Quotes about deed
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“Western civilization, unfortunately, does not link knowledge and morality but rather, it connects knowledge and power and makes them equivalent. Today with an information "superhighway" now looming on the horizon, we are told that a lack of access to information will doom people to a life of meaninglessness — and poverty. As we look around and observe modern industrial society, however, there is no question that information, in and of itself, is useless and that as more data is generated, ethical and moral decisions are taking on a fantasy dimension in which a "lack of evidence to indict" is the moral equivalent of the good deed.”

Vine Deloria Jr. (1933–2005) American writer

Foreword to Words of Power: Voices from Indian America (1994), also quoted in "Vine Deloria, Jr." at Indigenous Peoples Literature (2015) by Glen Welker http://www.indigenouspeople.net/vine.htm

Life, People, Making love, Question

“O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge men's search
To vaster issues.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

O May I Join the Choir Invisible (1867)

Men, Search, Star, Self-confidence

“Men are not zoophilists (being-lovers). Not many of them are philanthropists (man-lovers). They are barbarians. And the wrongs inflicted by them on non-human beings are for the most part inflicted simply because they feel like it. Human nature is so constructed that men get pleasure out of doing the most monstrous deeds. It is worse than this. Human nature is so constructed that it contains elements which demand exercise, demand motor expression, and in whose expression the most lamentable and appalling effects are produced.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Perils of Over-population, p. 154

Men, Pleasure, Feeling, Exercises

“Sin is no deed.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Third Revelation, Chapter 11

“Sometimes in our activist and production-oriented American society and culture we succumb to pragmatism looking at the Christian life and our sharing in the apostolic mission of the Church as a matter being able to “do” things for Christ, the Church or others. In fact, the Christian life is a gift and a call to truth and love given to us by God. It is first a matter of "being," of simply existing as a person created by God and redeemed by him in Christ. We live out this truth and love in specific ways according to our age, talents, and unique vocation. At no point are the sacraments about what we have done or promise to do for God. They are God's free gift of grace to us. At the same time, these gifts of love entail an obligation to bear witness to God's love in word and deed by our collaboration in freedom with the grace given.”

Álvaro Corrada del Río (1942) Puerto Rican Catholic bishop

Pastoral Reflection on the Sacrament of Confirmation http://www.americancatholicpress.org/Bishop_Corrada_Pastoral_Reflecton%20_on_Confirmation.html (October 7, 2005)

Love, Life, God, Truth

“The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.”

John Burroughs (1837–1921) American naturalist and essayist

“Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Life, Wisdom, Peace, Light

“The thought manifests as the word. The word manifests as the deed. The deed develops into habit. And the habit hardens into character.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

“I believe that we are solely responsible for our choices, and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime.”

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926–2004) American psychiatrist

“Error is the force that welds men together; truth is communicated to men only by deeds of truth. Only deeds of truth, by introducing light into the conscience of each individual, can dissolve the cohesion of error, and detach men one by one from the mass united together by the cohesion of error.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

My Religion (1884), Ch. 12

Men, Truth, Error, Communication

“Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime, from the sowing of the seed at Athens, two thousand four hundred and sixty years ago, until the ripened harvest was gathered by men of our race.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Opening statement.
1870s, The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)

Men, Religion, Motivation

“We must not, at any cost, behave like little children who are ready to take credit for good deeds but run away wherever evil ones appear.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Children, Appearance, Evil

“You can still reach the level of the angels by doing great deeds in your daily life.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Life, Angels

“Descend, descend, Urania, speak
To men in their own tongue!
Leave not the breaking heart to break
Because thine own is strong.
This is the law, in dream and deed,
That heaven must walk on earth!
O, shine upon the humble creed
That holds the heavenly birth.”

Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) English poet

"The Secret Inn : 'The Kingdom is Within You'" in Master Mind Magazine, Vol. VII, No. 3 (December 1914), p. 99

Men, Law, Dreams, Birth

“Prove your words by your deeds.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XX: On practicing what you preach

“The actions by these young men who destroyed the United States and launched the storm of planes against it have done a good deed.”

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (1965) One of Al-Qaeda's official spokesmen

Source: In full: Al-Qaeda statement http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1590350.stm (10th October, 2001)

Men

“The merciful, kind, and generous man benefits himself for his deeds return to bless him, but he who is cruel and callous to the wants of others brings on himself retribution.”

book Bible

Source: Proverbs 11:17, AMP

“Death is the looking-glass of life wherein
Each man may scan the aspect of his deeds.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

Source: Savonarola (1881), Girolamo Savonarola in Act I, sc. iv; p. 49.

Life, Death

“If through the years we're not to do
Much finer deeds than we have done;
If we must merely wander through
Time's garden, idling in the sun;
If there is nothing big ahead,
Why do we fear to join the dead?Unless to-morrow means that we
Shall do some needed service here;
That tasks are waiting you and me
That will be lost, save we appear;
Then why this dreadful thought of sorrow
That we may never see to-morrow?”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Source: Just Folks (1917), Living, first and second stanzas.

Fear, Appearance, Time, Waiting

“The worst criminals were not the men who did the deed. The crime of mobs and courtiers, infuriated by the lust of vengeance and of power, is not so strange a portent as the exultation of peaceful men, influenced by no present injury or momentary rage, but by the permanent and incurable perversion of moral sense wrought by a distorted piety.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Source: 1860s, The Massacre Of St. Bartholomew (1869)

Men, Peace, Sense, Rage

“Atheists, or Deists only in the name,
By word or deed deny a God. They eat
Their daily bread, & draw the breath of heaven,
Without a thought or thanks; heav'n's roof to them
Is but a painted ceiling hung with lamps,
No more, that light them to their purposes.
They 'wander loose about.'”

Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist

They nothing see,
Themselves except, and creatures like themselves,
That liv'd short-sighted, impotent to save.
So on their dissolute spirits, soon or late,
Destruction cometh 'like an armed man,'
Or like a dream of murder in the night,
Withering their mortal faculties, & breaking
The bones of all their pride.
Living Without God In The World (1798)

God, Light, Drawing, Painting

“Deeds rather than words express my concept of the part religion should play in everyday life. I have watched constantly that in our movie work the highest moral and spiritual standards are upheld, whether it deals with fable or with stories of living action.”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

1963, Deeds Rather Than Words (1963)

Life, Religion, Parting

“The affairs of gold-laden Gyges do not interest me
zealousy of the gods has never seized me nor anger
at their deeds. But I have no love for great tyranny
for its deeds are very far from my eyes.”

Archilochus (-680–-645 BC) Ancient Greek lyric poet

Fragment 19

Love, God, Anger

“At the beginning, I thought I was an ordinary athlete, and I didn't think too much about it. But as people asked me for a lot of things, I also felt that I should pay attention to my words and deeds. No longer. Can't let my temper anymore.”

Zhang Yufei (1998) Chinese swimmer

"Forced to open! Zhang Yufei: At the beginning of the National Games, I only signed up for 6 items, but the coach secretly added 2 items" in 163.com https://www.163.com/dy/article/GK9TP0F60529ETIH.html (19 September 2021)

People, Thinking