Promising too much can be as cruel as caring too little.
Interpretation
Overpromising can lead to disappointment, just as lack of care can hurt others.
This quote emphasizes the importance of balance in our commitments to others. It suggests that making grand promises without the ability or intention to fulfill them can be just as damaging to relationships as neglecting to show care and concern. Trust is built on reliability, and both overpromising and underdelivering can harm that foundation.
In practice
In a motivational speech about the importance of honest communication in relationships, this quote could highlight potential pitfalls.
You know, there was a recent poll which said that young people in the generation of the students here felt it was far more likely that they would see a UFO than that they would draw Social Security... It's very important you understand this. Once you understand this, you realize this is not an episode from the X Files, and you're not more likely to see a UFO if you do certain specific things.
When we got organized as a country, [and] wrote a fairly radical Constitution, with a radical Bill of Rights, giving radical amounts of freedom to Americans, it was assumed that Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly...When personal freedom is being abused, you have to move to limit it.
For too long we've been told about 'us' and 'them.' Each and every election we see a new slate of arguments and ads telling us that 'they' are the problem, not 'us.' But there can be no 'them' in America. There's only us.
There is a huge body of business evidence now showing that energy savings give better service at lower cost with higher profit. We have to tear down barriers to successful markets and we have to create incentives to enter them.
Demand that your government pays more attention. It's immoral that people in Africa die like flies of diseases that no one dies of in the United States. And the more disease there is, the more political unrest there will be, leading to more Darfurs, which the U.S. will have to pay to fix.
I was not elected to produce a pile of vetoes.
We don't always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanly--as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth--the same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives
A woman has to be twice as good as a man to go half as far.
Compliments win friends, honesty loses them.
And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.
I think we all change each other's paths. I don't know which law idea that is in physics, but I don't think any of us can live without affecting one another.
I would say get to know somebody who isn't exactly like you and doesn't come from the same background as you, educate yourself and then just keep showing up. Finding ways to show up for people and your voice will come out of that relationship and out of your pursuit to seeing people who aren't exactly like you.
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