Exasperation with the threefold frustration of action — the unpredictability of its outcome, the irreversibility of the process, and the anonymity of its authors — is almost as old as recorded history. It has always been a great temptation, for men of action no less than for men of thought, to find a substitute for action in the hope that the realm of human affairs may escape the haphazardness and moral irresponsibility inherent in a plurality of agents.
actionquotes
Action, as distinguished from fabrication, is never possible in isolation; to be isolated is to be deprived of the capacity to act.
If a man had a little button sewn on the inner pocket of his coat ‘on principle’ his otherwise unimportant and quite serviceable action would become charged with importance – it is not improbable that it would result in the formation of a society.
action / importance / principle / society
Reflection is not the evil; but a reflective condition and the deadlock which it involves, by transforming the capacity for action into a means of escape from action, is both corrupt and dangerous, and leads in the end to a retrograde movement.
action / escape / Evil / reflection