Deeds Quotes - Page 18

• The word which is best said came nearest to not being spoken at all, for it is cousin to a deed which the speaker could have better done. Nay, almost it must have taken the place of a deed by some urgent necessity, even by some misfortune, so that the truest writer will be some captive knight, after all. And perhaps the fates had such a design, when, having stored Raleigh so richly with the substance of life and experience, they made him a fast prisoner, and compelled him to make his words his deeds, and transfer to his expression the emphasis and sincerity of his action.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Cousin, Taken

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers (Annotated Edition)”, p.87, Jazzybee Verlag

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• The sole work and deed of universal freedom is therefore death, a death too which has no inner significance or filling, for what is negated is the empty point of the absolutely free self. It is thus the coldest and meanest of all deaths, with no more significance than cutting off a head of cabbage or swallowing a mouthful of water.

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

  Death, Freedom, Cutting

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, A.V. Miller (tr.) (1998). “Phenomenology of Spirit”, p.360, Motilal Banarsidass Publ.

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• He who does a good deed is instantly ennobled. He who does a mean deed is by the action itself contracted.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Mean, Doe, Action

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.77, Penguin

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• The charming landscape which I saw this morning is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all parts, that is, the poet. This is the best part of these men's farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds give no title.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Morning, Eye, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.36, Harvard University Press

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• This surface good-nature which captivates a new acquaintance and is no bar to treachery, which knows no scruple and is never at fault for an excuse, which makes an outcry at the wound which it condones, is one of the most distinctive features of the journalist. This camaraderie (the word is a stroke of genius) corrodes the noblest minds; it eats into their pride like rust, kills the germ of great deeds, and lends a sanction to moral cowardice.

  Honore de Balzac

  Work, Pride, Mind

  "A Daughter of Eve". Book by Honoré de Balzac, 1839.

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• Whatever may be your desire to accomplish great deeds, the deep silence of pregnancy never comes to you! The event of the day sweeps you along like straws before the wind whilst ye lie under the illusion that ye are chasing the event,-poor fellows! If a man wishes to act the hero on the stage he must not think of forming part of the chorus; he should not even know how the chorus is made up.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Lying, Hero, Pregnancy

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2016). “The Dawn of Day”, p.137, Friedrich Nietzsche

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• If Michael, leader of God's host
  When Heaven and Hell are met,
  Looked down on you from Heaven's door-post
  He would his deeds forget.

  William Butler Yeats

  Beauty, Doors, Leader

  William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.18

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• I believe that whoever tries to think things through honestly will soon recognize how unworthy and even fatal is the traditional bias against Negroes. What can the man of good will do to combat this deeply rooted prejudice? He must have the courage to set an example by words and deed, and must watch lest his children become influenced by racial bias.

  Albert Einstein

  Courage, Children, Truth

  Albert Einstein (2016). “The Albert Einstein Collection: Essays in Humanism, The Theory of Relativity, and The World As I See It”, p.14, Open Road Media

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• Sometimes I lifted a chicken that warn't roosting comfortable, and took him along. Pap always said, take a chicken when you get achance, because if you don't want him yourself you can easy find somebody that does, and a good deed ain't ever forgot. I never see papa when he didn't want the chicken himself, but that is what he used to say, anyway.

  Mark Twain

  Hypocrisy, Papa, Doe

  Mark Twain, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Mark Twain: All 13 Novels, Short Stories, Poetry and Essays”, p.433, GENERAL PRESS

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• You have never by a word or a deed given me one moment's uneasiness; on the contrary I have felt perpetual gratitude to heaven forhaving given me, in you, a source of so much pure and unmixed happiness.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Family, Happiness, Gratitude

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.166, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Title deeds generally outlast poems.

  Mason Cooley

  Poetry, Titles, Property

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• Thoughts can be revised. Deeds cannot.

  Mason Cooley

  Thinking, Thoughtful, Action

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• Passion impels our deeds; ideology supplies the explanations.

  Mason Cooley

  Passion, Ideology, Explanation

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• If I am young, then you should look not to age but to deeds.

  Sophocles

  Age, Looks, Youth

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• It is a mystery to me how a theologian can be praised for having brought himself to disbelieve dogmas. I've always thought that those who have brought themselves to believe in dogmas merit the true recognition owing a heroic deed.

  Karl Kraus

  Believe, Heroic Deeds, Religion

  Karl Kraus (1976). “Half-truths & One-and-a-half Truths: Selected Aphorisms”

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• Often even a whole city suffers for a bad man who sins and contrives presumptuous deeds.

  Hesiod

  Men, Cities, Suffering

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• The future is here, now, and the past is full of actual deeds, real history. Utopias hardly have the meat on their bones to sustain a people in grave times.

  Patricia Hampl

  Real, Future, Past

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• Hardly had the glow been kindled by some good deed on your part or by some little triumph over your rivals or by a word of praisefrom your parents or mentors when it would begin to cool and fade leaving you in a very short time as chill and dim as before.

  Samuel Beckett

  Achievement, Parent, Leaving

  Samuel Beckett (2012). “Company / Ill Seen Ill Said / Worstward Ho / Stirrings Still”, p.24, Faber & Faber

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• A real man doesn't have to run from his mother, and may even have to face the reality that no great deed is going to be great enough for him to ransom himself completely, and he may always be in his mother's debt. If he understands that . . . he won't have to feel guilty, and he won't have to please her completely. He can go ahead and be nice to her and let her be part of his life.

  Frank Pittman

  Mother, Running, Real

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• There are things about quitting the smoking habit for which nobody prepares you. Did I have any idea that I would indulge in long, drooling-nay, dribbling-lascivious dreams in which I was still wreathed in fragrant blue fumes? I would wake with the complete and guilty conviction that I had sinned in word and deed while I was asleep.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Dream, Blue, Ideas

  Christopher Hitchens (2015). “And Yet...: Essays”, p.184, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Never is a historic deed already completed when it is done but always only when it is handed down to posterity. What we call "history" by no means represents the sum total of all significant deeds.... World historyonly comprises that tiny lighted sector which chanced to be placed in the spotlight by poetic or scholarly depictions.

  Stefan Zweig

  Mean, History, Done

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• But nothing is better than a truth which appears not to have the semblance of truth. There is always something incomprehensible about the great heroic deeds performed by humanity because they rise so far beyond the mediocre measure of mere mortals; but it is always only because of the incredible feats that human beings have accomplished that humanity recovers its faith in itself.

  Stefan Zweig

  Truth, Heroic Deeds, Humanity

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• But the creative person is subject to a different, higher law than mere national law. Whoever has to create a work, whoever has tobring about a discovery or deed which will further the cause of all of humanity, no longer has his home in his native land but rather in his work.

  Stefan Zweig

  Home, Creativity, Discovery

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• We must make an issue, create an event, and establish a national position for ourselves: and never may expect to be respected as men and women, until we have undertaken some fearless, bold, and adventurous deeds of daring . . .

  Martin Delany

  Men, Issues, Fearless

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• The ancestral deed is thought and done,
  And in a million Edens fall
  A million Adams drowned in darkness,
  For small is great and great is small,
  And a blind seed all.

  Edwin Muir

  Fall, Eden, Darkness

  EDWIN MUIR (1960). “COLLECTED POEMS”

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