Quotes about promise
page 8

“GLBT people across this country only want equality and to be left alone, left to pursue our dreams and aspirations and our part of the American promise, which should be our birthright.”

Jeffrey Montgomery (1953–2016) American LGBT rights activist and public relations executive

America...You Kill Me

People, Dreams, Parting, Country

“Having settled down in the promised land of money and adventure - returning to a land of your parents last days can be a big dilemma to many. Isn't your greatest wealth your parents, and the best adventure - to see them happy before they go.”

Siddharth Katragadda (1972) Indian writer

page 90
The Other Wife (2003)

Money, Happiness, Parent, Wealth

“Whatever your opinion of the post-9/11 wars, the need to invade Afghanistan or Iraq, none of that changes the decades old strategy and ideology of Global Jihad. Long before there was a Bush in the White House, Muslims with a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam declared war on all that is Un-Islamic, be it located in the Middle East, Europe or the US. Theirs is a totalitarian ideology, as universalist and absolute as anything Hitler or Stalin came up with, albeit with a holy sanction and promise of salvation. We are in their crosshairs as much as Assad, Maliki, or Sisi. Either everyone must live under Islamic law in a Caliphate, or they must die. Whether they live in a Christian enclave in Norther Iraq, or Washington, New York, or Houston.”

Sebastian Gorka (1970) American politician

Why ISIS is More Dangerous than Al Qaeda and What America Must Do About It http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2014/07/09/why-isis-is-more-dangerous-than-al-qaeda-and-what-america-must-do-about-it/ (July 9, 2014)

War, Law, Change, Housing

“Christianity set itself the goal of fulfilling man’s unattainable desires, but for that very reason ignored his attainable desires. By promising man eternal life, it deprived him of temporal life, by teaching him to trust in God’s help it took away his trust in his own powers; by giving him faith in a better life in heaven, it destroyed his faith in a better life on earth and his striving to attain such a life. Christianity gave man what his imagination desires, but for that very reason failed to give him what he really and truly desires.”

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872) German philosopher and anthropologist

Lecture XXX, Atheism alone a Positive View Lectures on the Essence of Religion http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/feuerbach/works/lectures/index.htm (1851)

Life, God, Faith, Imagination

“of the evils most liable to attend on any sort of early proficiency, and which often fatally blights its promise, my father most anxiously guarded against. This was self-conceit. He kept me, with extreme vigilance, out of the way of hearing myself praised, or of being led to make self-flattering comparisons between myself and others. From his own intercourse with me I could derive none but a very humble opinion of myself; and the standard of comparison he always held up to me, was not what other people did, but what a man could and ought to do. He completely succeeded in preserving me from the sort of influences he so much dreaded. I was not at all aware that my attainments were anything unusual at my age.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)

https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/32/mode/1up pp. 32–33

People, Age, Way, Evil

“Even if astrology had been a real science, I knew nothing about it. We find countless events in real history which would never have occurred if they had not been predicted. This is because we are the authors of our so-called destiny, and all the 'antecedent necessities' of the Stoics are chimerical; the argument which proves the power of destiny seems strong only because it is sophistical. Cicero laughed at it. Someone whom he had invited to dinner, who had promised to go, and who had not appeared, wrote to him that since he had not gone it was evident that he had not been iturus ('going to go'). Cicero answers him: Veni ergo cras, et veni etiamsi venturus non sis ('Then come tomorrow, and come even if you are not going to come'). At this date, when I am conscious that I rely entirely on my common sense, I owe this explanation to my reader, despite the axiom, Fata viam inveniunt ('Destiny finds the way'). If the fatalists are obliged by their own philosophy to consider the concatenation of all events necessary, a parte ante ('a priori'), what remains of man's moral freedom is nothing; and in that case he can neither earn merit nor incur guilt. I cannot in conscience admit that I am a machine.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

History of My Life (trans. Trask 1967), 1997 reprint, v. 7, chapter 8, p. 172
Referenced

Way, History, Sense, Freedom

“Disarmament is not just an idle promise; it is also a commitment under article 26 of the Charter of the United Nations.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order exploring the adverse impacts of military expenditures on the realization of a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IntOrder/Pages/Reports.aspx. 2015, Report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council

“Our quarrel is not with Egypt, still less with the Arab world. It is with Colonel Nasser. He has shown that he is not a man who can be trusted to keep an agreement. Now he has torn up all his country's promises to the Suez Canal Company and has even gone back on his own statements.”

Anthony Eden (1897–1977) British Conservative politician, prime minister

Broadcast (8 August 1956), quoted in "Oil route 'a matter of life and death'", The Times (9 August 1956), p. 6

World, Country

“I'm an insider, I been burned by the fire.
And I've had to live with some hard promises.
I've crawled through the briars,
I'm an insider.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Insider
Lyrics, Hard Promises (1981)

“There is an unbroken chain of opposition to the introduction of economic freedom and to the capitalist autonomy of the economic sphere… In every case the opposition could only be overcome - peacefully or by force - because of the promise of capitalism to establish equality… That this promise was an illusion we all know.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1930s- 1950s, The End of Economic Man (1939), p. 39

Freedom

“Hitler and others promised that as soon as the National Socialist revolution had removed Jewry, economic exploitation would be overcome and a socially just utopia would be nigh.”

Götz Aly (1947) German journalist, historian and social scientist

Source: Why the Germans? Why the Jews?: Envy, Race Hatred, and the Prehistory of the Holocaust (2011), p. 89

“You never know what a man—or a woman—has inside: how much grit, how much courage, how much willingness to change. When someone draws on those qualities, you're looking at a person of substance. And power. And promise. This world needs more of those.”

Victoria Moran (1950) American writer

Source: Main Street Vegan (2012), Ch. 27: Rethink Macho

World, Courage, Change, Drawing

“Incredibly, Apple has persuaded Disney, which owns ABC, to make available all episodes of five TV series, including "Lost," "Desperate Housewives" and "That's So Raven." Each show costs $1.99 — an easy impulse buy if you missed an episode. They play back beautifully, with no network logo in the corner, no yearlong wait for the DVD, and no commercials. (One 43-minute "hour" of TV takes 12 minutes to download with my cable modem, and about two minutes to transfer to the iPod over its U. S. B. 2.0 cable.)… That Mr. Jobs persuaded Disney to dip its pinky toe into these waters is an impressive development — and a very promising sign.”

David Pogue (1963) Technology writer, journalist and commentator

" An iPod Worth Keeping an Eye On http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/18/technology/circuits/19web-pogue.html," The New York Times, October 18, 2005.

Water, Waiting

“Yet, we are well assured that learning did not form any prominent feature in the education of a young nobleman during the Saxon government: it is notorious, that Alfred the Great was twelve years of age before he learned to read; and that he owed his knowledge of letters to accident, rather than to the intention of his tutors. A book adorned with paintings in the hands of his mother, attracted his notice, and he expressed his desire to have it: she promised to comply with his request on condition that he learned to read it, which it seems he did; and this trifling incident laid the groundwork of his future scholarship.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

xx
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Education

Books, Age, Education, Knowledge

“Yet why should an artist's way of looking at the world have any meaning for us? Why does it give us pleasure? Because, I believe, it increases our awareness of our own potentiality. Not of course our awareness of our potentiality as artists ourselves. But a way of looking at the world implies a certain relationship with the world, and every relationship implies action. The kind of actions implied vary a great deal. … A work of art can, to some extent, increase an awareness of different potentialities in different people. The important point is that a valid work of art promises in some way or another the possibility of an increase, an improvement. Nor need the word be optimistic to achieve this; indeed, its subject may be tragic. For it is not the subject that makes the promise, it is the artist's way of viewing his subject. Goya's way of looking at a massacre amounts to the contention that we ought to be able to do without massacres.”

John Berger (1926–2017) British painter, writer and art critic

Source: Selected Essays of John Berger (2014), P. 18

People, Pleasure, World, Art

“She had promised him she would consider his question [of marrying him] […]. But this was not the case; she was wondering if she were not a cold, hard, priggish person, and, on her at last getting up and going rather quickly back to the house, felt, as she had said to her friend, really frightened at herself.”

Henry James book The Portrait of a Lady

Source: The Portrait of a Lady (1881), Ch. XII.

Question, Housing, Personality

“In 1740 Frederick became King and wrote a book to prove that lying, cheating, and highway robbery are wrong and that true happiness comes only from helping others. He then took Silesia away from Maria Theresa of Austria, who he had promised to protect, and was called Frederick the Great.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part IV: A Few Greats, Frederick the Great

Happiness, Books, Lying, Help

“It's very sad that Tanzania is a poor football country. If elected, I promise to put this country on the world football map. I will make sure we produce our own Okochas, El Hadji Dioufs and Zinedine Zidanes here.”

Jakaya Kikwete (1950) Tanzanian politician and president

September 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/africa/4241916.stm 2005

World, Sadness, Football, Country

“Few things tend more to alienate friendship than a want of punctuality in our engagements. I have known the breach of a promise to dine or sup to break up more than one intimacy.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

" On the Spirit of Obligations http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/SpiritObligations.htm" (1824) The Plain Speaker (1826)

Friendship

“Look at that young, active, energetic Hindu who has received education in some English school or college. Yesterday what was he? An ignorant Indian. To-day what is he? An active, intelligent, fine-looking, educated man. Tomorrow what is he? He has English books on one side, he has the dangerous bottle of whisky on the other side. What is he the next day? Oh sad catastrophe! The whole house mourns the death of the promising young man.”

Keshub Chunder Sen (1838–1884) Indian academic

Speech at St. Jame’s Hall, Picadilly, London, on 19th May 1870.

Death, Books, Education, Sadness

“Very few Americans—indeed very few Western leaders who, from time to time, use the word “war” and promise to “win” it—seem to recognize that a global war is being waged against us. Even the few who follow the actual combat tend to see the events separately: there’s fighting in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the Sinai, terrorists are at work all over the place, and we try to figure out what to do in each case.”

Michael T. Flynn (1958) 25th United States National Security Advisor

Introduction
The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies (2016)

War, Time, Fight

“Here’s the bottom line. I promise you it’s entirely legal, and he can’t touch you for it. This is how the laws are written. They’re designed to protect the fortunes of people as rich as you, while throwing the main tax burden on people in much lower brackets.”

Orson Scott Card Ender's Game hexalogy

Page 200
Ender's Game series, First Meetings in the Enderverse (2003), Investment Counselor

People, Law

“Yes yes (quoth she) for all those wyse woordis vttred,
I know on which syde my bread is buttred.
But there will no butter cleaue on my breade.
And on my bread any butter to be spreade.
Euery promise that thou therin dost vtter,
Is as sure as it were sealed with butter.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Yes yes, said she, for all those wise words uttered,
I know on which side my bread is buttered.
But there will no butter cleave on my bread.
And on my bread any butter to be spread.
Every promise that you therein do utter,
Is as sure as it were sealed with butter.
Part II, chapter 7.
Proverbs (1546)

“From the male perspective, when commitment is associated with diamonds and mortgages, promises of love can feel like promises of payment.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 103.

Love, Feeling

“Promise me, this is my only will. Live on. Live on.”

Ritsuko Okazaki (1959–2004) Japanese singer

"I'm Always Close to You", For Ritz
Lyrics

“When a promise is broken, the promise still remains. In one way or another, we are all unfaithful to each other, and physical unfaithfulness is not the worst kind there is.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

The Crosswicks Journal, The Irrational Season (1977)

Unfaithfulness, Way

“Nothing is as easy to make as a promise this winter to do something next summer; this is how commencement speakers are caught.”

Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986) American journalist

Chicago Daily News (February 20, 1958)

Winter, Summer

“The compassion of Christ inclines Him to save sinners, —
the power of Christ enables Him to save sinners, — and the
promise of Christ binds Him to save sinners.
A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,
On Thy kind arms I fall;
Be Thou my Strength and Righteousness,
My Saviour and my All.”

Isaac Watts (1674–1748) English hymnwriter, theologian and logician

Source: Attributed from postum publications, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 82.

Christ

“The way things turned out in Misrata was not what Khadafy had hoped for. Right to the very bitter end, he remained a prisoner of his illusions. For four decades, he had heard people, men and women, shouting themselves hoarse with promises of dying for him. For four decades, he had distributed vast sums of money, generated by Libya’s huge oil exports, among a few hundred thousand “Fedaees” or “self-sacrificers,” individuals who were supposed to fight for him to the end. When high on hubris and the “stimulant” drugs he took, the colonel claimed to have “an army of Omar Mukhtars” under his command, named after a bandit who became a local hero by fighting Italian colonialists in 1912. Yet the first city to rise against Khadafy was Tobruk — Omar Mukhtar’s birthplace. Then Benghazi rose, followed by Braiga. As each town and city rose against him, the colonel promised to fight back from another. His last stands were in Bani-Walid and Sirte. Tens of thousands of Omar Mukhtars did enter the battlefield. But they were fighting not for but against him.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"Khadafy, kha-put" http://nypost.com/2011/10/21/khadafy-kha-put/, New York Post (October 21, 2011). New York Post

Women, Men, Money, People

“Theologians, pretenders, soothsayers, parsons, priests, popes, bishops, have taken advantage of that. They have stood by graves and promised heaven. They have stood by graves and prophesied a future filled with pain. They have erected their toll-gates on the highway of life and have collected money from fear.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Orthodoxy (1884)

Life, Money, Pain, Fear

“When a novel department store called Gigantti was opened in the capitol area a year or two ago, which promised gadgets of many colors for the stinking cheap price of 9:90, 99:90, 999:90; the parking field's rafts of metal plated beetles reached the horizon, and the human lines wriggling midst them in tens of thousands surpassed all the records of the good old Soviet Union. As I looked at those newspaper pictures, a tormented scream erupted from my lips: no democracy, for heaven's sake, no democracy! No common voting right, never! No, no, no!”

Pentti Linkola (1932) Finnish ecologist

Thoughts And Memories About The Old Educated Class - A View Into The Century's Ideological History (2000)

Color, Democracy

“Two important features in the modern development of economics are the application of mathematics to abstract economic reasoning… and the attempt at placing economics on a numerical and experimental basis by an intensive study of economic statistics.
Both these developments have a common characteristic: they emphasize the quantitative character of economics. This quantitative movement in our estimation is one of the most promising developments in modern economics. We also consider it important that the two aspects of the quantitative method referred to should be furthered, developed, and studied jointly as two integrating parts of economics.
We therefore venture to propose the establishment of an international periodical devoted to the advancement of the quantitative study of economic phenomena, and especially to the development of a closer relation between pure economics and economic statistics.
We believe that the scope of the new journal would be happily suggested if it is called "Oekonometrika."”

Ragnar Frisch (1895–1973) Norwegian economist

Accordingly, the quantitative study of economic phenomena here considered may be termed econometrics. Frisch (1927) as quoted in Divisia 1953, pp.24-25; Cited in: Bjerkholt, Olav. " Ragnar Frisch and the foundation of the Econometric Society and Econometrica http://www.ssb.no/a/histstat/doc/doc_199509.pdf." ECONOMETRIC SOCIETY MONOGRAPHS 31 (1998): 26-57. Lead paragraph of a memorandum on the importance of establishing the journal "Oekonometrika" 1920

Mathematics, Study, Parting

“The ploughman ploughs, the fisherman dreams of fish;
Aloft, the sailor, through a world of ropes
Guides tangled meditations, feverish
With memories of girls forsaken, hopes
Of brief reunions, new discoveries,
Past rum consumed, rum promised, rum potential.”

Michael Hamburger (1924–2007) British translator, poet, critic, memoirist and academic

Lines On Brueghel's "Icarus" http://www.themediadrome.com/content/poetry/hamburger_lines_on_icarus.htm

World, Dreams, Hope, Girl

“Barack Obama’s campaign of empty self-contradictory promises has apparently hoodwinked the state of Wyoming…”

Charles Foster Johnson (1953) American musician

March 8, 2008 http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=29193&only

“Hope knows no fear. Hope dares to blossom even inside the abysmal abyss. Hope secretly feeds and strengthens promise.”

Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian writer and guru

My Christmas-New Year-Vacation-Aspiration-Prayers Part 26 (2003)

Fear, Hope

“But complacency or self-congratulation can imperil our security as much as the weapons of tyranny. A moment of pause is not a promise of peace.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Third State of the Union Address

Peace

“We are expecting, of course, a German attack through Belgium, as our High Command has always predicted. We have constantly recommended to General Joffre not to permit any crossing of the Belgian frontier nor over-flying of Belgium until further notice. On that depends the support of England and the attitude of Belgium. When King Albert came to Paris, he promised that Belgium would defend herself against Germany. Let us do nothing which could discourage that good will.”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

Diary entry (3 August 1914), quoted in John Keiger, 'France' in Keith Wilson (ed.), Decisions for War 1914 (London: University College London Press, 1995), pp. 139-140.

Support, Dependency, Flying

“I encourage you to visit the devastated areas and talk to the people and listen to them… Not just distribute relief and then leave. I encourage you to visit the devastated areas and talk to the people and listen to them… Not just distribute relief and then leave. I assure u that you will learn a lot by being able to see things from their eyes… and perhaps those who criticize would understand. Beyond receiving relief goods, sometimes they also need someone who will listen to them. Try it. I promise that u will learn a lot.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Francis Escudero Twitter feed: @SayChiz (5:44 p.m. 13 October 2009).
2009, Twitter Feed

People, Understanding, Learning

“The mere fact that Christianity interprets itself as a new Testament, superseding an old one and fulfilling the promises of the latter, necessarily invites further progress and innovations, either religious or irreligious and antireligious—hence the derivation of the secular irreligions of progress from the eschatology of the church, together with their theological pattern.”

Karl Löwith (1897–1973) German philosopher

Meaning in History (1949), p. 212

“My own self-deception at least promised some kind of pleasure. Theirs offered nothing but terror and guilt.”

Michael Moorcock book The City in the Autumn Stars

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 14 (p. 375)

Pleasure

“It is some improvement that for married couples – or male-female couples in general – the fertility indicator expressing the nation’s demographic situation has risen from 1.2 to 1.44, and this is promising, but 1.44 is still very far from 2. In order to feel safe demographically, the average statistical ratio of children to Hungarian couples should be 2.1. In practice this is hard to implement, but this is the average figure we should have. Until we reach that point, Hungarians must be seen as an endangered species demographically; and the people – but the Government above all – should understand the imperative which is implicit in this.”

Viktor Orbán (1963) Hungarian politician, chairman of Fidesz

Children, People, Feeling, Understanding

“It is not unusual for electorates to want contradictory things, and politicians often make promises accordingly.”

Chris Patten book East and West

Chris Patten, East and West: The Last Governor of Hong Kong on Power, Freedom and the Future, Pan Books, second edition, 1999, page 45.

“If you stare into a flame
You'll get an eye full of energy
If you write your nightscapades
You'll get a dawn full of promises”

Happy Rhodes (1965) American singer-songwriter

"Many Worlds Are Born Tonight" - Live performance at The Tin Angel (24 July 1999) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGdnjC48aJg Many Worlds Are Born Tonight (1998)

“There is a new mood in America. We have been shaken by a tragic war abroad and by scandals and broken promises at home. Our people are searching for new voices and new ideas and new leaders.
Although government has its limits and cannot solve all our problems, we Americans reject the view that we must be reconciled to failures and mediocrity, or to an inferior quality of life. For I believe that we can come through this time of trouble stronger than ever. Like troops who have been in combat, we have been tempered in the fire; we have been disciplined, and we have been educated.
Guided by lasting and simple moral values, we have emerged idealists without illusions, realists who still know the old dreams of justice and liberty, of country and of community.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Pre-Presidency, First Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech (1976)

Life, War, People, Education

“By the way, Mr. President, thank you for agreeing to be on my show. I was just as shocked as everyone here is, I promise you. How's Tuesday for you? I've got Frank Rich, but we can bump him. And I mean bump him. I know a guy. Say the word.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

Source: White House Correspondents' Association Dinner (2006)

Way, Guy

“You're sent from heaven
And I know your worth.
You made a heaven for me here on the earth.
When I'm old and grey, dear,
Promise you won't stray, dear,
For I love you so, Sonny Boy.”

Buddy de Sylva (1895–1950) American musician

Song: Sonny Boy (de Sylva wrote the words; Lew Brown and Ray Henderson wrote the music; Al Jolson insisted on being credited too)

Love, Boy

“If there's a stack [of novels to review], the unpromising stuff goes at the top and the promising stuff goes at the bottom. That way, I am eager to finish Overwrought Romantic Mary Sue Fantasy because I know that will let me read Niche Product That Only the Author, James and Some Guy at JPL Likes.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

[dh3na8$a1u$1@reader1.panix.com, 2005]
2000s

Way, Guy, Reading

“We promised the Europeans freedom. It would be worse than dishonorable not to see that they have it. This might mean war with the Russians, but what of it? They have no air force, and their gasoline and ammunition supplies are low. I've seen their miserable supply trains; mostly wagons drawn by beaten up old horses or oxen. I'll say this; the Third Army alone and with damned few casualties, could lick what is left of the Russians in six weeks. You mark my words. Don't ever forget them. Someday we will have to fight them and it will take six years and cost us six million lives.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

As quoted in The Unknown Patton (1983) by Charles M. Province, p. 100

War, Freedom, Horse, Fight

“Pari pitsaa: A man comes home with some frozen pizzas, but the promise of an amorous moment vanishes when the Formula 1 Race starts on TV.”

Pauli Hanhiniemi (1964) Finnish musician and composer

Home

“The pain is legit. But Trump is a stupid vote. Because Trump won't solve any of those things, he'll make them all worse. You're voting against your pain. You're voting to create more. You're going for a kind of witch doctor of politics who is promising things based on magic.”

Mike Murphy (political consultant) (1962) American political consultant

As quoted in "Debriefing Mike Murphy" https://www.weeklystandard.com/matt-labash/debriefing-mike-murphy (18 March 2016), by Matt Labash, The Weekly Standard 2010s

Pain, Stupidity

“You know, some people like to call me Mad Max like in the movie.
They may believe it’s an insult. But let me tell you something:
It’s true. I am mad!
I’m mad about government waste!
I’m mad about government borrowing money on the backs of future generations, to benefit big corporations!
I’M MAD THAT THE LIBERALS ARE RUNNING OUR COUNTRY’S FINANCES, AND OUR NATION’S FUTURE, INTO THE GROUND!
I’M MAD THAT THE LIBERAL GOVERNMENT SHRINKS OUR PAYCHECK WITH HIGHT TAXES AND TAKES AWAY OUR FREEDOM.
I’m mad about the federal government constantly meddling in provincial jurisdictions!
I’m mad at politicians who promise anything to get elected!
So yes, you can call me Mad Max.
I don’t mind!
I’m asking you to get mad like me and take your future into your hands.”

Maxime Bernier (1963) Canadian politician

3 October 2016 Facebook post https://www.facebook.com/hon.maximebernier/posts/10154565323228703 quoted 28 May 2018 on Toronto Sun https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/bonokoski-mad-maxs-dustup-over-a-liberal-mps-skin-colour-comments About

Money, People, Freedom, Future

“Many myths and fairy tales tell of a prince, who has been turned into an animal or a monster by sorcery, being saved by a woman. This is a symbolic representation of the development of the animus toward consciousness. Often the heroine may ask no questions of her mysterious lover, or she is only allowed to meet him in darkness. She is to save him through her blind faith and love, but this never works. She always breaks her promise and is only able to find her beloved again after a long quest.”

Marie-Louise von Franz (1915–1998) Swiss psychologist and scholar

Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche (1994), The Animus, a Woman's Inner Man

Love, Faith, Lovers, Question

“"I guess I want things to be like they were before. Hell, we're almost ready to graduate." "Tell you what, Carter," Archie said. "Let things stay the same as before, like you just said. Let the last days come and go. Graduation. But that's not the end of it, Carter. You were a traitor and you're going to pay for that. Some way, someday. Not tomorrow, not next month. Or even next year, maybe. But someday. And who knows? Maybe next month, after all. That's a promise, Carter. When you least expect it. When everything is rosy and beautiful. Then comes the payoff. Because you can't be allowed to get away clean, without paying for it, Carter."”

Robert Cormier book Beyond the Chocolate War

Source: Beyond the Chocolate War (1985), p. 208

Beauty, Way, Hell

“Nobody likes to see a body, but it's better than seeing a ghost. Bodies just make you doubt the world and the people in it. Ghosts make you doubt everything, and to doubt it in a part of the mind that has no words to answer the question, where the comforting promises you make yourself are neither believed nor even really understood.”

Michael Marshall Smith (1965) British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer

Prologue - Yakima
The Lonely Dead (2004)

People, World, Question, Parting

“Both the old and new approaches share a scepticism toward rational-actor models of organisation, and each views institutionalisation as a state-dependent process that makes organisations less instrumentally rational by limiting the options they can pursue. Both emphasise the relationship between organisations and their environments, and both promise to reveal aspects of reality that are inconsistent with organisations’ formal accounts. Each approach stresses the role of culture in shaping organisational reality.”

Paul DiMaggio (1951) American sociologist

Source: Introduction to The New Institutionalism and Organizational Analysis, 1991, p. 12

Reality, Dependency

“He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Nelly Dean on Joseph (Ch. V).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

“Humanity in the face of the idea of hidden knowledge reminds one of the people in fairy-tales who are promised by some goddess, fairy or magician that they will be given whatever they want on condition that they say exactly what they want.”

P. D. Ouspensky (1878–1947) Russian esotericist

A New Model of the Universe (1932)

People, Idea, Knowledge

“More and more Americans feel threatened by runaway technology, by large-scale organization, by overcrowding. More and more Americans are appalled by the ravages of industrial progress, by the defacement of nature, by man-made ugliness. If our society continues at its present rate to become less livable as it becomes more affluent, we promise all to end up in sumptuous misery.”

John W. Gardner (1912–2002) American politician

No Easy Victories, ed. Helen Rowan (1968), p. 57.

Feeling, Nature

“You can't build marriage on a foundation of selfish hedonism, because that would be to promise people only roses, and marriage is also thorns.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Party for the President, September 2, 2004. http://renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/04_09_02partypresident.htm. 2009

Marriage, People, Selfishness

“As for more than twenty years my principal work has been devoted to the ancient literature of India, I cannot but feel a deep and real sympathy for all that concerns the higher interests of the people of that country. Though I have never been in India, I have many friends there, both among the civilians and among the natives, and I believe I am not mistaken in supposing that the publication in England of the ancient sacred writings of the Brahmans, which had never been published in India, and other contributions from different European scholars towards a better knowledge of the ancient literature and religion of India, have not been without some effect on the intellectual and religious movement that is going on among the more thoughtful members of Indian society. I have sometimes regretted that I am not an Englishman, and able to help more actively in the great work of educating and improving the natives. But I do rejoice that this great task of governing and benefiting India should have fallen to one who knows the greatness of that task and all its opportunities and responsibilities, who thinks not only of its political and financial bearings, but has a heart to feel for the moral welfare of those millions of human beings that are, more or less directly, committed to his charge. India has been conquered once, but India must be conquered again, and that second conquest should be a conquest by education. Much has been done for education of late, but if the funds were tripled and quadrupled, that would hardly be enough. The results of the educational work carried on during the last twenty years are palpable everywhere. They are good and bad, as was to be expected. It is easy to find fault with what is called Young Bengal, the product of English ideas grafted on the native mind. But Young Bengal, with all its faults, is full of promise. Its bad features are apparent everywhere, its good qualities are naturally hidden from the eyes of careless observers.... India can never be anglicized, but it can be reinvigorated. By encouraging a study of their own ancient literature, as part of their education, a national feeling of pride and self-respect will be reawakened among those who influence the large masses of the people. A new national literature may spring up, impregnated with Western ideas, yet retaining its native spirit and character. The two things hang together. In order to raise the character of the vernaculars, a study of the ancient classical language is absolutely necessary: for from it these modern dialects have branched off, and from it alone can they draw their vital strength and beauty. A new national literature will bring with it a new national life and new moral vigour. As to religion, that will take care of itself. The missionaries have done far more than they themselves seem to be aware of, nay, much of the work which is theirs they would probably disclaim. The Christianity of our nineteenth century will hardly be the Christianity of India. But the ancient religion of India is doomed — and if Christianity does not step in, whose fault will it be?”

Max Müller (1823–1900) German-born philologist and orientalist

Letter to the Duke of Argyll, published in The Life and Letters of Right Honorable Friedrich Max Müller (1902) edited by Georgina Müller

Life, People, Education, Religion

“No group in America has been more harmed by Hillary Clinton's policies than African-Americans. If Hillary Clinton's goal was to inflict pain on the African-American community, she could not have done a better job. It's a disgrace. Tonight, I'm asking for the vote of every single African-American citizen in this country who wants to see a better future. The inner cities of our country have been run by the Democratic party for more than fifty years. Their policies have reduced only poverty, joblessness, failing schools and broken homes. It's time to hold Democratic politicians accountable for what they have done to these communities. At what point do we say, "enough?" It's time to hold failed leaders accountable for their results not just their empty words over and over again. Look at what the Democratic party has done to the city as an example and there are many others of Detroit: forty percent of Detroit's residents live in poverty. Half of all Detroit residents do not work and cannot work and can't get a job. Detroit tops the list of most dangerous cities in terms of violent crime. This is the legacy of the Democratic politicians who have run this city. This is the result of the policy agenda embraced by Hillary Clinton: thirty-three thousand emails gone. The only way to change results is to change leadership. We can never fix our problems by relying on the same politicians who created our problems in the first place. A new future requires brand new leadership. Look how much African-American communities suffered under Democratic control. To those I say the following: What do you have to lose by trying something new like Trump. What do you have to lose? I say it again, what do you have to lose. Look, what do you have to lose? You're living your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs. Fifty-eight percent of your youth is unemployed? What the hell do you have to lose? And at the end of four years, I guarantee you, that I will get over ninety-five percent of the African-American vote. I promise you.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Speech to the African-American community in Dimondale, Michigan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5B5m1S5VTA (August 19, 2016) 2010s, 2016, August

Pain, Youth, School, Way

“On this day I remember words that have stayed with me since my childhood and which matter a great deal to me today, my school motto: "I will try my outmost". This is my promise to all of the people of Britain and now let the work of change begin.”

Gordon Brown (1951) British Labour Party politician

Statement at Downing Street http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page12155.asp, 27 June 2007. Statement outside 10 Downing Street immediately after becoming Prime Minister. The motto referred to is an English translation of the Latin Usque conabor. Brown said "outmost", as spelled on the BBC News transcript http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6246114.stm, but other sources usually give "utmost". Prime Minister

People, School, Change, Childhood

“IV. We think timid counsels in such a crisis calculated to prove perilous, and probably disastrous. It is the duty of a Government so wantonly, wickedly assailed by Rebellion as ours has been to oppose force to force in a defiant, dauntless spirit. It cannot afford to temporize with traitors nor with semi-traitors. It must not bribe them to behave themselves, nor make cheat fair promises in the hope of disarming their causeless hostility. Representing a brave and high-spirited people, it can afford to forfeit anything else better than its own self-respect, or their admiring confidence. For our Government even to seek, after war has been made on it, to dispel the affected apprehensions of armed traitors that their cherished privileges may be assailed by it, is to invite insult and encourage hopes of its own downfall. The rush to arms of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, is the true answer at once to the Rebel raids of John Morgan and the traitorous sophistries of Beriah Magoffin.”

Horace Greeley (1811–1872) American politician and publisher

1860s, The Prayer of the Twenty Millions (1862)

Hostility, War, People, Hope

“There are, of course, good happy endings as well as bad ones, but surely they are of a kind that in some way expresses happiness rather than glibly promises it.”

Louis Kronenberger (1904–1980) American critic and writer

http://books.google.com/books?id=cI1KAAAAMAAJ&q=%22There+are+of+course+good+happy+endings+as+well+as+bad+ones+but+surely+they+are+of+a+kind+that+in+some+way+expresses+happiness+rather+than+glibly+promises+it%22&pg=PA74#v=onepage
The Cart and the Horse (1964)

Happiness, Way

“Before you cut me off, Raven, the reason I hate you, the reason in my heart of hearts why I hate you, is I did not know any better when I was a little kid. When my dad came home smelling like beer. I thought it was a hard day’s work he was doing. I did not realize he was out at a bar. I did not realize ‘work’ meant ‘unemployment office.’ I did not think it was strange for someone to come home and take an Old Style up into the shower. I did not think it was strange for somebody to pass out. I thought an Old Style, a pack a day, was the norm. Raven, my father is exactly like you. Since day one of Ring of Honor, where fighting spirit is supposed to be revered, things are not supposed to be this way! I’d shake your hand like a normal man, but the thing is, I don’t respect you! I hate you! I hate you for everything you have pissed away! Everything I have scrapped and clawed for that I haven’t even earned yet! That you got handed to you and you flushed down the toilet! For what? For pills? For booze? For alcohol? For women? I’m born of your poison society. So, on the seventeenth of July, I will become a monster to fight the monsters of the world! Your time in Ring of Honor will be done. That is a promise. This is true! This is real! This is straight edge!”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

Ring of Honor: WrestleRave '03. June 28th, 2003.
Promo aimed at Raven after a tag team match with Colt Cabana against Raven and Christopher Daniels
Ring of Honor

Women, Hate, Alcohol, World

“The politician is much nearer in type to the barrister and advocate than to the scientist…The advocate and the politician are more interested in persuasion than in proof. They have a client or a policy to defend. The political audience is not dishonest in itself, nor does it desire or approve dishonesty or misrepresentation in others, but it is an audience only imperfectly prepared to follow a close argument, and the speaker wishes to make a favourable impression, to secure support for a policy. It is easy to see how this may lead to the depreciation of the verbal currency and to the circulation of promises which cannot be cashed.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at his inauguration as Lord Rector of The University of Edinburgh (6 November 1925), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), pp. 89-90.
1925

Support

“They [great works of literature] are invalidated not because of their literary obsolescence. Some of these images pertain to contemporary literature and survive in its most advanced creations. What has been invalidated is their subversive force, their destructive content—their truth. In this transformation, they find their home in everyday living. The alien and alienating oeuvres of intellectual culture become familiar goods and services. Is their massive reproduction and consumption only a change in quantity, namely, growing appreciation and understanding, democratization of culture? The truth of literature and art has always been granted (if it was granted at all) as one of a “higher” order, which should not and indeed did not disturb the order of business. What has changed in the contemporary period is the difference between the two orders and their truths. The absorbent power of society depletes the artistic dimension by assimilating its antagonistic contents. In the realm of culture, the new totalitarianism manifests itself precisely in a harmonizing pluralism, where the most contradictory works and truths peacefully coexist in indifference. Prior to the advent of this cultural reconciliation, literature and art were essentially alienation, sustaining and protecting the contradiction—the unhappy consciousness of the divided world, the defeated possibilities, the hopes unfulfilled, and the promises betrayed. They were a rational, cognitive force, revealing a dimension of man and nature which was repressed and repelled in reality.”

Herbert Marcuse book One-Dimensional Man

Source: One-Dimensional Man (1964), pp. 60-61

Truth, World, Hope, Art

“In the whole range of human vision, nothing is more attractive than to see a young^ man full of promise and of hope, bending all his energies in the direction of truth and duty and God, his soul pervaded with the loftiest enthusiasm, and his life consecrated to the noblest ends. To be such a young man is to rival the noblest and best of men in heroic valor and Christian chivalry. Nay, to be such a young man is to be like Christ, the highest type, the most illustrious example of enthusiasm the world has ever seen.”

John McClellan Holmes (1834–1911) US Christian minister and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 208.

Life, Men, God, Truth

“My death is very near to me, and of this I am glad, for I desire to pursue the quest in other realms, as it has been promised to me that I shall do.”

H. Rider Haggard book Ayesha

Ayesha: The Return of She (1905), CHAPTER I, THE DOUBLE SIGN

Death

“Feeling that the world is wrong does not necessarily mean that we have a picture of a utopia to put in its place. Nor does is necessarily mean a romantic, some-day-my-prince-will-come idea that, although things are wrong now, one day we shall come to a true world, a promised land, a happy ending. We need no promise of a happy ending to justify our rejection of a world we feel to be wrong.”

John Holloway book Change the World Without Taking Power

Change the World Without Taking Power (2002)

Happiness, World, Feeling, Idea

“Oh, that we had our eyes more and more steadily fixt on the risen Savior! Oh, that we could ever be learning more and more from Him to breathe out blessing, as He did when He imparted His Spirit to the disciples! Oh, that we were more and more learning like Him to encourage the foolish and slow of heart to joyful faith in the divine promises, to active obedience to the divine will of their Lord and Master, to the glad enjoyment and use of all the heavenly treasures that He has thrown open to us! Oh, that we were ever speaking more effectively to all connected with us, of the kingdom of God and of our inheritance in it, so that they might see why it was necessary for Christ to suffer, but also into what glory He has gone! These are our desires, and they are not vain desires.”

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) German theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar

Friedrich Schleiermacher, Christ's Resurrection an Image of Our New Life The World's Great Sermons, Volume 3 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11713 by Grenville Kleiser

God, Faith, Suffering, Learning

“Today, for the mass of humanity, science and technology embody 'miracle, mystery, and authority'. Science promises that the most ancient human fantasies will at last be realized. Sickness and ageing will be abolished; scarcity and poverty will be no more; the species will become immortal. Like Christianity in the past, the modern cult of science lives on the hope of miracles. But to think that science can transform the human lot is to believe in magic. Time retorts to the illusions of humanism with the reality: frail, deranged, undelivered humanity. Even as it enables poverty to be diminished and sickness to be alleviated, science will be used to refine tyranny and perfect the art of war.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

The unsaved: The Grand Inquisitor and Flying Fish (p. 123)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

War, Age, Hope, Art

“Both of these measures were on the side of increasing spendable income, though unfortunately they were largely without effect. The tax reductions were negligible except in the higher income brackets; businessmen who promised to maintain investment and wages, in accordance with a well-understood convention, considered the promise binding only for the period within which it was not financially disadvantageous to do so.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929

Chapter IX https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929, Cause and Consequence, Section V, p 183 The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929)

“Gilt-tooled on yard-square panels of green leather—imitation, of course—the zodiacal signs looked down from the walls of the executive lunch-room. The air was full of the chatter of voices and the clink of ice-cubes. Waiting to be attacked when the president of the company joined them (he had promised to show at one sharp) was a table laden with expensive food: hard-boiled eggs, shells intact so that it could be seen they were brown, free-range, rich in carotene; lettuces whose outer leaves had been rasped by slugs; apples and pears wearing their maggot-marks like dueling scars, in this case presumably genuine ones though it had been known for fruit growers to fake them with red-hot wires in areas where insects were no longer found; whole hams, very lean, proud of their immunity from antibiotics and copper sulphate; scrawny chickens; bread as coarse as sandstone, dark as mud and nubbled with wheat grains...”

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

December “HOUSE TO HOUSE”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

Food, Waiting

“I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president. And I call on all Americans, as I have often in this campaign, to not despair of our present difficulties, but to believe, always, in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

2000s, 2008, Concession speech (2008)

Despair

“Yesterday, with an inevitability born of the utterly false promise that the bloodbath in Iraq is yielding dividends, we were supposed to believe that the death of Zarqawi was a famous victory.”

Robert Fisk (1946) English writer and journalist

Zarqawi's end is not a famous victory, nor will it bring Iraq any nearer to peace http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13556.htm, June 9, 2006 2006

Death, Victory, Falseness

“During the last quarter of a century all the authority associated with the function of spiritual guidance … has seeped down into the lowest publications. … Between a poem by Valéry and an advertisement for a beauty cream promising a rich marriage to anyone who used it there was at no point a breach of continuity. So as a result of literature’s spiritual usurpation a beauty cream advertisement possessed, in the eyes of little village girls, the authority that was formerly attached to the words of priests.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

“Morality and literature,” p. 164
On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God (1968)

Marriage, Beauty, Girl, Literature

“But, here is a pledge I've made throughout this campaign, and it's really not a very radical pledge. When we have more people in jail, disproportionately African American and Latino, than China does, a communist authoritarian society four times our size. Here's my promise, at the end of my first term as president we will not have more people in jail than any other country.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

2010s, 2016, Democratic Presidential Debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (11 February 2016)

People, Time, Country

“They held us in San Antonio … We had tents and blankets but no arms. We had food. But every minute we expected to be taken out and shot. Nobody said it aloud. Geronimo had been promised that he would not die by bullets (by Usen, the Apache God), but the rest had not.”

Geronimo (1829–1909) leader of the Bedonkohe Apache

Jasper Kanseah, a fellow captive, as quoted in Geronimo and the End of the Apache Wars (1990), by Charles Leland Sonnichsen, p. 101.
About

God, Food

“All I can say is we are not promised tomorrow, I know that, you know that. So we gonna make every moment last and just blessed it and appreciate it.”

Anastacia (1968) American singer-songwriter

form her speech at Rock in Rio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DdSVT2qOo0, 2006 General Quotes

“Allow me to congratulate you, and, through you, the people of Oregon, that peace and prosperity surround us. The prospects for Oregon were never more promising, save the shadows from the fires of secession which are blazing around our childhood homes. Though we have had a winter of unprecedented severity and devastating floods, no traitorous hand has been raised to tear down our national flag and subvert our beloved institutions.”

A. C. Gibbs (1825–1886) American politician

A. C. Gibbs (September 1862) " Governor A. C. Gibbs Inaugural Address, 1862 http://records.sos.state.or.us/ORSOSWebDrawer/Recordpdf/6777833", Oregon State Archives, Oregon Secretary of State, Source: Journals. Local Laws Oregon., 1862, Appendix, Special Message, Page 58.

People, Peace, Home, Tear

“Depression is seductive: it offends and teases, frightens you and draws you in, tempting you with its promise of sweet oblivion, then overwhelming you with a nearly sexual power, squirming past your defenses, dissolving your will, invading the tired spirit so utterly that it becomes difficult to recall that you ever lived without it… or to imagine that you might live that way again. With all the guile of Satan himself, depression persuades you that its invasion was all your own idea, that you wanted it all along. It fogs the part of the brain that reasons, that knows right and wrong. It captures you with its warm, guilty, hateful pleasures, and, worst of all, it becomes familiar. All at once, you find yourself in thrall to the very thing that most terrifies you. Your work slides, your friendships slide, your marriage slides, but you scarcely notice: to be depressed is to be half in love with disaster.”

Stephen L. Carter book The Emperor of Ocean Park

Source: The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002), Ch. 12, A Special Delivery, II

Love, Hate, Friendship, Marriage

“Amen', … in Hebrew, is one of a cluster from a root which signifies reliability, integrity and truth. … Our utterance of it is acknowledgment of God's 'Amen', which always goes before. The recognition of God's integrity and truthfulness, unswerving faithfulness in execution of his promises, is so central to Judaism's faith that 'Amen' may almost be taken as a name for God. We might miss this when we read, in the sixty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, that 'he who takes an oath in the land shall swear by the God of truth', but the Hebrew here, if rendered literally, would be 'by the God Amen.”

Nicholas Lash (1934) British theologian

Believing Three Ways in One God: A Reading of the Apostles' Creed (1992)

God, Truth, Faith, Reading

“Parents – especially step-parents – are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don't fufill the promise of their early years.”

Anthony Powell A Dance to the Music of Time

A Buyer's Market (1952), ch. 2.
A Dance to the Music of Time (1951-1975)

Children, Disappointment, Parent

“Shortly after the ignominious expulsion of the Texas invaders, General J. H. Carleton was appointed to the command of this Department, and with the greatest promptitude he turned his attention to the freeing of the Territory from these lawless savages. To this great work he brought many years' experience and a perfect knowledge of the means to effect that end. He saw that the thirty (30) millions of dollars expended and the many lives lost in the former attempts at the subjugation, would not have been profitless, had not there been something radically wrong in the policy pursued. He was not long in ascertaining that treaties were as promises written in sand. nor in discovering that they had no recognized 'Head' authority to represent them; that each chief's influence and authority was immediately confined to his own followers or people; that any treaty signed by one or more of these chiefs had no binding effect on the remainder, and that there were a large number of the worst characters who acknowledged no chief at all. Hence it was that on all occasions when treaties were made, one party were continuing their depredations, whilst the other were making peace. And hence it was apparent that treaties were absolutely powerless for good. He adopted a new policy, i. e., placing them on a reservation (the wisdom of which is already manifest); a new era dawned on New Mexico, and the dying hope of the people was again revived; never more I trust, to meet with disappointment. He first organized a force against the Mescalero Apaches, which I had the honor to command. After a short and inexpensive campaign, the Mescaleros were placed on their present reservation.”

Kit Carson (1809–1868) American frontiersman and Union Army general

Letter to General James Henry Carleton (May 17, 1864)

Wisdom, People, Peace, Hope

“How many men who listen to me tonight have served their nation in other wars? How very many are not here to listen? The war in Vietnam is not like these other wars. Yet, finally, war is always the same. It is young men dying in the fullness of their promise. It is trying to kill a man that you do not even know well enough to hate. Therefore, to know war is to know that there is still madness in this world.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Men, Hate, War, World

“When we seek a textbook case for the proper operation of science, the correction of certain error offers far more promise than the establishment of probable truth. Confirmed hunches, of course, are more upbeat than discredited hypotheses. Since the worst traditions of “popular” writing falsely equate instruction with sweetness and light, our promotional literature abounds with insipid tales in the heroic mode, although tough stories of disappointment and loss give deeper insight into a methodology that the celebrated philosopher Karl Popper once labeled as “conjecture and refutation.””

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

"An Essay on a Pig Roast", p. 437
Bully for Brontosaurus (1991)

Truth, Disappointment, Error, Literature

“Poor bloody Dale, Sharpe thought, to be betrayed in his first battle. If he survived he would be invalided out of the army. His broken body, good for nothing, would be sent to Lisbon and there he would have to rot on the quays until the bureaucrats made sure he had accounted for all his equipment. Anything missing would be charged to the balance of his miserable wages and only when the account was balanced would he be put onto a foul transport and shipped to an English quayside. There he was left, the army's obligation discharged, though if he was lucky he might be given a travel document that promised to reimburse any parish overseer who fed him while he traveled to his home. Usually the overseers ignored the paper and kicked the invalid out of their jurisdiction with an order to go and beg somewhere else. Dale might be better off dead than face all that.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Captain Richard Sharpe, commenting on the fate of a wounded Soldier, p. 105
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

Travel, Home, Dead

“The vastness and the free sweep of our concentrated wealth on the one side, the independence, intelligence, moral vigor, and political power of the common people on the other side, promise a long-drawn grapple of contesting forces which may well make the heart of every American patriot sink within him.”

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) United States Baptist theologian

Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Introduction, p. xi-xii

People, Intelligence, Heart, Wealth

“Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee,
With promise of strength and manhood full and fair!”

Robert Seymour Bridges (1844–1930) British writer

On a Dead Child http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/2930.html, st. 1 (1890). Poetry

Perfection

“A blossom full of promise is life's joy,
That never comes to fruit; hope, for a time,
Suns the young floweret in its gladsome light,
And it looks flourishing—a little while,
Tis past, we know not whither, but 'tis gone”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(19th January 1822) Poetic Sketches, No.2
The London Literary Gazette, 1821-1822

Life, Hope, Light, Time

“I would like to take your minds back many, many centuries into a familiar experience so significantly recorded in the sacred Scriptures. The Children of Israel had been reduced into the bondage of physical slavery… three groups of people emerged. One group said in substance that "We would rather go back to Egypt." They preferred the flush parts of Egypt to the challenges of the Promised Land. A second group that abhorred the idea of going back to Egypt, and yet they abhorred the idea of facing the difficulties of moving ahead to the Promised Land and they somehow wanted to remain stationary and choose the line of least resistance. There was a third group, probably influenced by Caleb and Joshua who had gone over to spy a bit and who admitted that there were giants in the land but who said, "We can possess the land."”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

This group said in substance that "We will go on in spite of...," that "We will not allow anything to stop us," that "We will move on amid the difficulties, amid the trials, amid the tribulations."
1960s, Keep Moving From This Mountain (1965)

Children, People, Idea, Parting

“To have a crowd like this on our final day, can you believe it, this is the day. This is the day we take our country back. Remember that. This is the day we take our country back. So I got a little notice in case you see it. It's security guys. We have wonderful security guys. They said, "Mr. Trump, there may be somebody with tomatoes in the audience." So if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously… Okay? Just knock the hell… I promise you I will pay for the legal fees, I promise. I promise. There won't be so much cause the courts agree with us too. What's going on in this country.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

At a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trump-knock-the-crap-out-of-tomato-throwers/2016/02/01/1d1fe1e2-c92b-11e5-b9ab-26591104bb19_video.html (1 February 2016) 2010s, 2016, February

Guy, Hell, Country

“The one sure mark of a con, though, is the promise of free money.”

Michael Hudson (economist) (1939) American economist

" The $4.7 trillion pyramid: Why Social Security won't be enough to save Wall Street http://www.harpers.org/archive/2005/04/0080499" in Harper's Magazine (April 2005)

Money

“In order that he might rob a neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of North America.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

On Fredrick the Great (1842)

Men

“Nevertheless, it is true that on 1 July 1997 Hong Kong became the only example of decolonization deliberately accompanied by less democracy and a weaker protection of civil liberties. This was a cause for profound regret, especially for the departing colonial power. But it was China's doing and China's decision. I am pleased that Britain narrowly avoided complicity in the dishonourable act of denying the citizens of free Hong Kong what they had been promised in 1984.”

Chris Patten book East and West

Chris Patten, East and West: The Last Governor of Hong Kong on Power, Freedom and the Future, Pan Books, second edition, 1999, page 83.

Democracy, Decision

“In consequence of the great fear which fell upon Jaipál, who confessed he had seen death before the appointed time, he sent a deputation to the Amír soliciting peace, on the promise of his paying down a sum of money, and offering to obey any order he might receive respecting his elephants and his country. The Amir Subuktigín consented on account of mercy he felt towards those who were his vassals, or for some other reason which seemed expedient to him. But the Sultán Yamínu-d daula Mahmúd addressed the messengers in a harsh voice, and refused to abstain from battle, until he should obtain a complete victory suited to his zeal for the honour of Islám and the Musulmáns, and one which he was confident God would grant to his arms. So they returned, and Jaipál being in great alarm, again sent the most humble supplications that the battle might cease saying, "You have seen the impetuosity of the Hindus and their indifference to death, whenever any calamity befalls them, as at this moment. If therefore, you refuse to grant peace in the hope of obtaining plunder, tribute, elephants and prisoners, then there is no alternative for us but to mount the horse of stern determination, destroy our property, take out the eyes of our elephants, cast our children into fire, and rush out on each other with sword and spear, so that all that will be left to you to conquer and seize is stones and dirt, dead bodies, and scattered bones."”

Sabuktigin (942–997) Founder of the Ghaznavid Empire

Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, Volume II, pp. 20-21. Translation of Tarikh-i-Yamini of al-Utbi.

Death, Money, God, Children

“A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,
Loitered about that vacancy: a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:
That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept
Or one could weep because another wept.”

W. H. Auden book The Shield of Achilles

The Shield of Achilles (1952)

World, Girl, Boy, Bird

“Hundreds of other cult leaders have gathered far more followers than Jones by promising new psychological and spiritual utopias. They have succeeded by combining various ages-old psychological and social persuasion techniques in an atmosphere os Madison Avenue soft-sell approaches. Because most of the followers have been youthful or poor, little attention and credence has been given to reports from ex-members, families and friends who report the effects of the techniques of manipulation used by the groups.”

Margaret Singer (1921–2003) clinical psychology

Margaret Singer, Ph.D., The "Not Me" Myth: Orwell and the Mind http://www.ideajournal.com/articles.php?id=12, January 19, 1996 - Vol.2, no.2, ISSN 1523-1712, Idea Journal 1990s

Youth, Age, Family

“I have an obligation to the 37 million people in South Africa to ensure their well-being. But the road from slavery to the promised land is a rough one.”

Harry Schwarz (1924–2010) South African activist

During a Speech to the Philadelphia World Affairs Council, 12 June 1991.
As ambassador to the United States
Source: http://articles.philly.com/1991-06-13/news/25788736_1_group-areas-act-sanctions-africa-blacks

People

Quotes about promise page 8

Quotes about promise
page 8