A Quote by Robert Browning

Fail I alone, in words and deeds? Why, all men strive and who succeeds? — © Robert Browning
Fail I alone, in words and deeds? Why, all men strive and who succeeds?
The chief difference between words and deeds is that words are always intended for men for their approbation, but deeds can be done only for God.
Of the Logos which is as I describe it men always prove to be uncomprehending, both before they have heard it and when once they have heard it. For although all things happen according to this Logos, they [men] are like people of no experience, even when they experience such words and deeds as I explain, when I distinguish each thing according to its constitution and declare how it is; but the rest of men fail to notice what they do after they wake up just as they forget what they do when asleep.
On matters beyond his ken a gentleman speaks with caution. If names are not right, words are misused. When words are misused, affairs go wrong. When affairs go wrong, courtesy and music droop, law and justice fail. And when law and justice fail them, a people can move neither hand nor foot. So a gentleman must be ready to put names in speech, to put words into deeds. A gentleman is nowise careless of words.
Though it is possible to utter words only with the intention to fulfill the will of God, it is very difficult not to think about the impression which they will produce on men and not to form them accordingly. But deeds you can do quite unknown to men, only for God. And such deeds are the greatest joy that a man can experience.
Words are one thing - deeds something entirely different. Fine words are a mask to cover shady deeds. A sincere diplomat is like dry water or wooden iron.
Whoever has God truly as a companion, is with him in all places, both on the streets, and among people, as well as in church, or in the desert or in a monastic cell...Why is this so? It is so because such a person possesses God alone, keeping their gaze fixed upon God, and thus all things become God for him or her. Such people be a God in all their deeds and in all the places they go, and it is God alone who is the author of all their deeds.
Love manifests its reality in deeds, not only in words - these alone are without effect.
Words are women, deeds are men.
Why do we resist giving help to homeless men? In part because we don't understand how our pressure on men to support families often forces men to take transient jobs that are but a step away from homelessness (the death-of-a-salesman jobs, the migrant worker jobs...) and in part because we respond differently to men who fail [than women who fail].
Loyalty to God is alone fundamental. Feelings, words, deeds, must be beads strung on the string of duty.
We must strive to form a comprehensive sublime nationalism whose first principal is national geographic unity and must strengthen this unity with deeds not with words.
Brave men do not boast nor bluster. Deeds, not words, speak for such.
Men pass away, but their deeds abide. [His last words.]
Under adversity, under oppression, the words begin to fail, the easy words begin to fail. In order to convey things accurately, the human being is almost forced to find the most precise words possible, which is a precondition for literature.
The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.
Over and above the various prejudices I acknowledge, the affinities I feel, the attractions I succumb to, the events which occur to me and to me alone- over and above a sum of movements I am conscious of making, of emotions I alone experience- I strive, in relation to other men, to discover the nature, if not the necessity, of my difference from them. Is it not precisely to the degree I become conscious of this difference that I shall recognize what I alone have been put on this earth to do, what unique message I alone may bear, so that I alone can answer for its fate?
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!