Action - HENRI BERGSON

Action on the move creates its own route, creates to a very great extent the conditions under which it is to be fulfilled, and thus baffles all calculation.

HENRI BERGSON (1859 - 1941), "Final Remarks", The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, 1932, tr. R. Ashley Audra and Cloudesley Brereton, 1935.

Acting

Whatever happens, look as if it were intended.

FIRST RULE OF ACTING, In Arthur Bloch, comp., "Socio-Murphology," Murphy's Law: Book Three, 1982.

Actors - CHARLES de GAULLE

An actor's most notable effects depend upon his skill in producing the appearance of emotion when he is keeping strong control of himself.

CHARLES de GAULLE (1890 - 1970), "Of Prestige" (2), The Edge of the Sword, 1934, tr. Gerald Hopkins, 1960.

Achievement - ERIC HOFFER

His momentous achievements are rarely the result of a clean forward thrust but rather of a soul intensity generated in front of an apparently insurmountable obstacle which bars his way to a cherished goal.

ERIC HOFFER (1902 - 1983), The Ordeal of Change, 15.5, 1964.

Accident - FRANZ KAFKA

Accident is the name one gives to the coincidence of events, of which one does not know the causation....Accidents only exist in our heads, in our limited perceptions.

FRANZ KAFKA (1883 - 1924), In Gustav Janouch, Conversations with Kafka, p.55. tr. Goronwy Rees, 1953.

Ability - THOMAS SHADWELL

Every man loves what he is good at.

THOMAS SHADWELL (1642 - 1692), A True Widow, 5.1, 1679.

Ability - CARL G. JUNG

A special ability means a heavy expenditure of energy in a particular direction, with a consequent drain from some other side of life.

CARL G. JUNG (1875 - 1961), Modern Man in Search of a Soul, 8.2, tr. W. S. Dell and Cary F. Baynes, 1933.

Ability - JOSEPH EPSTEIN

The acquisition of one sort of ability often makes that of another unlikely, if not impossible. . . . To take the gifts one does have, to concentrate one's strength upon their development, to disallow distractions - none of this is an easy task.

JOSEPH EPSTEIN (1928 - ), Ambition: The Secret Passion, 7, 1980.