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The gentle minde by gentle deeds is knowne.
For a man by nothing is so well bewrayd,
As by his manners.

— Edmund Spenser The Faerie Queene (1589)

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Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: Canto 3, stanza 1; Spenser here is referencing and paraphrasing a statement from the "Wife of Bath's Tale" of Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer: "he is gentil that doth gentil dedis."
Work: The Faerie Queene, 1589
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

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For all that Nature by her mother-wit
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For of the soule the bodie forme doth take;
For the soule is forme, and doth the bodie make.

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I learned have, not to despise,
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Ill can he rule the great, that cannot reach the small.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Edmund Spenser (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.