quotations about promises
The man who is most slow in promising is most sure to keep his word.
JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
attributed, Day's Collacon
Magnificent promises are always to be suspected.
THEODORE PARKER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Anyone can be rich in promises.
OVID
attributed, Day's Collacon
The moment you make someone promise anything is the same moment you ask them to lie to you.
MOLLY RINGWALD
When It Happens To You
Many clouds do not always produce heavy showers, neither do the hasty promises of fickle men yield us much good.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
Giants in
Their promises, but those obtained, weak pigmies
In their performance.
PHILIP MASSINGER
Great Duke of Florence
Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens
That one day bloomed and fruitful were the next.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry VI, Part I
What glitters may not be gold; and even wolves may smile; and fools will be led by promises to their deaths.
LAUREN OLIVER
Delirium Stories: Hana, Annabel, and Raven
Just when you think you got it down
Your heart securely tied and bound
They whisper, promises in the dark
PAT BENATAR
"Promises in the Dark"
Promises and pie-crusts are made to be broken.
JONATHAN SWIFT
"Polite Conversation", The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift
We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech at the first Republican state convention of Illinois, May 29, 1856
You say you'll give me
Eyes in a moon of blindness
A river in a time of dryness
A harbor in the tempest
But all the promises we make
From the cradle to the grave
When all I want is you
U2
"All I Want Is You"
How sad they are,
the promises we never return to.
They stay in our mouths,
roughen the tongue, lead lives of their own.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
"Autumn Quince"
Liars make the best promises.
PIERCE BROWN
Golden Son
I am stuffing your mouth with your
promises and watching
you vomit them out upon my face
ANNE SEXTON
"Killing the Love", 45 Mercy Street
Though promising is not giving, it satisfies fools.
FERNAO MENDEZ PINTO
attributed, Day's Collacon
Some persons spend so much time in making promises, that they have no time left to fulfill them.
E. P. DAY
Day's Collacon
I used to make promises to myself and find them easy to break. Today, I love myself enough to not only make a promise to myself, but I love myself enough to keep that promise.
STEVE MARABOLI
Life, the Truth, and Being Free
And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd,
That palter with us in a double sense:
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Macbeth
Some things you don't have to promise. You just do.
RICK YANCEY
The 5th Wave