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Who really said it

A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action

Written by Tony Robbins Born 1960 · American author and motivational speaker
Verified In copyright

This one is genuinely his. Wikiquote’s sourced section for Awaken the Giant Within prints the sentence and cites page 49. The book was first published in 1991 by Summit Books in New York; the page numbering belongs to the 1992 Simon & Schuster edition that Wikiquote cites.

Last verified 15 Oct 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Verified quote & credit

“A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action” Tony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within (New York: Summit Books, 1991) — quoted at p. 49 of the 1992 Simon & Schuster edition. · Verbatim: “A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action. If there's no action, you haven't truly decided.”

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Anthony Robbins and Simon & Schuster). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Tony Robbins — American author and motivational speaker. Theme: "A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The book it comes from

Source
Awaken the Giant Within
First published
1991 · Summit Books, New York
Cited at
Page 49 of the 1992 Simon & Schuster (Fireside) edition
Verdict
Genuine — and usually quoted short

A real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken a new action. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided.

Wikiquote prints the pair of sentences together. The second one is the test the first is talking about, and it is usually dropped when the line is reshared.

Wikiquote: Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within

How we verified this

  • Wikiquote’s sourced section ↗ for Awaken the Giant Within (1992) prints this sentence and cites page 49. We read the page’s raw wikitext rather than a summary, so the wording and the page number are as Wikiquote states them.
  • The edition history checks out independently: the Internet Archive catalogue record ↗ gives “New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992,” 552 pages, 1st Fireside edition, and notes that it was “originally published: New York : Summit Books, c1991” — which is why this page dates the work to 1991 and the pagination to 1992.
  • Limit of what we checked: the page location rests on Wikiquote’s citation. The Internet Archive copy is lending-restricted and Google Books returned a bot challenge, so we did not confirm page 49 against the book’s own text.
In copyright

Awaken the Giant Within was first published in 1991 and is firmly under United States copyright. The passage below is quoted as a short excerpt for identification and verification, not as a reproduction of the chapter.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Often misattributed

Nobody else is credited with this line. The thing that goes wrong is the wording, not the name.

“A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action” compressed

Wikiquote prints the sentence as the opening of a longer passage. The version that circulates is this first sentence alone, which is accurate as far as it goes — the full passage is in the excerpt above.

The name is right and the sentence is real: Tony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within, cited by Wikiquote ↗ at page 49.

Context

Why it mattered

The sentence is doing a definitional job in the book: Robbins is distinguishing a decision from an intention, and the measure he offers is behavioural rather than emotional.

Quoted on its own it reads as an aphorism. With the following sentence attached — “If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided” — it reads as a definition, which is what it is.

No action, no decision — that is the whole test.

Read the full story

Awaken the Giant Within is a 1991 book of about 550 pages, and the lines quoted from it are almost always single sentences lifted from the start of a paragraph. That is worth knowing before trusting any short Robbins quotation: the attribution is usually fine, and the sentence is usually only part of what he wrote.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Change Purpose Success

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Sourced quotations from Awaken the Giant Within, with page numbers.
Internet Archivearchive.org

Catalogue record for the 1992 Fireside edition, noting original publication by Summit Books in 1991.
Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Robbins: born 29 February 1960, author and speaker.
Google Booksbooks.google.com

The volume Wikiquote cites for these page numbers.

The author

About Tony Robbins

Tony Robbins

Born 1960 · American author and motivational speaker

Tony Robbins, born Anthony J. Mahavoric in 1960, built the modern self-help seminar into an industry. Unlimited Power (1986) made his name and Awaken the Giant Within (1991) became the book most often quoted from, usually one sentence at a time. The lines that circulate from it are typically the opening sentence of a longer paragraph, which is why so many Robbins quotations are genuine but truncated.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

Robbins, Anthony. Awaken the Giant Within. New York: Summit Books, 1991. Quoted at page 49 of the 1992 Simon & Schuster edition.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action’?” Last verified 15 Oct 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/a-real-decision-is-measured-by-the-fact-that-youve-taken-a/

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