Quotes about Action

Remember, to believe something is to act as if it is so. To believe that two plus two equals four is to behave accordingly when trying to find out how many dollars or apples are in the house. The advantage of believing it is not that we can pass tests in arithmetic; it is that we can deal much more successfully with reality. Just try dealing with it as if two plus two equaled six.

Works are simply a natural part of faith. James's statement is about the inherent nature of faith, about what makes it up. It concerns what believing something really amounts to. It is not an exhortation to prove that one has faith or to work to keep one's faith alive.

To say that "the righteous (or just) shall live by faith" does not mean that they live by blind and irresponsible leaps in total absence, or even in defiance, of knowledge. It does not mean that the "just" live in a state of ignorance or stupidity. They do on occasion act in specific ways beyond what they know, but only within a framework of knowledge that makes such action reasonable.

Belief cannot reliably govern life and action except in its proper connection with knowledge and with the truth and evidence knowledge involves.

You cannot choose conditions and reject the consequences. Even a "bill of rights" cannot change that.

We grow in our knowledge of God in the same way. We bring the reality of God into our lives by making contact with him through our minds, and our actions are based on the understanding that results from the fullness of that contact. There is nothing mysterious here. This is why the mind, and what we turn our minds to, is the key to our lives.

God will gladly give humility to us if, trusting and waiting on him to act, we refrain from pretending we are what we know we are not, from presuming a favorable position for ourselves and from pushing or trying to override the will of others.

We have a terrible time understanding love, because we confuse it with desire. Desire and love are two utterly different kinds of things. Not only is desire not love; it is often opposed to love. Right action is the act of love, regardless of the desires of anyone involved.

Do what you fear and fear disappears.

I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.

You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It won't happen automatically.

For all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice.