act

Damn him, he could act a gridiron.

—Clive, Kitty

Handle so, dass du die Menschheit, sowohl in deiner Person, als in der Person eines jeden andern, jederzeit zugleich als Zweck, niemals bloÞ als Mittel brauchst. Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.

—Kant, Immanuel

Look like a girl, act like a lady, think like a man and work like a dog.

—Simon, Caroline K(lein)   d.1993

I have been told, both in approval and accusation, that I seemto loveall mycharacters.What Idoinwriting of any character istotry toenter intothemind, heart and skinof a human being who is not myself.Whether this happens to be a man ora woman, old or young, with skin blackor white, the primary challenge lies in making the jump itself. It is the act of a writer's imagination that I set most high.

—Welty, Eudora

My uncle was famous for his balanced point of view. At the time of which I am writing (when he was nearly seventy) it had become so balanced, that the act of balancing seemed rather automatic.One had only to offer him an opinion for him to balance it with a counter- opinion of exactly the same weight, as a grocer puts a pound weight against a pound of sugar.

—Spender, Sir Stephen Harold

The poet represents the mind in the act of defending us against itself.

—Stevens,Wallace

: 'Tis for the honour of England that all Europe should know that we have blockheads of all ages. : I wonder there is not an Act of Parliament to save the credit of the nation, and prohibit the exportation of fools.

—Congreve,William

Creativity in science could be described as the act of putting two and two together to make five.

—Koestler, Arthur

   To devise is the work of the master, to execute the act of the servant.

—Leonardo daVinci

The four most dramatic words in the English language: 'Act One, Scene One.'

—Hart, Moss

To pick out the wildest and most fantastical odd man alive, and to place your kindness there, is an act so brave and daring as will show the greatness of your spirit and distinguish you in love, as you are in all things else, from womankind.

—Rochester,JohnWilmot, 2nd Earl of

All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.

—Miller, Henry Valentine

For myself I am fairly certain that no wise man believes anyone sins willingly or willingly perpetrates any evil or base act.

—Plato

Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the shadow.

—Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)

Two things should have been cut. The second act and that youngster's throat.

—Coward, Sir Noe«  l Peirce

In the relations of a weak Government and a rebellious people there comes a time when everyact of the authorities exasperates the masses, and every refusal to act excites their contempt.

—Reed,John

My first act on entering this world was to kill my mother.

—Boyd,William Andrew Murray

I've had a tough time learning how to act like a Congressman. Today I accidentally spent some of my own money.

—Kennedy,Joseph P(atrick) II

Ican't act.Ihaveneveracted. And Ishall neveract.What I do is suspend myaudience's power of judgement till I've finished.

—Hardwicke, Sir Cedric

I am sure that the immediate abolition of the slave trade is the first, the principal, the most indispensable act of policy, of dutyand of justice the legislature of this country has to take, if it is indeed their wish to secure those important objects† For we continue to this hour a barbarous traffic in slaves, we continue it even yet, in spite of all our great and undeniable pretensions as civilisation.

—Pitt,William known as  theYounger

   Unto the man of yearning thought And aspiration, to do nought Is in itself almost an act.

—Rossetti, Dante Gabriel

Motherhood will only be a joyous and responsible human act when women are free to make, with full conscious choice and full human responsibility, the decisions to become mothers.

—Friedan, Betty (Elizabeth) Naomi ne¤  e  Goldstein

My soul; sit thou a patient looker-on; Judge not the play before the play is done: Her plot hath many changes, every day Speaks a new scene; the last act crowns the play.

—Quarles, Francis

Are not your kisses then as filthy, and more, As a worm sucking an envenomed sore? Doth not thy fearful hand in felling quake, As one which gathering flowers, still fears a snake? Is not your last act harsh, and violent, As when a plough a stony ground doth rent?

—Donne,John

Le dernier acte est sanglant, quelque belle que soit la come¤  die en tout le reste; on jette enfin de la terre sur la te"  te, et en voila'   pour jamais. The last act is bloody, however fine the rest of the play. They throw earth over your head and it is finished forever.

—Pascal, Blaise

All visible objects, man, are but aspasteboard masks.But in each eventöin the living act, the undoubted deedöthere, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask!

—Melville, Herman

Chafing in action when his nature yearned to act, conscious of indignitiesreal and imagined,Johnsonwent through three years of slow burn.

—White,Theodore H(arold)

Les gens qu'on honore ne sont que des fripons qui ont eu le bonheur de n'e"  tre pas pris en flagrant de¤  lit. Respected people are only rascals who have had the good fortune not to be caught in the act.

—Stendhal pseudonym of  Henri Beyle

Ich solle niemals anders verfahren, als so, dass ich auch wollen k o« nne, meine Maxime solle ein allgemeines Gesetz werden. I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law.

—Kant, Immanuel

A painting that is an act is inseparable from the biography of the artist.

—Rosenberg, Harold

We loved your play.We only have problems with your main character, the second act and the ending.

—Anonymous

Save something for theThird Act.

—Anonymous

Everybody who tells you how to act has whisky on their breath.

—Updike,John Hoyer

Ex virtute absoluto agere nihil aliud in nobis est, quam ex ductu Rationis agere, vivere, suum esse conservare (haec tria idem significant) ex fundamento proprium utile quaerendi. To act absolutely according to virtue is nothing else in us than to act under the guidance of reason, to live so, and to preserve one's being (these three have the same meaning) onthebasis of seeking what isusefulto oneself.

—Spinoza, Baruch also known as Benedict de Spinoza

It is acting inits purest form.You havetoact with youreyes.

—Bonham Carter, Helena

Troops always ready to act, my well-filled treasury, and the liveliness of my dispositionöthese were my reasons for making war on MariaTheresa.

—Frederick II, the Great

Soit donc que vous composiez, soit donc que vous jouiez, ne pensez non plus au spectateur que s'il n'existait pas. Imaginez sur le bord du the¤  a"  tre, un grand mur qui vous se¤  pare du parterre; jouez comme si la toile ne se levait pas. Whether you compose or act, think no more of the spectator than if he did not exist. Imagine at the edge of the stage a large wall which separates you from the orchestra; act as if the curtain never rose.

—Diderot, Denis

   What is our life? a play of passion; Our mirth the music of division; Our mothers' wombs the tiring-houses be Where we are dressed for this short comedy. Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is, That sits and marks still who doth act amiss; Our graves that hide us from the searching sun Are like drawn curtains when the play is done. Thus march we, playing, to our latest rest, Only we die in earnestöthat's no jest.

—Raleigh, Sir Walter