C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Deeds
Deeds alone suffice.
Deeds, not words.
’Tis deeds must win the prize.
Deeds survive the doers.
The gods see the deeds of the righteous.
Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue.
Men do not value a good deed unless it brings a reward.
“He wishes well” is worthless, unless the deed go with it.
Great things are not accomplished by idle dreams, but by years of patient study.
Contemplation is necessary to generate an object, but action must propagate it.
Heaven ne’er helps the man who will not help himself.
A stirring dwarf we do allowance give before a sleeping giant.
The deeds of men never escape the gods.
Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed.
Our deeds determine us as much as we determine our deeds.
Our deeds are like children born to us; they live and act apart from our own will. Children may be strangled, but deeds never.
However resplendent an action may be, it should not be accounted great unless it is the result of a great design.
A word that has been said may be unsaid; it is but air. But when a deed is done, it cannot be undone, nor can our thoughts reach out to all the mischiefs that may follow.
One improper word or act will neutralize the effect of many good ones; and one base deed, after years of noble service, will cover them all with shame.
Every one may know that to will and not to do, when there is opportunity, is in reality not to will; and that to love what is good and not to do it, when it is possible, is in reality not to love it. Will, which stops short of action, and love, which does not do the good that is loved, is a mere thought separate from will and love, which vanishes and comes to nothing.