He that promises too much means nothing.
Ye may darken over the blue heavens, ye vapoury masses in the sky. It matters not! Beyond the howling of that wrath, beyond the blackness of those clouds, there shines, unaltered and serene, the moon that shone in Paradise.... The moon that promises a paradise restored.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there Where most it promises.
One can promise actions, but not feelings, for the latter are involuntary. He who promises to love forever or hate forever or be forever faithful to someone is promising something that is not in his power.
The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact. He calls his employment by its lowest name, and so takes from evil tongues their sharpest weapon.
The secret of walking closely with Christ, and working successfully for Him, is to fully realize that we are His beloved. Let us but feel that He has set His heart upon us, that He is watching us from those heavens with tender interest, that He is working out the mystery of our lives with solicitude and fondness, that He is following us day by day as a mother follows her babe in his first attempt to walk alone, that He has set His love upon us, and, in spite of ourselves, is working out for us His highest will and blessing, as far as we will let Him, and then nothing can discourage us. Our hearts will glow with responsive love. Our faith will spring to meet His mighty promises, and our sacrifices shall become the very luxuries of love for one so dear. This was the secret of John's spirit. "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us." And the heart that has fully learned this has found the secret of unbounded faith and enthusiastic service.--_A. B. Simpson._
Lying is a breach of promise; for whoever seriously addresses his discourse to another tacitly promises to speak the truth, because he knows the truth is expected.
God is more concerned with our knowing Him than He is in our half-hearted pleasures of comfort, ambition, and success. So much so that He often allows pain and suffering into our lives to clear the clutter of mute, deaf, and unworthy idols that can never deliver on their promises, even when they’re ostensibly good things like health, family, career, success, and status.
I pay for the privilege of handing over to trained professionals responsibility not just for my experience but for my interpretation of that experience—i.e. my pleasure. My pleasure is for 7 nights and 6.5 days wisely and efficiently managed… just as promised in the cruise line’s advertising—nay, just as somehow already accomplished in the ads, with their 2nd-person imperatives, which make them not promises but predictions.
He who promises runs in debt.
La philosophie qui nous promet de nous rendre heureux, trompe=--Philosophy, so far as she promises us happiness, deceives us.
Let it be equally said of you to whatever duty the Lord may call you away, "He arose and went." Be the way ever so laborious or dangerous, still arise, like Elijah, and go. Go cheerfully, in faith, keeping your heart quietly dependent on the Lord, and in the end you will surely behold and sing of His goodness. Though tossed on a sea of troubles you may anchor on the firm foundation of God, which standeth sure. You have for your security His exceeding great and precious promises, and may say with the psalmist, "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him who is the health of my countenance, and my God."--_F. W. Krummacher._
The forests in summer days are full of birds' nests. They are hidden among the leaves. The little birds know where they are; and when a storm arises, or when night draws on, they fly, each to his own nest. So the promises of God are hidden in the Bible, like nests in the great forests; and thither we should fly in any danger or alarm, hiding there in our soul's nest until the storm be overpast. There are no castles in this world so impregnable as the words of Christ.--_J. R. Miller._
This miracle was enough to confirm the hope of men. The memory of the deluge being fresh among men while Noah was still living, God made promises to Abraham, and while Shem was still living God sent Moses, etc....
A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life. It tells us that for every human being there is a diversity of existences, that the single existence is itself an illusion in part, that these many existences signify something, tend to something, fulfill something; it promises us meaning, harmony and even justice.
Thus those who only feign these opinions would be very unhappy were they to put force on their natural disposition in order to make themselves the most inconsequent of men. If, in their inmost hearts, they are troubled at their lack of light, let them not dissemble: the avowal will bring no shame; the only shame is to be shameless. Nothing betrays so much weakness of mind as not to apprehend the misfortune of a man without God, nothing is so sure a token of an evil disposition of heart as not to desire the truth of eternal promises, nothing is more cowardly than to fight against God. Let them therefore leave these impieties to persons who are so ill-bred as to be really capable of them, let them at least be men of honour if they cannot be Christians, and lastly, let them recognise that there are but two classes of men who can be called reasonable; those who serve God with their whole heart because they know him, or those who seek him with their whole heart because they know him not.
It is in the nature of love to bind itself”;2 vows are love's native language. Love that is mute in the language of promises, though it may be called love, is not love but something else.
Prayer must be based upon promise, but, thank God, His promises are always broader than our prayers! No fear of building inverted pyramids here, for Jesus Christ is the foundation.--_Frances Ridley Havergal._
Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD: Where the market works, I'm for that. Where the government is necessary, I'm for that. I'm deeply suspicious of somebody who says, "I'm in favor of privatization," or, "I'm deeply in favor of public ownership." I'm in favor of whatever works in the particular case.
Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow,--attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince Of Abyssinia.
We would commend a faith that even seems audacious, like that of the sturdy Covenanter Robert Bruce, who requested, as he was dying, that his finger might be placed on one of God's strong promises, as though to challenge the Judge of all with it as he should enter his presence.
Not the maker of plans and promises, but rather he who offers faithful service in small matters is most welcome to one who would achieve what is good and lasting.
It is true that God promises forgiveness if we repent, but what assurance have we of obtaining it to-morrow?--VEN. LOUIS DE BLOIS.
Hope is the ruddy morning ray of joy, recollection is its golden tinge; but the latter is wont to sink amid the dews and dusky shades of twilight, and the bright blue day which the former promises breaks indeed, but in another world and with another sun.
Tarry at a promise till God meets you there. He always returns by way of His promises.--_Selected._
Hope is always liberal, and they that trust her promises make little scruple of reveling to-day on the profits of to-morrow.--_Johnson._
Legal deeds were invented to remind men of their promises, or to convict them of having broken them,--a stigma on the human race.--_Bruyère._
Eau benite de cour=--False promises (
The two most ancient books in the world are those of Moses and Job, the one a Jew, the other a Gentile, both of whom regard Jesus Christ as their common centre and object: Moses in reporting the promises of God to Abraham, Jacob, etc., and his prophecies. And Job, _Quis mihi det ut, etc. Scio enim quod redemptor meus vivit, etc._
Venerable because it knows man well, lovable because it promises the true good.
_Proof of Jesus Christ._--The supposition that the apostles were deceivers is thoroughly absurd. Suppose we follow it out, and imagine these twelve men assembled after the death of Jesus Christ, making a plot to say that he was risen again. By this they attack all earthly powers. The heart of man is strangely inclined to fickleness and change, swayed by promises and by wealth. Had one of these men contradicted themselves under these temptations, nay more, had they done so in prison, in torture and in death, they were lost. Let that be followed out.
God keeps a school for His children here on earth and one of His best teachers is Disappointment. My friend, when you and I reach our Father's house, we shall look back and see that the sharp-voiced, rough; visaged teacher, Disappointment, was one of the best guides to train us for it. He gave us hard lessons; he often used the rod; he often led us into thorny paths; he sometimes stripped off a load of luxuries; but that only made us travel the freer and the faster on our heavenward way. He sometimes led us down into the valley of the death-shadow; but never did the promises read so sweetly as when spelled out by the eye of faith in that very valley. Nowhere did he lead us so often, or teach us such sacred lessons, as at the cross of Christ. Dear, old, rough-handed teacher! We will build a monument to thee yet, and crown it with garlands, and inscribe on it: _Blessed be the memory of Disappointment!_--_Theodore Cuyler._
Rahab knelt down and fed more twigs into the fire. She was thinking how to answer this man. “As I told you,” she said finally, “I did it because of your god. What is his name?” “He has many names. Jehovah is one of them.” “Jehovah. What does that mean?” “It’s an odd sort of name. It means, more or less, ‘one who keeps covenant with His people’” “And what is a covenant?” “It’s a promise, an agreement. Like if I promised you I would come on a certain day, say next week. That would be a covenant between us.” “And what promises has your god made you?” “Many,” Ardon said.
~Inconsistency.~--Men talk as if they believed in God, but they live as if they thought there was none: their vows and promises are no more than words of course.--_L'Estrange._
There is a revolution coming. It will not be like revolutions of the past. It will originate with the individual and with culture, and it will change the political structure only as its final act. It will not require violence to succeed, and it cannot be successfully resisted by violence. It is now spreading with amazing rapidity, and already our laws, institutions and social structure are changing in consequence. It promises a higher reason, a more human community, and a new and liberated individual. Its ultimate creation will be a new and enduring wholeness and beauty — a renewed relationship of man to himself, to other men, to society, to nature, and to the land. This is the revolution of the new generation.
_Perpetuity._--Men have always believed in a Messiah. The tradition from Adam was still fresh in Noah and in Moses. After these the prophets bore witness, at the same time foretelling other things which being from time to time fulfilled in the eyes of all, demonstrated the truth of their mission, and consequently that of their promises touching the Messiah. Jesus Christ worked miracles, and the Apostles also, who converted all the Gentiles; and the prophecies being thus once accomplished, the Messiah is for ever proved.
Parents we can have but once; and he promises himself too much who enters life with the expectation of finding many friends.
~Promise.~--Promises hold men faster than benefits: hope is a cable and gratitude a thread.--_J. Petit Senn._
~Preface.~--Your opening promises some great design.--_Horace._
Therefore the prophecies have a hidden and spiritual sense, which this people hated, under the carnal sense which they loved. Had the spiritual sense been disclosed, it being such as they were unable to love, or even to bear, they would not have been zealous to preserve their books and their ceremonies; and if they had loved these spiritual promises, and had preserved them incorrupt till Messiah came, their witness would have had no force, because they had been his friends. Therefore it was well that the spiritual sense should be concealed; but on the other hand, had the sense been so hidden as not to be at all apparent, it could not have served as a proof of the Messiah. What then was done? In a crowd of passages the spiritual was concealed under the temporal sense, and has been clearly revealed in a few; again, the time and the state of the world were so clearly foretold that the sun is not so evident. And in some passages this spiritual sense is so dearly expressed that no less a blindness than that which the flesh imposes on the spirit when enslaved, can keep us from discerning it.
God's promises are ever on the ascending scale. One leads up to another, fuller and more blessed than itself. In Mesopotamia God said, "I will show thee the land." At Bethel, "This is the land." Here, "I will give thee all the land, and children innumerable as the grains of sand." And we shall find even these eclipsed.
~Valor.~--Valor gives awe, and promises protection to those who want heart or strength to defend themselves. This makes the authority of men among women, and that of a master buck in a numerous herd.--_Sir W. Temple._
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.
Life is like a cloud. It comes in a million shapes and sizes and it offers no guarantees, no sympathies for the man who told his kid he'd fly a kite today, no consideration for the girl who was sure she'd see the sun today, no promises for the weary world and the wants wants wants of which it has too many today. Life is like that.
Mit dem Genius steht die Natur im ewigen Bunde! / Was der eine verspricht, leistet die andre gewiss=--Nature stands in eternal league with genius; what the one promises the other as surely performs.
Lavish promises lessen credit.
I made promises to you that I'm not sure I can keep.
Whither he went, he knew not; it was enough for him to know that he went with God. He leant not so much upon the promises as upon the Promiser. He looked not on the difficulties of his lot, but on the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, who had deigned to appoint his course, and would certainly vindicate Himself. O glorious faith! This is thy work, these are thy possibilities: contentment to sail with sealed orders, because of unwavering confidence in the love and wisdom of the Lord High Admiral: willinghood to rise up, leave all, and follow Christ, because of the glad assurance that earth's best cannot bear comparison with heaven's least.--_F. B. Meyer._
In these promises each man finds what he chiefly desires, temporal possessions or spiritual, God or the creatures; but with this difference, that those who therein seek the creatures find them, but attended by many contradictions, with a prohibition against loving them, with the injunction to worship God only, and to love him only, which is the same thing, and finally that the Messiah came not for them; whilst on the contrary those who therein seek God find him, without any contradiction, with the injunction to love him only, and that the Messiah came in the time foretold, to give them the possessions which they ask.
The promises of God are yea and amen.
_Et ingemiscens ait; Quid generatio ista signum quærit._ Marc. viii. 12. They asked a sign with a bad intent. _Et non poterat facere._ And nevertheless he promises them the sign of Jonah, the great and incomparable evidence of his resurrection.
We do not choose political freedom because it promises us this or that. We choose it because it makes possible the only dignified form of human coexistence, the only form in which we can be fully responsible for ourselves. Whether we realize its possibilities depends on all kinds of things — and above all on ourselves.
You must make a choice, Libby. I can make you no promises of a fine house or an easy life. I can only pledge that as my wife you will never doubt that I love you and that I will protect you with the last ounce of my strength.
Did we not know ourselves full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery and injustice, we were indeed blind. And if knowing this we did not desire deliverance, what could be said of a man.... What then can we feel but esteem for that Religion which is so well acquainted with the defects of man, and desire for the truth of a religion which promises remedies so precious.
He loses his thanks who promises and delays.
Most religion-mongers have bated their paradises with a bit of toasted cheese. They have tempted the body with large promises of possessions in their transmortal El Dorado.
Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don't blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being "in love", which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.
Wine neither keeps secrets nor fulfils promises.
In love, she who gives her portrait promises the original. -- Bruton
I for one cannot protest the recent M.T.A. fare hike and the accompanying promises that this would in no way improve service. For the transit system, as it now operates, has hidden advantages that can't be measured in monetary terms. Personally, I feel that it is well worth 75 cents or even $1 to have that unimpeachable excuse whenever I am late to anything: "I came by subway." Those four words have such magic in them that if Godot should someday show up and mumble them, any audience would instantly understand his long delay.
... most of us learned about love the hard way. Even warnings are probably useless, for somehow, despite the severest warnings of parents and friends, hundreds, thousands of women have forgotten themselves at the last minute and succumbed to the lies, promises, flatteries, or mere attentions of lusting, lovely men, landing themselves in complicated predicaments from which some of them never recovered during their entire lives. And I am not speaking only of your teenaged Midwesterners in 1958; I'm speaking of women of every age in every city in every year. The notorious sexual revolution has saved no one from the pain and confusion of love. -- Alix Kates Shulman
Windows NT Beer: Comes in 32-oz. cans, but you can only buy it by the truckload. This causes most people to have to go out and buy bigger refrigerators. The can looks just like Windows 3.1 Beer's, but the company promises to change the can to look just like Windows 95 Beer's -- after Windows 95 beer starts shipping. Touted as an "industrial strength" beer, and suggested only for use in bars.
When a man you like switches from what he said a year ago, or four years ago, he is a broad-minded man who has courage enough to change his mind with changing conditions. When a man you don't like does it, he is a liar who has broken his promises. -- Franklin Adams
The average nutritional value of promises is roughly zero.
`Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order by staff writers Helsinki, Finland, August 6, 1995 -- In a surprise movement, Lars ``Lasu'' Wirzenius today released the 0.3 edition of the ``Linux System Administrators' Guide''. Already an industry non-classic, the new version sports such overwhelming features as an overview of a Linux system, a completely new climbing session in a tree, and a list of acknowledgements in the introduction. The SAG, as the book is affectionately called, is one of the corner stones of the Linux Documentation Project. ``We at the LDP feel that we wouldn't be able to produce anything at all, that all our work would be futile, if it weren't for the SAG,'' says Matt Welsh, director of LDP, Inc. The new version is still distributed freely, now even with a copyright that allows modification. ``More dough,'' explains the author. Despite insistent rumors about blatant commercialization, the SAG will probably remain free. ``Even more dough,'' promises the author. The author refuses to comment on Windows NT and Windows 96 versions, claiming not to understand what the question is about. Industry gossip, however, tells that Bill Gates, co-founder and CEO of Microsoft, producer of the Windows series of video games, has visited Helsinki several times this year. Despite of this, Linus Torvalds, author of the word processor Linux with which the SAG was written, is not worried. ``We'll have world domination real soon now, anyway,'' he explains, ``for 1.4 at the lastest.'' ... -- Lars Wirzenius <wirzeniu@cs.helsinki.fi> [comp.os.linux.announce]
After a while you learn the subtle difference Between holding a hand and chaining a soul, And you learn that love doesn't mean security, And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts And presents aren't promises</p> And you begin to accept your defeats With your head up and your eyes open, With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child, And you learn to build all your roads On today because tomorrow's ground Is too uncertain. And futures have A way of falling down in midflight, After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much. So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting For someone to bring you flowers. And you learn that you really can endure... That you really are strong, And you really do have worth And you learn and learn With every goodbye you learn. -- Veronic Shoffstall, "Comes the Dawn"
The only young people remaining in the drawing room, not counting the young lady visitor and the countess' eldest daughter (who was four years older than her sister and behaved already like a grown-up person), were Nicholas and Sonya, the niece. Sonya was a slender little brunette with a tender look in her eyes which were veiled by long lashes, thick black plaits coiling twice round her head, and a tawny tint in her complexion and especially in the color of her slender but graceful and muscular arms and neck. By the grace of her movements, by the softness and flexibility of her small limbs, and by a certain coyness and reserve of manner, she reminded one of a pretty, half-grown kitten which promises to become a beautiful little cat. She evidently considered it proper to show an interest in the general conversation by smiling, but in spite of herself her eyes under their thick long lashes watched her cousin who was going to join the army, with such passionate girlish adoration that her smile could not for a single instant impose upon anyone, and it was clear that the kitten had settled down only to spring up with more energy and again play with her cousin as soon as they too could, like Natasha and Boris, escape from the drawing room.