"Actions speak louder than words" means that what one does means more than what one says.

This phrase has been around in various forms for hundreds of years. A very early rendering of it was in the Bible where John 3:18 reads "My little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth." In the 1500s, a famous French writer, Michel de Montaigne, wrote "saying is one thing and doing is another." The phrase became closer to what it is now when in 1628, J. Pym, an Englishman, gave a speech that contained the following language: "A word spoken in season is like an Apple of Gold set in Pictures of Silver, and actions are more precious than words."

Our current usage was first written in a letter by A.M. Davis in 1736 when he writes "Actions speak louder than words, and are more to be regarded." This phrase becomes more commonly used when Abraham Lincoln, in 1856, wrote "'Actions speak louder than words' is the maxim; and, if true, the South now distinctly says to the North, "Give us the measures, and you take the men."

Use Example - "Stop telling me you are going to do the dishes and just do them! Actions speak louder than words!"

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