“It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we...

“It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.”¹ (Jane Austen)

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all.”² (Emily Dickinson)

“A poet is a nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.”³ (Percy Bysshe Shelley)

The verb tenses in the three quotes above are, respectively,