Inaction Quotes - Page 8

• When the worms are scarce, what does a hen do? Does she stop scratching? She does not. She scratches all the harder. A lot of businessmen have been showing less sense than a hen since orders became scarce. They have laid off salesmen; they have stopped or reduced their advertising; they have simply resigned themselves to inaction and, of course, to pessimism. If a hen knows enough to scratch all the harder when the worms are scarce, surely businessmen ... ought to have gumption enough to scratch all the harder for business.

  B. C. Forbes

  Perseverance, Order, Gumption

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• It is not necessary for a man to be actively bad in order to make a failure in life; simple inaction will accomplish it. Nature has everywhere written her protest against idleness; everything which ceases to struggle toward an ideal, the constant effort to get higher and further, which develops manhood and character.

  James Terry White

  Struggle, Character, Simple

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• Our volitional habits depend, then, first, on what the stock of ideas is which we have; and, second, on the habitual coupling of the several ideas with action or inaction respectively.

  William James

  Philosophy, Educational, Ideas

  William James, Robert D Richardson (2010). “The Heart of William James”, p.124, Harvard University Press

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• Action always beats inaction.

  T. Harv Eker

  Secret, Action, Beats

  FaceBook post by T. Harv Eker from Aug 04, 2010

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• The failures of the past must not be an excuse for the inaction of the present and the future.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Past, Civil Rights, Excuse

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• Inaction counted as a choice.

  Dean Koontz

  Choices

  Dean Koontz (2007). “Velocity: A Novel”, p.127, Bantam

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• If the politics of inaction and delay that have triumphed in this country continues for another decade, then Planetary Purgatory in the likely future facing our country before midcentury - probably in your own lifetime.

  Joseph J. Romm

  Country, Climate, Delay

  Joseph J. Romm (2007). “Hell and high water: global warming - the solution and the politics - and what we should do”, William Morrow & Co

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• Change quotes were meant to move us from inaction to action.

  Jon Jones

  Change, Moving, Action

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• It is wisdom to take occasional furlough. In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less. On, on, on for ever, without recreation may suit spirits emancipated from this 'heavy clay', but while we are in this tabernacle, we must every now and then cry halt, and serve the Lord by holy inaction and consecrated leisure. Let no tender conscience doubt the lawfulness of going out of harness for a while

  Charles Spurgeon

  Running, Long, Doubt

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• Not complete inaction, which is an error, a confusion, a self-delusion, an impossibility, but action full and
  free done without subjection to sense and passion, desireless and unattached works, are the first secret of perfection.

  Sri Aurobindo

  Passion, Errors, Self

  Sri Aurobindo (1995). “Essays on the Gita”, p.107, Lotus Press

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• The universe may be tenderly indifferent to our fate, but we shouldn’t be. We are our brothers’ keepers. There is right, and there is wrong. There are consequences to our actions or inactions. Disregard can be an act of violence.

  John Dufresne

  Brother, Fate, May

  John Dufresne (2014). “No Regrets, Coyote”, p.78, Serpent's Tail

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• Procrastination most often arises from a sense that there is too much to do, and hence no single aspect of the to-do worth doing. . . . Underneath this rather antic form of action-as-inaction is the much more unsettling question whether anything is worth doing at all.

  Mark Kingwell

  Procrastination, Too Much, Action

  "Later" by James Surowiecki, www.newyorker.com. October 11, 2010.

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• Life is insanely robust, though we can make species go extinct, and this is the bad thing. So I always make the point that you can't say, 'Is it too late?' That is the terrible question, because either answer promotes inaction. If it's too late, you don't need to act; if it's not too late, you don't need to act.

  Kim Stanley

  Needs, Too Late, Answers

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• Cynicism does not cause inaction.

  David Wong

  Doe, Causes, Cynicism

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• There is nothing more explosive than a skilled population condemned to inaction. Such a population is likely to become a hotbed of extremism and intolerance, and be receptive to any proselytizing ideology, however absurd and vicious, which promises vast action.

  Eric Hoffer

  Promise, Population, Action

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• No, I have no desire for riches. Honest poverty and a conscience, torpid through virtuous inaction, are more to me than corner lots and praise.

  Mark Twain

  Desire, Riches, Poverty

  Mark Twain (1994). “Tales, Speeches, Essays, and Sketches”, p.157, Penguin

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• A miscalculation is not negligence, nor prudence a crime. I am a scientist. I base my action or inaction upon probability and evidence. There is a reason we call science a discipline! Inferior minds bolt or build pyres to roast the witches in their midst!

  Rick Yancey

  Discipline, Mind, Action

  Rick Yancey (2010). “The Monstrumologist: The Terror Beneath”, p.203, Simon and Schuster

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• If you practice inaction, nothing will be left undone: For the way to acquire lordship over society is by invariably not interfering.

  Laozi

  Practice, Way, Action

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• The only thing between you and success is your thinking. Defeatist thoughts are the mother of inaction.

  Iimani David

  Mother, Thinking

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• The real test is not whether you avoid failure, because you won't. It's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it. . .

  Barack Obama

  Patience, Perseverance, Real

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• Action or inaction are both forms of leadership and standard setting.

  Seth Godin

  Action, Form, Standards

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• There are times when the most practical thing is to lie down.

  Saul Bellow

  Lying, Practicals, Practical Things

  Saul Bellow (2008). “Humboldt's Gift”, Penguin Classics

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• If an economy in the doldrums could drift indefinitely, the price of government inaction might be graver by far than the consequences of bold unorthodoxy.

  Robert Heilbroner

  Government, Might, Economy

  Robert L. Heilbroner (1986). “The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers”

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• Contentment is never the outcome of fulfillment, of achievement, or of the possession of things; it is not born of action or inaction. It comes with the fullness of what is, not in the alteration of it.

  Jiddu Krishnamurti

  Achievement, Contentment, Outcomes

  Jiddu Krishnamurti (2010). “Commentaries on Living”, p.250, M-y books ltd

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• We have to remind ourselves that we are not the transitory body, we are not the person who is having experiences, we are not affected by action or inaction.

  Frederick Lenz

  Yoga, Body, Action

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