
“People are watching the way we act, more than they are listening to what we say.”
Remarks (overheard by reporters) in July 1969 after meeting with a group of black civil rights workers, who protested the Administration's action on the Voting Rights Act of 1965
reported in :
The Washington Post, "Watch What We Do," editorial (July 7, 1969), p. A22.
Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations, James H. Billington, Library of Congress, 2010, Courier Corporation, Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=91IFAYFhtOMC&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=Mitchell,
Watch What We Do, William Safire, 14 November 1988, The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/14/opinion/essay-watch-what-we-do.html,
Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past, Bruce, Bartlett, 8 January 2008, Palgrave Macmillan, Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=POhHuoGILNYC&pg=PA253&lpg=PA253&dq=Watch-What-We-Do,
We Have No Leaders: African Americans in the Post-Civil Rights Era, Robert Charles, Smith, 22 July 1996, SUNY Press, Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=eNrMbvyHhrIC&pg=PA267&lpg=PA267&dq=Watch-What-We-Do,
The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate, James, Rosen, 20 May 2008, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=fHIGQTGemnAC&pg=PA136&lpg=PA136&dq=watch-what-we-do,
The Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations, Rawson, Hugh; Miner, Margaret., 2006, Oxford University Press, USA, Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=whg05Z4Nwo0C&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=You-will-be-better-advised,
“People are watching the way we act, more than they are listening to what we say.”
“History, like God, is watching what we do.”
National Prayer Breakfast (2006)
Context: There is a continent — Africa — being consumed by flames.
I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did — or did not to — to put the fire out in Africa.
History, like God, is watching what we do.
“We always condemn ourselves by what we say, not by what we do.”
Nos condenamos siempre por lo que decimos, no por lo que hacemos.
Source: Todas las Almas [All Souls] (1989), p. 31