Using verbs as nouns

How does Russian handle referring to an action? In english, we basically always use a noun form to refer the the action, the -ing form of the verb. "No Smoking" rather than something like "To smoke is not allowed". Why "Нельзя курить" and not something like "Курениему нельзя", is this consistent? Russian does seem to have these kinds of noun versions of actions, when are they used? Is it possible, and normal sounding to say "Говорить труднее чем понимать.". When thinking about how english sentences would translate (in order to speak), I always run into how Russian phrases things entirely differently, and have no idea how to rework the sentence to be more... Russian.

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Originally Posted by xXHoax

Why "Нельзя курить" and not something like "Курениему нельзя", is this consistent?

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Нельзя does not go with nouns.
You can say «Курение запрещено!» where курение is a verbal noun.

Not just Нельзя specifically. In general, when referring to an action. If you say, "Running is difficult. I hate it.", do you just use the infinite бегать, and refer to it as оно and use neuter adjectives? "Трудно бегать. Ненавижу его."

When you replace infinite by a pronoun you should use "это" - this
Like Ненавижу это.
An action can't be replaced by он/она/оно, which mean only subject
for example:
Перестань смеяться! Это некрасиво (Stop giggling! It's impolite)

"No smoking!" - "Пиджаки не вешать!" (joke)
We indeed do not use such words with such kind of phrase.
Native Russian speaker will not understand "Нет курения", because a lot of questions arise in his/her brain: WHERE there is no smoking, WHO has not got smoking, TO WHERE smoking went, and so on.
Though of course we have nouns-processes, only their use is limited.
Ok:
"Это болтание на орбите мне порядком надоело."
"Метание бисера перед свиньями даёт +1 к карме."
not Ok:
"Прыганье-с-парашютом", "Езда-на-доске-по-волнам", "Одевание на бал".
Sometimes we borrow names of some activities coming from abroad: сёрфинг, параглайдинг, карвинг, ...