"She must now learn, if she would not be ridiculous, since she cannot bring her deeds up to the level of her words, to reduce her words to the level of her performances."

--from the British Quarterly Review, 1871

I came across this bit of text while proofreading for Distributed Proofreaders. (It's 577.png, if anyone's really interested.) Here the author is describing the state of affairs in France following the devastating defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. Good advice, even today, n'est-ce pas?