Echoes

Deeds, not words.

Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.

Well done is better than well said.

My life is my message.

I have a perfect horror of words that are not backed up by deeds.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

Of a surety, at the Day of Judgment it will be demanded of us, not what we have read, but what we have done; not how well we have spoken, but how holily we have lived.

All praise of virtue consists in action.

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.

Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.

To see what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.

It is in your act that you exist, not in your body. Your act is yourself, and there is no other you.

I would prefer inarticulate wisdom to loquacious foolishness.

The most any one can do is to confess as candidly as he can the grounds for the faith that is in him, and leave his example to work on others as it may.

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In stopping to think through the meaning of what I have learned, there is much that I believe intensely, much I am unsure of. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

I don't want to be interesting. I want to be good.

Right here let me make as vigorous a plea as I know how in favor of saying nothing that we do not mean, and of acting without hesitation up to whatever we say. A good many of you are probably acquainted with the old proverb: "Speak softly and carry a big stick—you will go far." If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble; and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength, power.

Virtue is serious business; everything else is farce.

I have never felt that anything really mattered but the satisfaction of knowing that you stood for the things in which you believed and had done the very best you could.

It is always easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.

It is no use to preach to [children] if you do not act decently yourself.

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

It is sometimes easier to make the world a better place than to prove you have made the world a better place.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.