A Quote by Elizabeth Janeway

reaction isn't action - that is, it isn't truly creative.

Elizabeth Janeway

Quote Topics

Action Creative Reaction Truly

Quote Author

Elizabeth Janeway
American - Author
October 7, 1913 - January 15, 2005

Action and reaction are equal and opposite, and are expressed simultaneously. Sequentially they are repeated in reverse, the reaction becoming the action and the action the reaction.

Walter Russell

In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which, because of the irreversibility of the action process can be expected and even calculated, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.

Hannah Arendt

Creative and action are synonymous. You can't be creative. Without taking action.

Steve Fisher

Freedom is only to be found where there is burden to be shouldered. In creative achievements this burden always represents an imperative and a need that weighs heavily upon man’s mood, so that he comes to be in a mood of melancholy. All creative action resides in a mood of melancholy, whether we are clearly aware of the fact or not, whether we speak at length about it or not. All creative action resides in a mood of melancholy, but this is not to say that everyone in a melancholy mood is creative.

Martin Heidegger

Truly compassionate action arises spontaneously without thought and is carried out in real action with no anticipation of reward and, indeed, no concept of a doer of that action.

Brad Warner

What you really have to do, if you want to be creative, is to unlearn all the teasing and censoring that you've experienced throughout your life. If you are truly a creative person, you know that feeling insecure and lonely is par for the course. You can't have it both ways: You can't be creative and conform, too. You have to recognize that what makes you different also makes you creative.

Arno Allan Penzias

Everybody knows that if they're happy then usually the people around them are happy, or that people around them happy make them a little happier; that's a proved thing, like "I give to you and you give to me"; they all know that but they haven't thought about it to the point of every action that they do. That's what it is with every action that you do, there's a reaction to it, and if you want a good reaction then you do a good action, and if you want a bad one, then you punch somebody.

George Harrison

A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One must fight for a life of action, not reaction.

Rita Mae Brown

There is a law of gratitude, and it is . . . the natural principle that action and reaction are always equal and in opposite directions. The grateful outreaching of your mind in thankful praise to supreme intelligence is a liberation or expenditure of force. It cannot fail to reach that to which it is addressed, and the reaction is an instantaneous movement toward you.

Wallace D. Wattles

Action is basically a reaction against loss of balance - a flailing of the arms to to regain one's balance. To dispose a soul to action, we must upset its equilibrium.

Eric Hoffer

The enemy of creativity... is fear. We're all born creative, it takes a little while to become afraid. A surprising insight: an enemy of fear is creativity. Acting in a creative way generates action, and action persuades the fear to lighten up.

Seth Godin

Scientists say every action initiates an equal and opposite reaction. I say that's just the start. I say every action initiates a most unequal and upredictable chain reaction, that every filament of living becomes part of a larger weave, while remaining identifiable. That every line of latitude requires several stripes of longitude to obtain meaning. That every universe is part of a bigger heaven, a heaven of rhythm and geometry, where a heartbeat is the apex of a triangle.

Ellen Hopkins

Reaction and non-action both create karma, but conscious action transcends karma.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

For every action there’s a reaction. And also, for every action there’s an equal and opposite criticism.

Jason Mraz

The reaction to any word may be, in an individual, either a mob-reaction or an individual reaction. It is up to the individual to ask himself: Is my reaction individual, or am I merely reacting from my mob-self? When it comes to the so-called obscene words, I should say that hardly one person in a million escapes mob-reaction.