Quotes about Action

Faith...needs to be matched with action. Belief is not just brain cells in motion. It demands a response. Do we do what we believe? If we believe in a seed, we plant it.

Absolutism, in both religious and political realism, is a splendid incentive to heroic action, but a dangerous guide in immediate and concrete situations.

Meditation puts reason in its authority and preeminence. It helpeth to deliver it form its captivity to the sense, and setteth it again upon the throne of the soul. When reason is silent, it is usually subject; for when it is asleep the senses domineer. . . . Reason is at the strongest when it is most in action. Now, meditation produceth reason into act (573).

God does not need to provide any resources for what you are not doing.

How you do life is your real and final truth, not what ideas you believe.

We do not think ourselves into a new way of living. We live ourselves into new ways of thinking.

We do not think ourselves into new ways of living. We live ourselves into new ways of thinking.

We don't think ourselves into a new way of living. We live ourselves into a new way of thinking.

The opposite of contemplation is not action, it is reaction.

Jesus' story of the two sons, one who said all the right words, but never acted on these words, and the other who said the wrong words, but in fact "went to work in the vineyard." Jesus said that the person who finally acts and engages "does the Father's will," even if he is a tax collector or she a prostitute and does not have the right "belief system" (Matthew 21:28—32).

But which should come first, grace or responsibility? The answer is that both come first. All we can do is get out of the way and then the soul takes its natural course.

We don't think ourselves into new ways of living. We live ourselves into new ways of thinking.