When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves he isn't a man of action.
Interpretation
Evaluating the nature of action indicates a lack of genuine commitment to taking action.
This quote by Georges Clemenceau suggests that overthinking or questioning the essence of action may signify a person's hesitation or incapacity to act. A true man of action simply takes initiative rather than getting caught up in theoretical discussions about it.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming procrastination.
Monet's garden must be included with his works, because he combined the magic of an adaptation of nature with the work of a painter of light. An extension of the studio into the openair, with color tones lavishly spread out on all sides to exercise the eye with seductive vibrations, from which a feverishly aroused retina expects unquenchable joy.
I don't know whether war is an interlude during peace, or peace is an interlude during war.
A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he's not a man of action. It is as if a tennis player before returning a ball stopped to think about his views of the physical and mental advantages of tennis. You must act as you breathe.
America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.
War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.
A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he's not a man of action. You must act as you breathe.
Without our fully realizing it, flowers would become for us an expression in form of that which is most high, most sacred, and ultimately formless within ourselves. Flowers, more fleeting, more ethereal, and more delicate than the plants out of which they emerged, would become like messengers from another realm, like a bridge between the world of physical forms and the formless.
In retrospect, all these exercises in self-gratification seem pure fantasy, what Pascal called, licking the earth.
Laws are not masters but servants, and he rules them who obey them.
Isn't it the sweetest mockery to mock our enemies?
With regard to the learned professions, little need be observed; they truly form no distinct interest in society . . . [discussing the landed, merchant, and learned classes in legislative assembly]. Will not the man of the learned profession, who will feel a neutrality to the rivalships between the different branches of industry, be likely to prove an impartial arbiter between them, ready to promote either, so far as it shall appear to him conducive to the general interests of society?
My mother said I broke her heart...but it was my integrity that was important. Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it's all we have left in this place. It is the very last inch of us...but within that inch we are free.
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