Oaths

Oaths or either statements of fact or promises calling upon something or someone that the oath maker considers sacred, usually their god, as a witness to the binding nature of the promise or the truth of the statement of fact. To swear is to take an oath, to make a solemn vow. Those who conscientiously object to making an oath will often make an affirmation instead. The essence of a divine oath is an invocation of divine agency to be a guarantor of the oath taker's own honesty and integrity in the matter under question. By implication, this invokes divine displeasure if the oath taker fails in their sworn duties. It therefore implies greater care than usual in the act of the performance of one's duty, such as in testimony to the facts of the matter in a court of law.

Quotes

• I will not disgrace my sacred arms
  Nor desert my comrade, wherever
  I am stationed.
  I will fight for things sacred
  And things profane.
  And both alone and with all to help me.
  I will transmit my fatherland not diminished
  But greater and better than before.
  I will obey the ruling magistrates
  Who rule reasonably
  And I will observe the established laws
  And whatever laws in the future
  May be reasonably established.
  any person seek to overturn the laws,
  Both alone and with all to help me,
  I will oppose him.
  I will honor the religion of my fathers.
  call to witness the Gods …
  The borders of my fatherland,
  The wheat, the barley, the vines,
  And the trees of the olive and the fig.
  • Athenian Ephebic Oath (translated by Clarence A. Forbes); reported in Fletcher Harper Swift, The Athenian Ephebic Oath of Allegiance in American Schools and Colleges, University of California Publications in Education (1947), vol. 11, no. 1, p. 4.

• Oaths were not purpos'd, more than law,
  To keep the Good and Just in awe,
  But to confine the Bad and Sinful,
  Like mortal cattle in a penfold.
  • Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part II (1664), Canto II, line 197.

• He that imposes an Oath makes it,
  Not he that for Convenience takes it.
  Then how can any man be said
  To break an oath he never made?
  • Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part II (1664), Canto II, line 377.

• I will take my corporal oath on it.
  • Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (1605-15), Part I, Book IV, Chapter X.

• Juravi lingua, mentem injuratam gero.
  • I have sworn with my tongue, but my mind is unsworn.
  • Cicero, De Officiis (44 B.C.), III. 29.

• They fix attention, heedless of your pain,
  With oaths like rivets forced into the brain;
  And e'en when sober truth prevails throughout,
  They swear it, till affirmance breeds a doubt.
  • William Cowper, Conversation (1782), line 63.

• And hast thou sworn on every slight, pretence,
  Till perjuries are common as bad pence,
  While thousands, careless of the damning sin,
  Kiss the book's outside, who ne'er look'd within?
  • William Cowper, Expostulation, line 384; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 563.

• I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
  • Jesus, in Gospel of Matthew, 5:34 - 37.

• In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
  • Samuel Johnson, reported in James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson (1775).

• I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations and with no purpose to construe the Constitution by any hypercritical rules.
  • Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1861).

• You can have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government; while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend" it.
  • Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1861).

• He that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not.
  • Psalms, XV. 4.

• 'Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth,
  But the plain single vow that is vow'd true.
  • William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well (1600s), Act IV, scene 2, line 21.

• Trust none;
  For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes,
  And hold-fast is the only dog.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry V (c. 1599), Act II, scene 3, line 52.

• It is a great sin to swear unto a sin,
  But greater sin to keep a sinful oath.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II (c. 1590-91), Act V, scene 1, line 182.

• Or, having sworn too hard a keeping oath,
  Study to break it and not break my troth.
  • William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost (c. 1595-6), Act I, scene 1, line 65.

• What fool is not so wise
  To lose an oath to win a paradise?
  • William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost (c. 1595-6), Act IV, scene 3, line 72.

• An oath, an oath, I have an oath in heaven:
  Shall I lay perjury upon my soul?
  No, not for Venice.
  • William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act IV, scene 1, line 228.

• I'll take thy word for faith, not ask thine oath;
  Who shuns not to break one will sure crack both.
  • William Shakespeare, Pericles, Prince of Tyre (c. 1607-08), Act I, scene 2, line 120.

• I write a woman's oaths in water.
  • Sophocles, Fragment, 694; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 564.