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Action Quotes by Thomas Nagel
- I conceive ethics as a branch of psychology.
- equally real at all stages of his life; specifically, the fact that a particular stage is present cannot be regarded as conferring on it any…
- To look for a single general theory of how to decide the right thing to do is like looking for a single theory of how…
- A theory of motivation is defective if it renders intelligible behaviour which is not intelligible.
- A person may be greedy, envious, cowardly, cold, ungenerous, unkind, vain, or conceited, but behave perfectly by a monumental act of the will.
- The inclusion of consequences in the conception of what we have done is an acknowledgement that we are parts of the world, but the paradoxical…
- Once we see an aspect of what we or someone else does as something that happens, we lose our grip on the idea that it…
- The external view [of agency] forces itself on us at the same time that we resist it. One way this occurs is through the gradual…
- Common sense doesn't have the last word in ethics or anywhere else, but it has, as J. L. Austin said about ordinary language, the first…
More Action Quotes
- Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom. — Hannah Arendt
- Revolutionaries do not make revolutions. The revolutionaries are those who know when power is lying in the street and then they can… — Hannah Arendt
- Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think. — Hannah Arendt
- Action without a name, a who attached to it, is meaningless. — Hannah Arendt
- All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire. — Aristotle
- Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave… — Aristotle
- Well begun is half done. — Aristotle
- A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude. A whole is what… — Aristotle
- Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last. — Aristotle
- We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action. — Aristotle
- Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason… — Aristotle
- What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue… — Aristotle