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Someone told me once - I mean I said, "Is it ok that I don't really know what the three-act structure is?" And he said, "It's basically: Act 1: a guy climbs up a tree; Act 2: people come and throw stuff at him; Act 3: he gets down."
George SaundersRemember that you are an actor in a play, and that the Playwright chooses the manner of it: If he wants you to act a poor man you must act the part with all your powers; and so if your part be a cripple or a magistrate or a plain man. For your business is to act the character that is given you and act it well. The choice of the cast is Another's.
EpictetusIf I don't have to act, I'd rather not. I'd rather not act cold. I'd rather actually be cold. That's my weird way of acting. If the door is supposed to be locked, I'd rather have it locked. But of course, most of the time, we have to act, and that's okay, too.
Lea ThompsonI have felt for a long time that the pathway to solving the climate crisis is through the building of a massive grassroots army of men and women who will go out there and win the conversation on climate, and persuade businesses, and universities, and towns to switch to renewable energy and to reduce emissions. And the big change from ten years ago is that people are way more receptive, not only to the message that we have to act, not only to the message that now we can act, we have the solutions now - that's the biggest change - but also willing to make a commitment that we will act.
Al GoreMany say our world is at a tipping point. If we do not act together, if we do not act responsibly, if we do not act now, we risk slipping into a cycle of poverty, degradation, and despair.
Ban Ki-moonThe act of loving is an act of self-evolution even when the purpose of the act is someone else's growth.
M. Scott PeckA person who actually knows how to wear clothes...they would look good in any clothes. You see this especially at the Academy Awards. Even if the dresses are beautiful and expensive and important, the actresses can't always carry them. Sometimes I feel like saying to them, "Act! You know how to act, you're an actor. You're about to win an award for, I don't know, convincingly playing that Venezuelan nun who went to war. Now act like you can wear this dress.".
Fran LebowitzOne of the findings that really interests me is that, although we think we ACT because of the way we FEEL, we often FEEL because of the way we ACT. So an almost uncanny way to change your feelings is to act the way you WISH you felt.
Gretchen RubinWhy do I act as I do? To tell you the truth, I have absolutely no idea why. It is simply my nature to act as I act, and that's all I can say.
Raymond SmullyanCommunication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence. To survive in the world, we have to act in concert with others, but to survive as ourselves, rather than simply as cogs in a wheel, we have to act alone.
Deborah TannenTrue zazen is surrendering every moment. But surrendering to what? It really does not matter what we call it: God or the Tao or the Dharma or the Buddha or our true nature. . . . It is the act of letting go, of surrendering, that matters. The very act of letting go opens us up completely.
Dennis MerzelI'd like to ask you: what you would prefer us to do? I'd like to ask my colleagues, would any other country act differently? I think the answer is very clear. No one would act differently.
Silvan ShalomWe all have--to put it as nicely as I can--our lower centres and our higher centres. Our lower centres act: they act with terriblepower that sometimes destroys us; but they don't talk.... Since the war the lower centres have become vocal. And the effect is that of an earthquake. For they speak truths that have never been spoken before--truths that the makers of our domestic institutions have tried to ignore.
George Bernard ShawHalf my life is an act of revision; more than half the act is performed with small changes.
John IrvingWe must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will, therefore, always act rationally; or, because he has such or such a predominant passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in pursuit of it. No, we are complicated machines; and though we have one main spring that gives motion to the whole, we have an infinity of little wheels, which, in their turns, retard, precipitate, and sometime stop that motion.
Doug StanhopeHave the daring to stop doing the things you really don't want to do. Can you see them? Look closely. Can you observe the many things you do because you reluctantly feel you should or must? Watch closely. Examine every action and reaction. Do you act naturally or do you act because you feel compelled? If you feel compelled, stop. Compulsion is slavery. Example: Refuse to go along with the crowd.
Vernon HowardOne is the path of devotion, what in India is called BHAKTI yoga, the path of love and devotion - a Meera, a Chaitanya, dancing and singing, losing themselves completely in the act. When Meera is dancing there is only dance, there is no Meera; the dancer is completely merged into the dance. When Chaitanya is singing and dancing there is no Chaitanya; he has become one with the act.
RajneeshThe authentic and pure values, truth, beauty, and goodness, in the activity of a human being are the result of one and the same act, a certain application of the full attention to the object. Teaching should have no aim but to prepare, by training the attention, for the possibility of such an act. All the other advantages of instruction are without interest.
Simone WeilGiving is a miracle that can transform the heaviest of hearts. Two people, who moments before lived in separate worlds of private concerns, suddenly meet each other over a simple act of sharing. The world expands, a moment of goodness is created, and something new comes into being where before there was nothing... But true giving is not an economic exchange; it is a generative act. It does not subtract from what we have; it multiplies the effect we can have in the world.
Kent NerburnOver hundred years ago Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act. There was wide distribution of land and they didn't confiscate anyone's privately owned land... We need an industrial Homestead Act.
Ronald ReaganIn the moment when you make the least petition to God, though it be but a silent wish that he may approve you, or add one moment to your life,--do you not, in the very act, necessarily exclude all other beings from your thought? In that act, the soul stands alone with God, and Jesus is no more present to your mind than your brother or your child.
Ralph Waldo EmersonThe simple act of telling a woman's story from a woman's point of view is a revolutionary act: it never has been done before.
Carol P. ChristThe soul, which is the first principle of life, is not a body, but the act of a body; just as heat, which is the principle of calefaction, is not a body, but an act of a body.
Thomas AquinasWhat's so exciting and terrifying about the writing process is that it really is an act of exploration and discovery. With all of us, not just writers, there is a sort of knowledge of the other. We have a lot more in common than we realize, and I think writing is really a sustained act of empathy.
Andre DubusI began to think of war, even so-called "good wars" like World War II, as corrupting everybody. Violence begetting violence. The good guys beginning to act like the bad guys. And when I studied the history of wars, it seemed to me that that was the case. Athens vs. Sparta in the Peloponnesian War. The Athenians presumably the democratic state. The Spartans the totalitarian state. But as the war went on, the Athenians began to act like the Spartans. They began committing atrocities and cruelties. So I saw this as a characteristic of war, even so-called "good wars."
Howard ZinnAbortion, for many women, is more than an experience of suffering beyond anything most men will ever know, it is an act of mercy, and an act of self-defense.
Alice WalkerIn the daytime, you act the way you should act because that is what people pay you for, or want from you.
Eddy de ClercqYou see we're a country that talks about family values. But we haven't passed anything to help family values since the Family and Medical Leave Act. And the Family and Medical Leave Act was one of the first things I voted on when I came to Congress. It was very thrilling to me, because when my first child was born, I was terrified of being fired. When my second child was born, I was a member of the city council, and in some ways it was easier to respond to 250 constituents than it was to respond to one employer.
Carolyn MaloneyIn addition to self-awareness, imagination and conscience, it is the fourth human endowment - independent will - that really makes effective self-management possible. It is the ability to make decisions and choices and to act in accordance with them. It is the ability to act rather than to be acted upon, to proactively carry out the program we have developed through the other three endowments. Empowerment comes from learning how to use this great endowment in the decisions we make every day.
Stephen CoveyIt is good to act as if. It is even better to grow to the point where it is no longer an act.
Charles Caleb ColtonWhen I first started doing my stand-up act, I played the banjo, did comedy, magic tricks, juggled, read poetry. I stuck it all in. I didn't know you were supposed to just stand up and tell jokes. Essentially, that's what my act became: those five elements - except I dropped the poetry.
Steve MartinAll employees are obliged to act in concert, to behave in accordance with corporate form and corporate law. If someone attempted to revolt against these teets, it would only result in the corporation throwing the person out, and replacing that person with another who would act according to the rules. Form determines content: Corporations are machines.
Jerry ManderWe're all agreed that climate change is one of the greatest and most daunting challenges of our age. We have a moral imperative to act and act now.
David CameronIf there's anything I have learned, it's to sort of be sensitive to what - to how much - to how creative the act of listening is and to how powerful the act of listening is.
DJ /ruptureIn my first year as governor, we solved some of the problems that had begun to undermine the Open Records Act. We gave the act teeth by providing criminal penalties for knowing violations.
Roy BarnesThe boss must first distinguish between action information and status information. He must discipline himself not to act on problems his managers can solve, and never to act on problems when he is explicitly reviewing status.
Fred BrooksSeparate out the creative act from the act of editing and execution. Make it a two-step process. First, let ideas flow and encourage EVERY idea to make it to the whiteboard. Don't criticize, judge, edit, budget, or worry. An idea on the wall can't hurt anyone, so let them rip without restriction. After any and all ideas have the opportunity to "come out to play", only then should you apply your analytical and logical side to the effort. Don't mix the creative process with the editing process or you'll kill your ideas before they even get a fighting chance.
Josh LinknerThere is a lot of difference between offering a garland of flowers bought from a shop and one that we make out of flowers picked from our home garden. When we plant the flowers, water them, pick the flowers, make the garland and take it to the temple, thoughts of God alone live in our minds. The Lord accepts anything offered to Him with intense Love. When we buy a garland at a store and place it on the deity it is only a ceremonial act while the other is a garland of pure devotion and an act of love.
Mata AmritanandamayiDeeds that seemed unimportant at the time would prove to have been momentous; a tiny act of selfishness and unkindness or, conversely, an unconsidered act of generosity would become the measure of a human life.
Karen ArmstrongSlapping a catchy acronym like the JOBS Act on a piece of legislation makes it more difficult for politicians to oppose it - and indeed that's what happened with the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act.
Steven RattnerDon't act your age in retirement. Act like the inner young person you have always been.
John Anthony WestProof, being the highest level of reproduction activity, has an important interiorization aspect: as Yuri Manin stresses in his book Provable and Unprovable, a proof becomes such only after it is accepted (as the result of a highly rigorous process) ... Manin describes the act of acceptance as a social act; however, the importance of its personal, psychological component can hardly be overestimated.
Alexandre BorovikA performer may be taken in by his own act, convinced at the moment that the impression of reality which he fosters is the one and only reality. In such cases we have a sense in which the performer comes to be his own audience; he comes to be performer and observer of the same show. Presumably he introcepts or incorporates the standards he attempts to maintain in the presence of others so that even in their absence his conscience requires him to act in a socially proper way.
Erving GoffmanThe popular definition of tragedy is heavy drama in which everyone is killed in the last act, comedy being light drama in which everyone is married in the last act.
George Bernard ShawIf a man's aspirations towards a righteous life are serious.. .if he earnestly and sincerely seeks a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from animal food, because, not to mention the excitement of the passions produced by such food, it is plainly immoral, as it requires an act contrary to moral feeling, i. e., killing - and is called forth only by greed.
Leo Tolstoy