The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.
Interpretation
Actions hold more value than intentions.
This quote highlights the importance of taking action rather than simply having good intentions. It suggests that even the smallest action can have a greater impact than grand plans that are never executed, emphasizing the need for practical steps towards achieving oneβs goals.
In practice
During a motivational speech about community service, one might say this quote to emphasize the importance of volunteering.
The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense is his life, large-brained, large-lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame charged with buoyancy and his heart with song.
Naturalists, like poets, are born and then made only by years of painstaking observation.
Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and marrow of Mother Earth.
Next to the laborer in the fields, the walker holds the closest relation to the soil; and he holds a closer and more vital relation to nature because he is freer and his mind more at leisure.
Some of the animals outsee man, outsmell him, outhear him, outrun him, outswim him, because their lives depend more upon these special powers than his does; but he can outwit them all because he has the resourcefulness of reason and is at home in many different fields.
Unadulterated, unsweetened observations are what the real nature-lover craves. No man can invent incidents and traits as interesting as the reality.
You are your own highest authority. Do not place your source of authority outside of you. Go within to see if the truth you've found is in harmony with the truth you find in your heart.
There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent.
The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.
I could do one show after another in China for the rest of my life and still die ignorant. There's a lot of places left to go.
He who is surety is never sure himself. Take advice, and never be security for more than you are quite willing to lose. Remember the word of the wise man: He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it; and he that hateth suretyship is sure.
For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating.
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