It is sometimes very attractive and very pleasant to make any kind of a promise without thinking whether or not you can fulfil it; but in the after event it is always unpleasant when the time for fulfilling comes; for in the long run the most disagreeable truth is a safer companion than the most pleasant falsehood.
Roosevelt warns against making promises without considering the ability to keep them.
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Character must show itself in the man's performance both of the duty he owes himself and of the duty he owes the State.
A broken promise is bad enough in private life. It is worse in the field of politics.
the fate of the leader for the time being is of little consequence, but the cause itself must in the end triumph, for its triumph is essential to the well-being of the American people.
No man is worth his salt in public life who makes on the stump a pledge which he does not keep after election; and, if he makes such a pledge and does not keep it, hunt him out of public life.
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