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)