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Promise — news, coverage & facts — IJR

Notable quotes

“All men have a feeling, that they would rather you told them a civil lie than give them a point blank refusal…. If you make a promise, the thing is still uncertain, depends on a future day, and concerns but few people; but if you refuse you alienate people to a certainty and at once, and many people too.”
— Quintus Tullius Cicero, "On Standing for the Consulship", section 12.—The Treatises of M. T. Cicero, trans. C. D. Yonge, p. 499, 500 (1872). This work, also known as the "Handbook of Electioneering", was addressed to Marcus Tullius Cicero, the author's brother. Another translation of the passage is: "Human nature being what it is, all men prefer a false promise to a flat refusal. At the worst the man to whom you have lied may be angry. That risk, if you make a promise, is uncertain and deferred, and it affects only a few. But if you refuse you are sure to offend many, and that at once". H. J. Haskell, The New Deal in Old Rome, p. 169 (1939).
“We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot.”
— Attributed to Abraham Lincoln, speech delivered before the first Republican state convention of Illinois, Bloomington, Illinois, May 29, 1856.—The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Arthur B. Lapsley, vol. 2, p. 249 (1905). This version of the speech has been questioned because it was reconstructed by Henry C. Whitney, who made notes at the time but did not write it out until 1896. He did not claim that it was literally correct, only that he had followed the argument and that in many cases the sentences were as Lincoln spoke them. The only contemporary account of the so-called "Lost Speech" was a brief report in the Alton, Illinois, Weekly Courier, June 5, 1856, which does not contain this sentence. Some historians believe the Whitney reconstruction "is not … worthy of serious consideration"; in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953), vol. 2, p. 341.
“The Great Spirit placed me and my people on this land poor and naked. When the white men came we gave them lands, and did not wish to hurt them. But the white man drove us back and took our lands. Then the Great Father [president] made us many promises, but they are not kept. He promised to give us large presents, and when they came to us they were small; they seemed to be lost on the way.”
— Sioux Indian Chief Red Cloud, speech at the Council of Peace, New York City, June 15, 1870, as reported by The New York Times (June 16, 1870), p. 2.
“Promise is most given when the least is said.”
— George Chapman, translation of Musœus, Hero and Leander, line 234.
“Promettre c'est donner, espérer c'est jouir.”
— To promise is to give, to hope is to enjoy.
“There buds the promise of celestial worth.”
— Edward Young, The Last Day, Book III, line 317.

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.