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Quotes About Oaths

The lieutenant, returning from a tour after a bandage, produced from a hidden receptacle of his mind new and portentous oaths suited to the emergency. Strings of expletives he swung lashlike over the backs of his men, and it was evident that his previous efforts had in nowise impaired his resources.
~ Stephen Crane
Recall that even the liberal-minded John Locke in the seventeenth century argued against granting civil rights to atheists: 'Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold on an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all.'6 This is not to endorse these sentiments, merely to note that they exist.
~ Jonathan Sacks
the duel's outcome would decide "the damnation of the one who is in the wrong, in both soul and body, as a result of the great oaths they have sworn, whence they will be judged by the sentence of God." After
~ Eric Jager
All secret oath-bound political parties are dangerous to any nation, no matter how pure or how patriotic the motives and principles which first bring them together.
~ Ulysses S. Grant
I could imagine Cnut sitting there and thinking that I must join him soon, and we would raise a horn of ale together. There is no pain in Valhalla, no sadness, no tears, no broken oaths.
~ Bernard Cornwell
The world began in chaos and it will end in chaos. The gods brought the world into existence, and they will end it when they fight among themselves, but in between the chaos of the world's birth and the chaos of the world's death is order, and order is made by oaths, and oaths bind us like the buckles of a harness.
~ Bernard Cornwell
I have lived my life, Derfel,' he said at last, 'according to oaths. I know no other way. I resent oaths, and so should all men, for oaths bind us, they hobble our freedom, and who among us doesn't want to be free? But if we abandon oaths then we abandon guidance. We fall into chaos. We just fall. We become no better than beasts.
~ Bernard Cornwell
A trial relied heavily on oaths, but both sides would bring as many liars as they could muster, and judgment usually went to the better liars or, if both sides were equally convincing, to the side who had the sympathy of the onlookers.
~ Bernard Cornwell
We live by oaths and we can die by them. To give an oath is to harness a life to a promise, and to break an oath is to tempt the punishment of the gods.
~ Bernard Cornwell
Some oaths are made with love, and those we cannot break.
~ Bernard Cornwell
We make oaths, we make choices, but fate makes our decisions.
~ Bernard Cornwell
Wyrd bið ful ?ræd," I said, and that is true. Fate is inexorable. Destiny is all. We make oaths, we make choices, but fate makes our decisions.
~ Bernard Cornwell
The world began in chaos and it will end in chaos. The gods brought the world into existence, and they will end it when they fight among themselves, but in between the chaos of the world's birth and the chaos of the world's death is order, and order is made by oaths, and oaths bind us like the buckles of a harness.
~ Bernard Cornwell
our oaths.' He advanced down the path
~ Bernard Cornwell
between the chaos of the world's birth and the chaos of the world's death is order, and order is made by oaths, and oaths bind us like the buckler of a harness.
~ Bernard Cornwell
And so he lied because he can't speak the truth. His tongue is bent. He breaks oaths, my lady, and he swears black is white and white is black, and men believe him because he has honey on his bent tongue. But I know him, my lady, because he's my man, he's sworn to me." And with that I leaned down from the saddle and took hold of Haesten's mail coat, shirt, and cloak, and hauled him up. He
~ Bernard Cornwell
My love for you forged a bond to this land long before I even knew it. You play no part in my oaths to these people...because I made mine to you long ago, in my heart.
~ Jules Watson
Tis not the many oaths that make the truth; But the plain single vow, that is vow'd true.
~ William Shakespeare
Oaths are not the credit of men but men of oaths.
~ Aeschylus
It took place to the accompaniment of such hideous swearing as caused his withered leg to blush beneath the sacking. It must have been hardened by many years of oaths, but this morning an awakened sense of shame at what the upper part of the body could descend to, raddled it from hip to toe. Its only consolation was that the contaminating influence had not descended lower than the lungs, and what diseases the withered leg experienced were entirely physical.
~ Mervyn Peake
And, tortured by his own weakness, Theleb K'aarna, sorcerer of Pan Tang, left. Elric of Melniboné was in Bakshaan—and Elric had sworn several oaths of vengeance upon Theleb K'aarna on several separate occasions—in Lormyr, Nadsokor and Tanelorn, as well as in Jharkor. In his heart, the black-bearded sorcerer knew who would win any duel which might take place.
~ Michael Moorcock
Bardic oaths weren't made to Shkoder, they were just made.
~ Tanya Huff
Deserters], they've given up everything. Oaths. Families. When you desert, it breaks you. It leaves you willing to do anything, because you've already given away everything you could have cared about losing.
~ Brandon Sanderson
Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination. Speak again the ancient oaths and return to men the Shards they once bore.
~ Brandon Sanderson