Quotations about Excuses

The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse. ~Jules Renard


Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure. ~Don Wilder and Bill Rechin


Don't make excuses - make good. ~Elbert Hubbard


He who excuses himself accuses himself. ~Gabriel Meurier, Trésor des sentences


Several excuses are always less convincing than one. ~Aldous Huxley, Point Counter Point


Maybe you don't like your job, maybe you didn't get enough sleep, well nobody likes their job, nobody got enough sleep. Maybe you just had the worst day of your life, but you know, there's no escape, there's no excuse, so just suck up and be nice. ~Ani Difranco


How strange to use "You only live once" as an excuse to throw it away. ~Bill Copeland


Don't do what you'll have to find an excuse for. ~Proverb


No one ever excused his way to success. ~Dave Del Dotto


Excuses are the tools with which persons with no purpose in view build for themselves great monuments of nothing. ~Steven Grayhm


And oftentimes excusing of a fault
Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.
~William Shakespeare


Bad excuses are worse than none. ~Thomas Fuller


A lie is an excuse guarded. ~Jonathan Swift


Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anyone else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. ~Henry Ward Beecher


If you don't want to do something, one excuse is as good as another. ~Yiddish Proverb


We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty. ~Marcus Fabius Quintilian


Whoever wants to be a judge of human nature should study people's excuses. ~Hebbel


There is no such thing as a list of reasons. There is either one sufficient reason or a list of excuses. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


We have more ability than will power, and it is often an excuse to ourselves that we imagine that things are impossible. ~François de la Rochefoucauld


Two wrongs don't make a right, but they make a good excuse. ~Thomas Szasz, The Second Sin


Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts. ~Edward R. Murrow


Pessimism is an excuse for not trying and a guarantee to a personal failure. ~Bill Clinton


We weave our excuses around events.
Thin, poor quality cloth of justification
Poor substitutes for the heavy tribal blankets
Once we wove to wrap our children.
~Phillip Pulfrey, "Cloth," Beyond Me, www.originals.net


Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure. ~Ambrose Bierce


Every vice has its excuse ready. ~Publilius Syrus


We are all manufacturers - some make good, others make trouble, and still others make excuses. ~Author Unknown


One of the most important tasks of a manager is to eliminate his people's excuses for failure. ~Robert Townsend


Success is a tale of obstacles overcome, and for every obstacle overcome, an excuse not used. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


Your letter of excuses has arrived. I receive the letter but do not admit the excuses except in courtesy, as when a man treads on your toes and begs your pardon - the pardon is granted, but the joint aches, especially if there is a corn upon it. ~Lord Byron


Bad men excuse their faults; good men abandon them. ~Author Unknown


He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. ~Benjamin Franklin


It is wise to direct your anger towards problems - not people, to focus your energies on answers - not excuses. ~William Arthur Ward


Any excuse will serve a tyrant. ~Aesop


We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse. ~Rudyard Kipling


The person who really wants to do something finds a way; the other person finds an excuse. ~Author Unknown


If you always make excuses to not follow through you deserve the weight of anxiety on your chest. ~Daniel, @blindedpoet


Justifying a fault doubles it. ~French Proverb


If God had intended me to make excuses for who I am, He would have given me better excuses. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours - it is an amazing journey - and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins. ~Bob Moawad


The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse. ~Benjamin Franklin


Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things. ~Russell Baker


Sometimes I wish I had a terrible childhood, so that at least I'd have an excuse. ~Jimmy Fallon


Never ruin an apology with an excuse. ~Kimberly Johnson