A man is not his hope, nor his despair, nor yet his past deed.
 Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849). copy citation

Context

“Be assured that every man’s success is in proportion to his average ability. The meadow flowers spring and bloom where the waters annually deposit their slime, not where they reach in some freshet only. A man is not his hope, nor his despair, nor yet his past deed. We know not yet what we have done, still less what we are doing. Wait till evening, and other parts of our day’s work will shine than we had thought at noon, and we shall discover the real purport of our toil.” source