不言実行 fugen jikkō Action Before Words

Do the thing and do not announce it: a word for resolve kept quiet, the virtue of the person who carries out what they have decided and lets the doing speak. From 1912 the Analects' commentators read it through the Master's answer to what makes a gentleman, that he acts before he speaks and afterwards speaks according to his actions, which is what Action Before Words translates; its best gloss is a commentator's one line, 不言実行 prizes not the silence but the doing. It has a pun, 有言実行, say it and do it, for the person who would rather promise out loud, and which of the two you live by is yours.

不言実行 translates as "Action Before Words; Actions speak louder than words; No talk, all deeds" and is a combination of the words 不言 (read fugen) meaning "not saying" and 実行 (read jikkō) meaning "Action".

A Japanese-made word, first in print in 1898 for a new cabinet that kept its platform to itself, and declared by the first Katsura cabinet in 1901 as its own watchword; from 1902 its users tied it to the Analects' gentleman, slow in speech and quick in action.

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