“Let them do what I have done.”

Often attributed, but without a contemporary source, as a remark on being asked to contribute to charity for the poor. See for example Commodore (2009) by Edward J. Renehan

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Let them do what I have done." by Cornelius Vanderbilt?
Cornelius Vanderbilt photo
Cornelius Vanderbilt 2
American businessman, philanthropist, and tycoon 1794–1877

Related quotes

Robert Frost photo

“Let me be the one
To do what is done.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Ten Mills : Assertive
1920s, Further Range (1926)

“And why should I regret what I have done, when I cannot help doing what I do, which is what I have done?”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

¿Y para qué debo arrepentirme de lo que he hecho, si no puedo dejar de hacer lo que hago, que es lo que he hecho?
Voces (1943)

Ernest King photo

“I have a philosophy that when you have a commander in the field, let him know what you want done and then let him alone. I have two other philosophies. One is: Do the best you can with what you have. The other is: Do not worry about water over the dam.”

Ernest King (1878–1956) United States Navy admiral, Chief of Naval Operations

From Time magazine's interview with King, Volume XL, Number 23 (December 7, 1942), p. 32.
1940s

Karen Blixen photo

“Let physicians and confectioners and servants in the great houses be judged by what they have done, and even by what they have meant to do; the great people themselves are judged by what they are.”

"The Dreamers"
Seven Gothic Tales (1934)
Context: The consolations of the vulgar are bitter in the royal ear. Let physicians and confectioners and servants in the great houses be judged by what they have done, and even by what they have meant to do; the great people themselves are judged by what they are. I have been told that lions, trapped and shut up in cages, grieve from shame more than from hunger.

Robert Falcon Scott photo

“I have done this to show what an Englishman can do.”

Robert Falcon Scott (1868–1912) Royal Navy officer and explorer

Note found on his corpse; quoted in Bruce Chatwin, What am I Doing Here?

Adlai Stevenson photo

“I have said what I meant and meant what I said. I have not done as well as I should like to have done, but I have done my best, frankly and forthrightly; no man can do more, and you are entitled to no less.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

Speech, (3 November 1952) as quoted in "The Graceful Loser" in TIME (23 July 1965) http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,841890,00.html

Louis Pasteur photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo

“Oh, we get along. She lets me have my own way, and later I find out I’ve done just what she wanted me to do.”

Source: Beyond This Horizon (1948; originally serialized in 1942), Chapter 14, “—and beat him when he sneezes”, p. 130

Related topics