15 quotes about Excuses

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.

Byron, Lord

He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.

Franklin, Benjamin

Bad excuses are worse than none.

Fuller, Thomas

To offer the complexities of life as an excuse for not addressing oneself to the simpler, more manageable (trivial) aspects of daily existence is a perversity often indulged in by artists, husbands, intellectuals -- and critics of the Women's Movement.

Harrison, Barbara Grizzuti

Apology is only egotism wrong side out.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

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

Kipling, Rudyard

He who excuses himself, accuses himself.

Meurier, Gabriel

No doubt Jack the Ripper excused himself on the grounds that it was human nature.

Milne, A. A.

An excuse is worse than a lie, for an excuse is a lie, guarded.

Pope, Alexander

The girl who can't dance says the band can't play.

Proverb, Yiddish

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

Proverb, Yiddish

And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.

Shakespeare, William

Two wrongs don't make a right, but they make a good excuse.

Szasz, Thomas

Don't make excuses, make good.

Unknown, Source

It is good rule in life to never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.

Wodehouse, Sir P(elham) G(renville)