Pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy it reproduces itself by crippling our willingness to act.

If you try and lose then it isn't your fault. But if you don't try and we lose, then it's all your fault.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.

Make voyages. Attempt them. There's nothing else.

But the only way never to do the wrong thing is never to do anything.

The breeding ground of fear is procrastination and inaction. We overcome them not by preparation, but by taking action.

Between the great things we cannot do and the little things we will not do, the danger is that we will do nothing.

Heaven ne'er helps the men who will not act.

When a man has not a good reason for doing a thing, he has one good reason for letting it alone.

One does evil enough when one does nothing good.

Your discovery, as best as I can determine, is that there is an alternative which no one has hit upon. It is that one finding oneself in one of life's critical situations need not after all respond in one of the traditional ways. No. One may simply default. Pass. Do as one pleases, shrug, turn on one's heel and leave. Exit. Why after all need one act humanly?

Activity may lead to evil; but inactivity cannot be led to good.

To do nothing is in every man's power.

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.

Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he could only do a little.

There are times when the most practical thing is to lie down.

When in doubt, do nothing.

Never do an act of which you doubt the justice or propriety.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.