Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
People agree with ideas easily if they don't have to act on them.
In plain terms
Agreement is easy without action.
What can you take from it?
True belief requires action not just words.

Where it applies

  • political debates
  • work meetings
  • social issues

Putting it to work

  • act on beliefs
  • question empty agreements
  • follow through

Questions to consider

  • Do you act on what you agree with?
  • Why do people agree without acting?

Another view

Sometimes agreement is genuine even without immediate action.

More from Nathaniel Hawthorne

  1. Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.

    Permalink to quote #67
  2. I am always so dazzled and bewildered with the richness, the depth, the ... jewels of beauty in his productions that I am always looking forward to a second re…

    Permalink to quote #69
  3. All brave men love; for he only is brave who has affections to fight for, whether in the daily battle of life, or in physical contests.

    Permalink to quote #66

Related quotes

  1. Everywhere he found his precept checkmated by his example.

    Max BeerbohmMax Beerbohm quote #26
  2. Words and works eat not at one table.

    James HowellJames Howell quote #5
  3. What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.

    John RuskinJohn Ruskin quote #9