Ralph Waldo Emerson Action Quotations

Men's actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.

Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words.

Your actions speak so loud, I can't hear what you say.

The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action. Only so much do I know, as I have lived. Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life, and whose not.

The gentleman is a man of truth, lord of his own actions, and expressing that lordship in his behavior, not in any manner dependent and servile either on persons, or opinions, or possessions.

An action is the perfection and publication of thought. A right action seems to fill the eye, and to be related to all nature.

The measure of action is the sentiment from which it proceeds. The greatest action may easily be one of the most private circumstance.

As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action.

The action of the soul is oftener in that which is felt and left unsaid than in that which is said in any conversation. It broods over every society, and men unconsciously seek for it in each other.

All good conversation, manners, and action come from a spontaneity which forgets usages and makes the moment great.

Every noble activity makes room for itself.

A man's action is only a poicture book of his creed.

The end of being is to know; and if you say, the end of knowledge is action,-why, yes, but the end of that action again, is knowledge.

Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing.

Convert life into truth.

Every natural action is graceful.

An action is the perfection and publication of thought.

Thought is the seed of action.

Good thoughts are no better than good dreams if you don't follow through.

Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it, he is not yet man. Without it, thought can never ripen into truth.

The society of the energetic class, in their friendly and festive meetings, is full of courage, and of attempts, which intimidatethe pale scholar.

Prudence is the virtue of the senses. It is the science of appearances. It is the outmost action of the inward life.

The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action passed, by, as a loss of power.

The ancestor of every action is thought; when we understand that we begin to comprehend that our world is governed by thought and that everything without had its counterpart originally within the mind.

Our spontaneous action is always the best. You cannot, with your best deliberation and heed, come so close to any question as your spontaneous glance shall bring you.

Of course, he who has put forth his total strength in fit actions, has the richest return of wisdom.

Why should we be cowed by the name of Action?.

The world is full of judgment-days, and into every assembly that a man enters, in every action he attempts, he is gauged and stamped.

Man's actions are the picture book of his creeds.

Every action has an ancestor of a thought.

Action is the process whereby what is not fully formed passes into expressive consciousness.

The masses have no habit of self-reliance or original action.

Do not believe that possibly you can escape the reward of your action.

The highest proof of civility is that the whole public action of the State is directed on securing the greatest good of the greatest number.

History is the action and reaction of these two, nature and thought.

We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it.

Do not say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders, so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

Real action is in silent moments.