“Whatever can be done another day can be done today.”
Michel De Montaigne book Essays
Book I, Ch. 20
Essais (1595), Book I
The Song of Abu Klea, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Whatever can be done another day can be done today.”
Michel De Montaigne book Essays
Book I, Ch. 20
Essais (1595), Book I
“Now a' is done that men can do,
And a' is done in vain.”
Robert Burns (1759–1796) Scottish poet and lyricist
It Was A' for Our Rightfu' King, st. 2
Johnson's The Scots Musical Museum (1787-1796)
“If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven't done much today.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
101 Best Ways to Get Ahead: Solid Gold Advice from 101 of the World's Most Successful People (2004) by Michael E. Angier and Sarah Pond, p. 30
1990s
“Can you hate someone for what they have done, but still love them for whom they had been?”
Jodi Picoult book Nineteen Minutes
Source: Nineteen Minutes
“At the Day of Judgement we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done; not how well we have spoken, but how holily we have lived.”
Certe adveniente die judicii, non quæretur a nobis quid legimus, sed quid fecimus; nec quam bene diximus, sed quam religiose viximus.
Thomas à Kempis book The Imitation of Christ
Book I, ch. 3; this is part of a longer passage:
A humble knowledge of oneself is a surer road to God than a deep searching of the sciences. Yet learning itself is not to be blamed, or is the simple knowledge of anything whatsoever to be despised, for true learning is good in itself and ordained by God; but a good conscience and a holy life are always to be preferred. But because many are more eager to acquire much learning than to live well, they often go astray, and bear little or no fruit. If only such people were as diligent in the uprooting of vices and the panting of virtues as they are in the debating of problems, there would not be so many evils and scandals among the people, nor such laxity in communities. At the Day of Judgement, we shall not be asked what we have read, but what we have done; not how eloquently we have spoken, but how holily we have lived. Tell me, where are now all those Masters and Doctors whom you knew so well in their lifetime in the full flower of their learning? Other men now sit in their seats, and they are hardly ever called to mind. In their lifetime they seemed of great account, but now no one speaks of them.
[Humili tui cognitio, certior viam est ad Deum, quam profunda scientiae inquisitio. Non est culpanda scientia, aut quelibet simplex rei notitia, quae bona est in se considerata, et a Deo ordinat: sed preferenda est semper bona conscientia, et virtuosa vita. Quia vero plures magis student scire, quam bene vivere: ideo saepe errant, et pene nullum, vel modicum fructum ferunt. O si tanta adhiberent diligentiam ad extirpanda vitia, et virtute inferendas, sicuti ad movenda questiones: non fierent tanta mala et scandala in populo nec tanta dissolutio in cenobiis ! Certe, adveniente die judicii, non quaeretur a nobis: quid legimus, sed quid fecimus: nec quam bene diximus, sed quam religiose viximus. Dic mihi: Ubi sunt modo omnes illi Domini et Magistri, quos bene novisti, dum adhuc viverent et studiis florerent? Iam eorum praebendas alii possident: et nescio, utrum de eis recogitent. In vita sua aliquid esse videbantur, et modo de illis tacetur.]
Book I, ch. 3.
Source: The Imitation of Christ (c. 1418)
“Wrongs done could not be righted, but at least they were not still being done.”
Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle
Section 5
Hainish Cycle, The Word for World Is Forest (1972)
“What you have done to this point cannot be undone. What you do next… It is still unwritten.”
Mitch Albom (1958) American author
Source: The Time Keeper
“Great things are done when men and mountains meet;
This is not done by jostling in the street.”
William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist
Great Things Are Done
1800s, Poems from Blake's Notebook (c. 1807-1809)