"1860. In Lodge of Sorrow at Washington: March 30.", p. 11 <!-- [books.google.com/books?id=PTpRwZ1yEWwC&pg=PA11&dq=What+we+have+done+for+ourselves+Albert+Pike&hl=en&sa=X&ei=akWkT_3QCqLA6AHG_7G6CQ&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=remains immortal&f=false page 11] -->
In sentiment this is similar to the expression made much earlier by Giordano Bruno in On the Infinite Universe and Worlds (1584) : "What you receive from others is a testimony to their virtue; but all that you do for others is the sign and clear indication of your own."
Ex Corde Locutiones: Words from the Heart Spoken of His Dead Brethren
Variant: What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.
“What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.”
Earliest instance of this quote found on google books is the 1989 book Forest primeval: the natural history of an ancient forest by Chris Maser, but there it appears to be Maser's own thought (see p. 230 http://books.google.com/books?id=8EAHQM54E5gC&q=%a+mirror% followed by a different supposed Gandhi quote http://books.google.com/books?id=8EAHQM54E5gC&q=gandhi).
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Mahatma Gandhi 238
pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-rul… 1869–1948Related quotes
Aunt Jane’s Nieces and Uncle John (1911)
Novels published under the pseudonym Edith van Dyne
Context: I think the world is like a great mirror, and reflects our lives just as we ourselves look upon it. Those who turn sad faces toward the world find only sadness reflected. But a smile is reflected in the same way, and cheers and brightens our hearts. You think there is no pleasure to be had in life. That is because you are heartsick and — and tired, as you say. With one sad story ended you are afraid to begin another — a sequel — feeling it would be equally sad. But why should it be? Isn't the joy or sorrow equally divided in life?
Source: Solaris (1961), Ch. 6: "The Little Apocrypha", p. 72
Context: We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is. We are seaching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, of a civilisation superior to our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval past. At the same time, there is something inside us which we don't like to face up to, from which we try to protect ourselves, but which nevertheless remains, since we don't leave Earth in a state of primal innocence. We arrive here as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is revealed to us — that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in silence — then we don't like it any more.
1950s, Address at the Philadelphia Convention Hall (1956)
“What do we know but that we face one another in this place?”
“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
Source: The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Chapter 5