“Do as we say, not as we do.”
Fate quello che noi diciamo e non quello che noi facciamo.
Third Day, Seventh Story
The Decameron (c. 1350)
Original
Fate quello che noi diciamo e non quello che noi facciamo.
The Decameron (c. 1350)
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Giovanni Boccaccio 27
Italian author and poet 1313–1375Related quotes
"Song about my mother" [Lied von meiner Mutter], from "Thirteen Psalms" (1920), trans. Christopher Middleton in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 40
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)
“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
What is it?
Quoted in * Sarah Palin Wonders Aloud if Libya Action is a "Squirmish"
Crooks and Liars
2011-03-29
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/sarah-palin-wonders-aloud-if-libya-squirmis
2011-03-30
2014
Context: To think what we do not feel is to lie to ourselves, in the same way that we lie to others when we say to others what we do not think. Everything we think must be thought with our entire being, body, and soul.
“What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty?”
“The Spirit of Liberty” - speech at “I Am an American Day” ceremony, Central Park, New York City (21 May 1944).
Extra-judicial writings
Context: What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it… What is this liberty that must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not the freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check on their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few — as we have learned to our sorrow.
What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.
“It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.”
Variant: It is not what we think or feel that makes us who we are. It is what we do. Or fail to do...
Source: Sense and Sensibility