"The one fact which all of us need to keep steadfastly before our eyes is the need that performance should square with promise if good work is to be done, whether in the industrial or in the political world. Nothing does more to promote mental dishonesty and moral insincerity than the habit of promising the impossible, or finally, of failing to keep a promise that has been made; and it makes not the slightest difference whether it is a promise made on the stump or off the stump. Remember that there are two sides to the wrong thus committed. There is, first, the wrong, of failing to keep a promise made, and, in the next place, there is the wrong of demanding the impossible, and therefore forcing or permitting weak or unscrupulous men to make a promise which they either know, or should know, can not be kept."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Strenuous_Life%3A_Essays_and_Addresses
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses
177 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses →
Related Quotes
"If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests …"
"When a partizan political organization becomes merely an association for purposes of plunder and patronage, it may be…"
"We must see that there is civic honesty, civic cleanliness, civic good sense in our home administration of city, Stat…"
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with…"
"We cannot, if we would, play the part of China, and be content to rot by inches in ignoble ease within our borders, t…"
"We cannot avoid meeting great issues. All that we can determine for ourselves is whether we shall meet them well or ill."
"We have a given problem to solve. If we undertake the solution, there is, of course, always danger that we may not so…"
"No country can long endure if its foundations are not laid deep in the material prosperity which comes from thrift, f…"
"Let us, as we value our own self-respect, face the responsibilities with proper seriousness, courage, and high resolv…"
"Cowardice does not promote peace."