You cannot have a proud and chivalrous spirit if your conduct is mean and paltry; for whatever a man’s actions are, such must be his spirit.

The saying links inner character (“spirit”) to outward behavior, rejecting the idea that nobility is merely a self-image or a social claim. A person cannot credibly present themselves as high-minded, honorable, or “chivalrous” while acting in petty, grasping, or dishonorable ways; conduct is the visible proof of the soul’s quality. The logic is ethical and diagnostic: actions do not just express character, they reveal what it truly is. Read in a classical Greek moral register, it also implies that virtue is practiced rather than proclaimed—honor is earned through consistent deeds, and moral grandeur requires corresponding habits of action.