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

Better break your word than do worse in keeping it.
~ Thomas Fuller

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

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

A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.
~ Niccolo Machiavelli

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