In this life of ours we remain directed toward the relative utopia of a better world, and sensibly this can be the only model for our action.
We can most easily fulfill our desires when our actions are motivated by love. We expand the least effort, and we offer no resistance. We tap into the infinite organizing power of the universe to do less and accomplish everything.
If we don’t want to define ourselves by things as superficial as our appearances, we’re stuck with the revolting alternative of being judged by our actions.
If at times our actions seem to make life difficult for others, it is only because history has made life difficult for us all.
Principles are natural laws that are external to us and that ultimately control the consequences of our actions. Values are internal and subjective and represent that which we feel strongest about in guiding our behavior.
Our actions are the ground we walk on.
As human beings, we are always torn between individual freedom and the ability of choose our actions, and the need for at least enough social structure so that anarchy, chaos, and warlordery - or the war of all against all - can be avoided.
We can benefit others through our actions by being warm and generous toward them, by being charitable, and by helping those in need.
There is another component that makes us who we are. It is a fantasy comprising all of our actions and thoughts. It’s called an opinion. And we will die for our opinion
ROSS You must have patience, madam. LADY MACDUFF He had none: His flight was madness: when our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors.
Our intentions tend to be much more real to us than our actions, and this can lead to a great deal of misunderstanding with other people, to whom our actions tend to be much more real than our intentions.
God bestows more consideration on the purity of the intention with which our actions are performed than on the actions themselves.
Genes are not simple triggers. No one is hardwired to commit murder or any other crime. Our actions are always the result of stupendously complex gene-environment interactions, and environment is likely to remain the more important influence by far.
The future is very much in our hands--in our actions.
When our actions create discord in another person, we, ourselves, in this lifetime or another, will feel that discord. Likewise, if our actions create harmony and empowerment in another, we also come to feel that harmony and empowerment.
Sometimes we have to do a thing in order to find out the reason for it. Sometimes our actions are questions, not answers.
We are free to choose our actions,. . . but we are not free to choose the consequences of these actions.
We are masters of our actions from the beginning up to the very end. But, in the case of our habits, we are only masters of their commencement - each particular little increase being as imperceptible as in the case of bodily infirmities. But yet our habits are voluntary, in that it was once in our power to adopt or not to adopt such or such a course of conduct.
A republic - if you can keep it - is about limitation, and for good reason, because we are mortal and our actions are imperfect.
In Zen we study the will. We learn how to cultivate it, to accumulate will. We use it to direct our actions, and we don't overuse it or abuse it - that's a waste.