A Promise (n.) is often misperceived by the promiser to be of value even if the promised thing is not done. Not at all! In fact, when you do not do what you promise, it is a long way back to the truth.
A Promise (n.) is not honesty — only keeping it is; true trustworthiness wastes no time promising, and does not claim credit twice, once for the promise and once for its keeping.
A Promise (n.) turns a man into a deceiver not because he lied but through his very readiness to promise: it feels as if promising were already part of the doing.
A Promise (n.) is a changeling slipped into your hand at the great, dangerous moment of beginning, so that the beginning is never made.
A Promise (n.) about love lies exactly at the beginning and resembles it deceptively without being it — a blazing up that leaves languor, a springing forward that leads backward, an introduction that never reaches the matter.
A Promise (n.) “I shall never forget you” said to a living man can be happily forgotten by both after some years; said to the dead, he answers: “Good! Rest assured I shall never forget that you said this.”
A Promise (n.) given in general is little help: like a theology candidate handed the whole Bible to choose a text from — until the gnats of a few unfinished sentences become elephants.