Bhagavad Gita Quotes on Action and Inaction

Refusing to act is also a way of clinging.

Not every stillness is rest, and not every motion is work.

Doing nothing is not the same as being free.

Busyness and right action are different things.

Inaction is not innocence.

Avoiding action does not remove its pull.

Confusion about right action is where real study begins.

Even resting is an act.

Clarity about action frees you from many regrets.

Even the wise pause to ask what is action and what is rest.

Knowing how to act is subtler than it looks.

Idleness is heavier than work.

What are you calling action in your life?

Find stillness inside your busiest hour.

You can act fully and still stand apart from the doing.

The wise are calm in motion and alert in rest.

Attachment to doing is as heavy as attachment to having.

Do your work and drop the claim of doing.

Ask what your action truly is before you ask what it will earn.

The deepest doer knows itself as a witness.

Idleness is no renunciation.

Be free of craving for fruit and of the comfort of doing nothing.

Who is acting in you, and who is watching?

In every task, notice what remains unmoving in you.

Don’t flee all action because some action harms.

Act or rest; either can come from fullness.

A still mind can move mountains without being moved.

Where is the stillness in what you are doing right now?

Imperishable awareness watches every changing action.

Rest, too, has its right and wrong forms.

Silence can be the busiest form of attention.

Even rest is a kind of action; do it well.