. Thus blind faith is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves; insatiable desire a substitute for hope; accumulation a substitute for growth; fervent hustling a substitute for purposeful action; and pride a substitute for an unattainable self-respect.

Eric Hoffer

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