A Quote by Horace

Be modest in speech, but excel in action.

Horace

Quote Topics

Action Excel Modest Speech

Quote Author

Horace
Roman - Poet
65 BC - 8 BC

The Chinese have an excellent proverb: "Be modest in speech, but excel in action.

Horace Mann

Action hangs, as it were, dissolved in speech, in thoughts whereof speech is the shadow; and precipitates itself therefrom. The kind of speech in a man betokens the kind of action you will get from him.

Thomas Carlyle

Men have various subjects in which they may excel, or at least would be thought to excel, and though they love to hear justice done to them where they know they excel, yet they are most and best flattered upon those points where they wish to excel and yet are doubtful whether they do or not.

Lord Chesterfield

Therefore all just persons are satisfied with their own praise. They refuse to explain themselves, and are content that new actions should do them that office. They believe that we communicate without speech, and above speech, and that no right action of ours is quite unaffecting to our friends, at whatever distance; for the influence of action is not to be measured by miles.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I thought if I was lucky it would be a nice, modest-sized, modest-budgeted film that would be a modest success. And then something happened.

David Heyman

It's always easy to get people to condemn threats to free speech when the speech being threatened is speech that they like. It's much more difficult to induce support for free speech rights when the speech being punished is speech they find repellent.

Glenn Greenwald

All human excellence is but comparative — there are persons who excel us, as much as we fancy we excel the meanest.

Samuel Richardson

All human excellence is but comparative. There may be persons who excel us, as much as we fancy we excel the meanest.

Samuel Richardson

A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.

Confucius

The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.

Confucius

My feeling is that the Supreme Court reached a reasonable standard of protection of speech in the 1960s, a standard higher than any other country in the world, to my knowledge. In brief, speech should be protected up to participation in imminent criminal action.

Noam Chomsky

EVERY intention which does not assert itself by deeds is a vain intention, and the speech which expresses it is idle speech. It is action which proves life and establishes will

Eliphas Levi

It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the church's pastors wherever it occurs. ... The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in work, in action and in law.

Pope Benedict XVI

Does any one suppose that private prayer is necessarily candid--necessarily goes to the roots of action! Private prayer is inaudible speech, and speech is representative: who can represent himself just as he is, even in his own reflections?