A wrong decision isn't forever; it can be reversed. The losses from a delayed decision are forever; they can never be retrieved - JK Galbraith
Across the globe, people are formally and informally building alliances and partnerships to affect social change. The number of NGOs in the world has exploded by 40% in the last few years. People with a passion for social and environmental good are finding each other, and are coming together in global and local network organisations that signal an important evolution in the way people work - Anon
Across the globe, people are uniting in a common struggle: to participate freely in the events and processes that shape their lives - Mahbub ul Haq, Human Development Report 2013
Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all - Norman Vincent Peale {1898-1993 Pastor, Speaker & Author}
Activism is our rent for being on the planet. The new entrepreneur is a social-change agent more than a businessperson: making a difference is more important than making a fortune - Anita Roddick
After all is said and done, more is said than done - Anon
All higher motives, ideals, conceptions, sentiments in a man are of no account if they do not come forward to strengthen him for the better discharge of the duties which devolve upon him in the ordinary affairs of life - Henry Ward Beecher (U.S. clergyman, 1813-1887)
All worthwhile men have good thoughts, good ideas and good intentions, but precious few of them ever translate those into action - John Hancock Field
Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it - Robert Heinlein
An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory - Friedrich Engels
As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which he cannot apply will make no man wise - Samuel Johnson
Bad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely contented with the life he is living, when there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger - Phillips Brooks
Be the change you want to see in the world - Gandhi
Beating AIDS and extreme, stupid poverty, this is our moon shot. This is our civil rights struggle, our anti-apartheid movement. This is what the history books will remember our generation for - or blame us for, if we fail - Bono, Time, 07/11/05
Being an intermediary offers more hope than trying to dominate others, or fighting to have one's merits recognised. Dropping out is not the only alternative to the rat race - Theodore Zeldin, Intimate History of Humanity, p154
Boast not of what thou would'st have done, but do - John Milton
But our anger is our essential and elemental fire. It is our power to say “No! Stop! Enough!” Without it, we are defenceless. With it, we are empowered. How we use it is up to us - Ian Siddons Heginworth http://resurgencetrust.blogspot.com/2011/01/january.html
Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favourable do nothing - William Faulkner (1897-1962), American writer, "The Sound and the Fury"
Countless beings, I vow to help cross the ocean of existence. Eternal Suffering, I vow to end. Innumerable spiritual methods, I vow to study and comprehend. Awakening to Truth, I vow to realise - Bodhisattva Vow
Days without a walk don't seem to start right - Charles Handy, The Elephant and the Flea, p21
Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you - Thomas Jefferson
Don’t think about things, just do them; don’t predict them, just make them - Ray Bradbury http://j.mp/QisCQw
Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive - Howard Thurman
First man: sometimes I'd like to ask God why he allows poverty, famine and injustice to continue when he could do something about it. Second man: what's stopping you ? First man: I'm afraid he might ask me the same question - Anon
Have a bias toward action - let's see something happen now. You can break that big plan into small steps and take the first step right away - Indira Gandhi
Hidden wisdom is no good. Every wise person must publish their wisdom through speaking, writing, action, story telling at every stage of their life - Robert Muller
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live - Henry David Thoreau
I am against protesting....but I don't how to show it - Steven Wright
I am privileged...by the completely kaleidoscopic experience of living in a developing country, and by the daily opportunity to contribute to minimising the disparity between how the world is and how i wish it could be - Courtney Hempton http://thelifeyoucansave.blogspot.com/2010/05/sharing-skills-changing-lives.html
I believe that there never was a creator of a philosophical system who did not confess at the end of his life that he had wasted his time. It must be admitted that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men that the inventors of syllogisms. He who imagined a ship towers considerably above him who imagined innate ideas - Voltaire
I do not want to talk about what you understand about this world. I want to know what you will do about it. I do not want to know what you hope. I want to know what you will work for. I do not want your sympathy for the needs of humanity. I want your muscle - Robert Fulghum
If one is too attached to the world, desperately wishing to “change” it, one suffers. If one is too detached, and gives up action, it is of no use. One becomes too reclusive or self-serving. The trick is to act, but be unattached to the result of action. Enjoy performing the action itself, but let go if the result is not according to your expectation - Chaitanya http://howtosavetheworld.ca/2010/07/06/living-in-our-own-worlds/
If you can't feed 100 people, then feed just one - Mother Teresa
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them - Henry David Thoreau
If you think you are too small to make a difference, you have never been in bed with a mosquito! - Anita Roddick
It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive. It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children - http://my.charityfocus.org/login/
It is always easier to fight for one's principles than live up to them - Alfred Adler Austrian psychologist
It is no use waiting for politicians to save us - remember politicians are not leaders they are followers, they follow the electorate. We all have to take a lead ourselves and take action - Neil Croft, Authentic Business, February 2006
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again;who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy course; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat - Theodore Roosevelt
It's easy to wallow in the dark, to be cynical. It's a brave choice to be happy. It's taking a stand.
It's the little things citizens do. That's what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees - Wangari Maathai
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do - Goethe
Let the refining and improving of your own life keep you so busy that you have little time to criticise others - H. Jackson Brown
Make the most of today. Translate your good intentions into actual deeds - Grenville Kleiser
Man is born to live, not to prepare for life - Boris Pasternak in Doctor Zhivago
Many a false step was made by standing still - Fortune Cookie
Men are alike in their promises. It is only in their deeds that they differ - Moliere
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, indeed it's the only thing that ever does - Margaret Mead
No more prizes now for forecasting the rain; only prizes for building the Ark - Don Beck
Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A H Weiler
Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living - Mother Jones
Rather than curse the darkness, light a candle - Anonymous
Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable - Sydney J. Harris
So completely has a whole year passed, with scarcely the fruits of a month – O Sorrow & Shame! I have done nothing - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Talking is not doing - African tribe Igbo
That is the secret. Start right now - Sister Chän Khöng
The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river - Ross Perot
The aid is never fast enough for the armchair aid workers sipping their lattes - Steve Matthews, World Vision, Time magazine p11, 08/02/10
The day will happen whether or not you get up - John Ciardi
The four cardinal virtues; courage (andreia), moderation (sophrosyne), wisdom (sophia) & justice (diksiosyne) are ordered by practical wisdom, realised by interaction within the world, the capacity for knowledge in action - Dave Snowden, KM Australia 2009 presentation
The great end of knowledge, is not knowledge, but action - Thomas Henry Huxley
The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts...half owing to the numbers who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs - George Eliot, Middlemarch
The knowledge of the world is only to be found in the world and not in a closet - Lord Chesterfield, 1694-1773
The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story and writes another, and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it - James Barrie
The main dangers in this life are the people who want to change everything - or nothing - Nancy Astor
The million green and social grassroots organisations that work as a planetary immune system to battle injustice and pollution - the biggest movement in the history of humankind that has come just in time - Ode Magazine
The story begins only when the book closes - Marshall McLuhan
The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation...the hand is the cutting edge of the mind - Jacob Bronowski
The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it - Albert Einstein
The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it - Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969), American religious leader
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root - Henry David Thoreau http://bit.ly/fcDm5p
There are people who want to be everywhere at once, and they get nowhere - Carl Sandburg
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 Fitzgerald Kennedy
There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: One is pushing down, the other is pulling up - Booker T. Washington
There is no choice but for me to resign from my current life of comfort, and to embark on a life that will hopefully be of some use to someone other than myself - Zaid Al-ali, October 2004 http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-2-114-2143.jsp
This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning on - Charles Dickens
Thoughts lead on to purposes, purposes go forth in action, actions form habits, habits decide character, and character fixes our destiny - Tyron Edwards
To improve the world...one must not hold aloof, but participate in the mainstream...become a marginal integrated into society - Theodore Zeldin, Intimate History of Humanity, p132
To unify global brands for goodwill is both powerful and humbling. I have always seen brilliance in simplicity - and RED perfectly defines this - Giorgio Armani
Traveller, there is no path. Paths are made by walking - Antonio Machado
Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite. Or waiting around for Friday night or waiting perhaps for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil or a better break or a string of pearls or a pair of pants or a wig with curls or another chance. Everyone is just waiting. - Dr. Seuss
We are always getting ready to live, but never living - Ralph Waldo Emerson
We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is its urgency, 'here and now' without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point-blank - Jose Ortega y Gasset
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
We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them - Abigail Adams (1744-1818), American first lady, author
What radicals should be doing right now is studying and thinking. You need to put in your ten years at the library, the way Marx did. You need to be figuring out what makes human beings tick and what, if any, direction is to be found in history. And I don’t mean some half-assed sci-fi anarcho-Gaia nonsense you cobbled together before you dropped out of Bard; I mean serious study, working toward an alternative to a global bourgeois democracy. What radicals need most right now isn’t action but theory - Thomas de Zengotita
When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion - Charles Percy Snow
Why not create...a World Agency of Volunteer Non-working People? This would reveal and enhance job openings. All retired people and people rich enough not to work should be members of them - Robert Muller
Why, said the Dodo, the best way to explain it is to do it - Alice in Wonderland
Words and speeches are dwarfs; examples are giants - Swiss Proverb
Words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is reality. Harold Geneen, former CEO ITT
Yesterday's the past and tomorrow's the future. Today is a gift - which is why they call it the present - Bill Keane+A3155
You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips - Oliver Goldsmith
You must go to the market to know what business is like at the market - African tribe Oromo
We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim - Elie Wiesel
Compassion is not just feeling with someone, but seeking to change the situation. Frequently people think compassion and love are merely sentimental. No! They are very demanding. If you are going to be compassionate, be prepared for action - Desmond Tutu
Compassion is the radicalism of our time - Dalai Lama
In every community there is work to be done. In every nation there are wounds to heal. In every heart there is power to do it - Marianne Williamson
Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral - Kahlil Gibran
As we express our gratitude, we must remember that the highest form of appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them - John F. Kennedy
Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle - Benjamin Franklin
Socrates informs Glaucon that the most excellent must learn the greatest of all studies, which is to behold the Good. Those who have ascended to this highest level, however, must not remain there but must return to the cave and dwell with the prisoners, sharing in their labours and honours - http://www.meetup.com/The-Belgium-Harmony-Remedy-Meetup-Group/events/217026832/?gj=wc1d.2_e&a=wc1d.2_gnl&rv=wc1d.2_e
What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured - Kurt Vonnegut
I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance - Reuben Blades
Take a deep breath, leap out of the cage that society and those around you have constructed for you, and do amazing, beautiful, and wild things with your life. Leadership is a massive privilege, and our fractured world needs every single one of us to do our very best – we must not squander the chance to make change – Audette Exel
The world is in perpetual motion, and we must invent the things of tomorrow… act with audacity - Madame Clicquot
Do I dare? disturb the universe? ?In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse - T.S. Lewis
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter - Martin Luther King
Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not that one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one’s ideas, to take a calculated risk – and to act - André Malraux
Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world – Howard Zinn