Promise Quotes - page 47
In our time, it's about recognizing that for much too long we've allowed a narrowed and cramped view of the promise of America - a view that America is a zero-sum game, particularly of the recent past. "If you succeed, I fail.” "If you get ahead, I fall behind.” And maybe worst of all, "If I can hold you down, I lift myself up.”
Instead of what it should be - and it's just self-evident - "If you do well, we all do well.” That's keeping the promise of America.
Joe Biden
We must set aside politics and finally face this pandemic as one nation, one nation. And I promise you this. As the Bible says, "weep, ye may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” We will get through this together. Together.Look, folks, all my colleagues that I served with in the house and the senate up here, we all understand, the world is watching, watching all of us today. So here′s my message to those beyond our borders.America has been tested, and we′ve come out stronger for it. We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again. Not to meet yesterday′s challenges, but today′s and tomorrow′s challenges. And we′ll lead not merely by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. We′ll be a strong and trusted partner for peace, progress, and security.
Joe Biden
Every day, the American Flag instills pride - reminding us of the ideals upon which our Nation was founded and the values for which we stand.As we pledge our allegiance to the Star-Spangled Banner, and the legacy it holds in our history, let us continue the work of perfecting our Union so that, together, we can deliver the promise of America for all Americans.
Joe Biden
How can the Universe tell its own story save by making use of human speech; how convey its meanings to finite minds save by employing a thinker to declare them? So long as the story remains unspoken, unwritten, can we say it exists at all? Does not the significance of things become a story by the very process which ends in the movement of an intelligently guided pen over a sheet of paper, in the reading of printed types, in the utterance of recognised vocables; and until this process has been accomplished is not the "meaning” a mere promise or unrealized potency? Can we learn the history of the world, and of human life, otherwise than by reading, or hearing it spoken? How, then, can we receive it without the intermediation of a writer, a speaker?
L. P. Jacks
A Marxist or Trotskyite interpretation of history raises the question of hegemony or class power in its simplest form, uses the theoretical possibility of revolution to dramatise class-dominance, and promises insights into the unspoken attitudes of the elites and classes which have exercised power in modern England. This promise is unlikely to be fulfilled, however, when there is no attempt to appreciate either the mixture of motives among the "rich swine" or the fact that in most modern societies some of the "rich swine" were once poor swine, and when there is no grasp of the central truth that hegemony and inequality are necessary for cultural and economic development and for social and political stability and freedom, and are in any case the invariable consequence of revolution once revolution has produced new classes or elites to replace the classes and elites which it was designed to overthrow.
Maurice Cowling
I've conducted my campaign thus far in the true American political tradition: I lied about my intention to run [...] I have been consistently vague on all the issues [...] Therefore I promise you all, my fellow Americans, that I will continue to make promises that I will be unable to fulfill.
Pat Paulsen
The promise in her smile shames the mountains tall
She can bring the sun to shining.
She can tell the rain to fall.
It's been a long time, Mama, since I heard you call my name,
Ah, been a long time since I heard you call my name
I got to see my Colorado girl again
Be there tomorrow, Mama, don't you cry.
Townes Van Zandt
There's no single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, but I believe then and I believe today that we do have a choice. we can choose to be defined by our differences and give in to a future of suspicions and mistrusts, or we choose to do the hard-work of forging common ground and commit ourselves to the steady pursuit of progress and I can promise you, no matter what setback may come, the United States is committed to human progress, that's who we are, that's what we've done, and that's what we will do.
Barack Obama
I also call upon the Egyptian government to reverse the actions that they've taken to interfere with access to the Internet, to cell phone service and to social networks that do so much to connect people in the 21st century.
At the same time, those protesting in the streets have a responsibility to express themselves peacefully. Violence and destruction will not lead to the reforms that they seek.
Now, going forward, this moment of volatility has to be turned into a moment of promise. The United States has a close partnership with Egypt and we've cooperated on many issues, including working together to advance a more peaceful region. But we've also been clear that there must be reform - political, social, and economic reforms that meet the aspirations of the Egyptian people.
Barack Obama
Experience does not err; only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power. Men wrongly complain of Experience; with great abuse they accuse her of leading them astray but they set Experience aside, turning from it with complaints as to our ignorance causing us to be carried away by vain and foolish desires to promise ourselves, in her name, things that are not in her power; saying that she is fallacious. Men are unjust in complaining of innocent Experience, constantly accusing her of error and of false evidence.
Leonardo da Vinci
Everyone who realizes what those glorious patriots knew on that day -- that change does not come from Washington, but to Washington; that change has always been built on our willingness, We The People, to take on the mantle of citizenship -- you are marching.And that's the lesson of our past. That's the promise of tomorrow -- that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it. That when millions of Americans of every race and every region, every faith and every station, can join together in a spirit of brotherhood, then those mountains will be made low, and those rough places will be made plain, and those crooked places, they straighten out towards grace, and we will vindicate the faith of those who sacrificed so much and live up to the true meaning of our creed, as one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Barack Obama
Historians have noticed, all down the centuries, one peculiarity of the English people which has cost them dear. We have always thrown away after a victory the greater part of the advantages we gained in the struggle. The worst difficulties from which we suffer do not come from without. They come from within. They do not come from the cottages of the wage-earners. They come from a peculiar type of brainy people always found in our country, who, if they add something to its culture, take much from its strength. Our difficulties come from the mood of unwarrantable self-abasement into which we have been cast by a powerful section of our own intellectuals. They come from the acceptance of defeatist doctrines by a large proportion of our politicians. But what have they to offer but a vague internationalism, a squalid materialism, and the promise of impossible Utopias?
Winston Churchill
Men show at least as much zeal in mischief as in well doing, in folly as in wisdom. The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people that they will have a chance of maltreating someone. Men must be bribed to build up and do good by the offer of an opportunity to hurt and pull down. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' - this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.
Aldous Huxley
The law has outgrown its primitive stage of formalism when the precise word was the sovereign talisman, and every slip was fatal. It takes a broader view to-day. A promise may be lacking, and yet the whole writing may be "instinct with an obligation," imperfectly expressed. If that is so, there is a contract.
Benjamin N. Cardozo
Every person has his own ideas of the act of praying for God's guidance, tolerance, and mercy to fulfill his duties and responsibilities. My own concept of prayer is not as a plea for special favors nor as a quick palliation for wrongs knowingly committed. A prayer, it seems to me, implies a promise as well as a request; at the highest level, prayer not only is a supplication for strength and guidance, but also becomes an affirmation of life and thus a reverent praise of God.
Walt Disney
Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope. The power of hope upon human exertion, and happiness, is wonderful. The slave-master himself has a conception of it; and hence the system of tasks among slaves. The slave whom you can not drive with the lash to break seventy-five pounds of hemp in a day, if you will task him to break a hundred, and promise him pay for all he does over, he will break you a hundred and fifty. You have substituted hope, for the rod. And yet perhaps it does not occur to you, that to the extent of your gain in the case, you have given up the slave system, and adopted the free system of labor.
Abraham Lincoln
You have to learn all the big ideas in the key disciplines in a way that they're in a mental latticework in your head and you automatically use them for the rest of your life. If you do that, I solemnly promise you that one day you'll be walking down the street and you'll look to your right and left and you'll think "my heavenly days, I'm now one of the few competent people in my whole age cohort." If you don't do it, many of the brightest of you will live in the middle ranks or in the shallows.
Charlie Munger
I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here and adopted that Declaration of Independence; I have pondered over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army, who achieved that Independence. I have often inquired of myself, what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the mother land; but something in that Declaration giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence.
Abraham Lincoln
Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling... Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go... But, of course, ceasing to be "in love" need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense-love as distinct from "being in love"-is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God... "Being in love" first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.
C. S. Lewis
So, guided by the great ideals of this country, willing to work and dare to fulfill your dreams, there is really no limit to the expectations of your tomorrow. If you wish a sheltered and uneventful life, then you are living in the wrong generation. No one can promise you calm, or ease, or undisturbed comfort. But we can promise you this. We can promise enormous challenge and arduous struggle, hard labor and great danger. And with them we can promise you, finally, triumph--triumph over all the enemies of mankind.
Lyndon B. Johnson
American business is like no other in history. It is owned by millions, it employs millions more, it serves all 190 million of our people. The promise for their lives rests upon the performance of your enterprise. While some of you may not be interested in our success, I can assure you that we here in Washington are greatly interested in your success. I am glad I can say today that no businessmen anywhere have ever at any time enjoyed the measure of success that American businessmen are enjoying now. For 42 consecutive months, we have had the longest and the largest peacetime expansion of our economy on record. These years from 1961 through 1964 are going into the record books as the most prosperous years of our history. It is prosperity not just for businessmen--it is prosperity for all the people of this Nation.
Lyndon B. Johnson
This center will reflect the finest artistic achievements of our time. It is our hope that it will house the leading artists and performers. Almost every industrialized nation in the world, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, has one or more national centers for the arts. Washington has lagged behind. Far too often, American actors and singers and musicians must travel to foreign countries to even be heard. Now, because of President Kennedy's leadership and your efforts, they will have a stage here in the Capital of their own country. I expect this center to be a living force for the encouragement of art. Washington needs new theaters and new concert halls. But if that is all that we are building, we will have fallen far short of today's expectation and promise.
Lyndon B. Johnson
