Inaction Quotes

it is always easier to do nothing than to try a new line of action.

The fearful are caught as often as the bold.

You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results.

And then alas! I let the matter reset, watching and waiting only, as we have too often done.

If you do nothing there will be no results

The only people who aren't going to be criticized are those who do absolutely nothing

Most people aren't really happy, but they aren't unhappy enough to do anything about it. That's a dangerous place to be.

To sit home, read one's favorite paper, and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. It is what evil men count upon the good men's doing.

The individual (no matter how well-meaning he might be, no matter how much strength he might have, if only he would use it) does not have the passion to rip himself away from either the coils of Reflection or the seductive ambiguities of Reflection; nor do the surroundings and times have any events or passions, but rather provide a negative setting of a habit of reflection, which plays with some illusory project only to betray him in the end with a way out: it shows him that the most clever thing to do is nothing at all.

The SILENCE of the good people is more DANGEROUS than the BRUTALITY of the bad people

Inactivity strikes us as intelligent behavior.

I'm sick of all the reasonable people: they see all the reasons for doing nothing

Things omitted are often more deadly than errors committed.

A man sits as many risks as he runs.

How many have gone? How many more to go? The Admiralty is fast asleep and lethargy & inertia are the order of the day. However everybody seems delighted - so there is nothing to be said. No plans, no enterprise, no struggle to aid the general cause. Just sit still on the spacious throne and snooze.

When our actions do not, our fears make us traitors.

Two possibilities: making oneself infinitely small or being so. The second is perfection, that is to say, inactivity, the first is beginning, that is to say, action.

There are many people who live in what I call 'No-man's Land,' a place where you're not really happy, but you're not unhappy enough to do anything about it. That's a dangerous place. It's a place where people numb themselves to their dreams. It's where they dismiss hope and accept what's in front of them instead of driving toward what they really want in life.

Oh, if only I did nothing simply as a result of laziness.

It's not the violence of the few that scares me, it's the silence of the many

It is the cowish terror of his spirit that dares not undertake; he'll not feel wrongs which tie him to an answer.

Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.

Milk-livered man,That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerningThine honor from thy suffering; [that not know'stFools do those villains pity who are punishedEre they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum?France spreads his banners in our noiseless land,With plumed helm thy state begins to threat,Whilst thou, a moral fool, sits still and cries'Alack, why does he so?']

One way to avoid criticism is to do nothing and to be a nobody. The world will then not bother you.

Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.

The road to someday leads to a town of nowhere.

I have a soul of lead So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.

I have been long a sleeper; but I trustMy absence doth neglect no great designWhich by my presence might have been concluded.

The worst thing I can do is nothing.

You never realize what the aftereffect of your activities, however in the event that you don't do anything, obviously there will be no outcome.

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

The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.

Statistics have proven that the surest way to get anything out of the public mind and never hear of it again is to have a Senate committee appointed to look into it.

It is not open to the cool bystander . . . to set himself up as an impartial judge of events which would never have occurred had he outstretched a helping hand in time.

Perhaps the worst sin in life is knowing right and not doing it.

The government is responsible for the violence, as long as they don't stop it. And if we have to get violent to protect ourselves, then it's the government that should be charged with the crime, because we're only upholding a law that they've been unable to uphold.

I never worry about action, but only inaction.

We regret the things we don't do more than the things we do.

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.

Do it or don't do it - you will regret both.

The honest ratepayer and his healthy family have no doubt often mocked at the dome-like forehead of the philosopher, and laughed over the strange perspective of the landscape that lies beneath him. If they really knew who he was, they would tremble. For Chuang Tsǔ spent his life in preaching the great creed of Inaction, and in pointing out the uselessness of all things.

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.

When all is said and done, more is said than done.

Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything. Granted, granted I'm a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler, as we all are. But what's to be done if the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble--that is, a deliberate pouring from empty into void.

Perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything.

I know that we will be the sufferers if we let great wrongs occur without exerting ourselves to correct them.

A tardiness in nature,Which often leaves the history unspoke,That it intends to do.

Risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

Certainly, Lu. Whatever you like,' said Peter unexpectedly. This was encouraging, but as Peter instantly rolled round and went to sleep again it wasn't much use.

Just as iron rusts from disuse... even so does inaction spoil the intellect.

The greatest mistake a person can make is doing nothing.

A conservative is a man who just sits and thinks, mostly sits.

You never know where your actions will lead to. But if you don't do anything they will lead you nowhere.

A man does not sin by commission only, but often by omission.

The greatest of all mistakes is to do nothing because you think you can only do a little.

I will tell you, when 20 6-year-olds are gunned down and Congress literally does nothing, yeah that's the closest I came to feeling disgusted.

And now I am eking out my days in my corner, taunting myself with the bitter and entirely useless consolations that an intelligent man cannot seriously become anything; that only a fool can become something. Yes, sir, an intelligent nineteenth-century man must be, is morally bound to be, an essentially characterless creature; and a man of character, a man of action - an essentially limited creature. This is my conviction at the age of forty. I am forty now, and forty years - why, it is all of a lifetime, it is the deepest of old age. Living past forty is indecent, vulgar, immoral!

The man who knows when not to act is wise. To my mind bravery if forethought.

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

Obviously, there is little you can learn from doing nothing.