Quotes about promises

It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.

— Aeschylus

Civilization rests on a set of promises; if the promises are broken too often, the civilization dies, no matter how rich it may be, or how mechanically clever. Hope and faith depend on the promises; if hope and faith go, everything goes.

— Herbert Agar

Promises are the uniquely human way of ordering the future, making it predictable and reliable to the extent that this is humanly possible.

— Hannah Arendt

When a man takes an oath, Meg, he's holding his ownself in his own hands. Like water. And if he opens his fingers then- he needn't hope to find himself again.

— Robert Bolt

If you wish to be success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.

— Napoleon Bonaparte

The best way to keep one's word is not to give it.

— Napoleon Bonaparte

The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday --but never jam today.

— Lewis Carroll

What a woman says to her avid lover should be written in wind and running water.

— Catullus

Promise is most given when the least is said.

— George Chapman

Never take a solemn oath. People think you mean it.

— Norman Douglas

All promise outruns performance.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.

— Robert Frost

He is poor indeed that can promise nothing.

— Thomas Fuller

Thou ought to be nice, even to superstition, in keeping thy promises, and therefore equally cautious in making them.

— Thomas Fuller

Better break your word than do worse in keeping it.

— Thomas Fuller

Some persons make promises for the pleasure of breaking them.

— William Hazlitt

Half the promises people say were never kept, were never made.

— Edgar Watson Howe

The man who promises everything is sure to fulfil nothing, and everyone who promises too much is in danger of using evil means in order to carry out his promises, and is already on the road to perdition.

— Carl Jung

The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.

— Niccolo Machiavelli

A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.

— Niccolo Machiavelli

It is useless to hold a person to anything he says while he is in love, drunk, or running for office.

— Shirley Maclaine

The promises of this world are, for the most part, vain phantoms; and to confide in one's self, and become something of worth and value is the best and safest course.

— Michelangelo

God never made a promise that was too good to be true.

— Dwight L. Moody

Everyone's a millionaire where promises are concerned.

— Ovid

Promises are like crying babies in a theater, they should be carried out at once.

— Norman Vincent Peale

He loses his thanks who promises and delays.

— Proverb

There are no greater promisers than those who have nothing to give.

— Proverb

In the midst of great joy, do not promise anyone anything. In the midst of great anger, do not answer anyone's letter.

— Chinese Proverb

Eggs and oaths are easily broken.

— Danish Proverb

Nothing weights lighter than a promise.

— German Proverb

Those that are most slow in making a promise are the most faithful in the performance of it.

— Jean Jacques Rousseau

Between today and tomorrow are graves, and between promising and fulfilling are chasms.

— Ruckett

No pillows so soft as God's Promise.

— Saying

A promise made is a debt unpaid.

— Robert W. Service

Promises and pie crusts are made to be broken.

— Jonathan Swift

One promises much, to avoid giving little.

— Marquis De Vauvenargues

Where there is an unknowable, there is a promise.

— Thornton Wilder

Talk is cheap, but promises are expensive. Only use them on occasions.

— Jvongard