Sayings about Excuses
Excuses are merely nails used to build a house of failure. ~ American Proverbs
Every excuse is good, if it works. ~ Italian Proverb
The fool’s excuse is bigger than the mistake he made. ~ Iranian Proverbs
The girl who can’t dance says the band can’t play. ~ Yiddish Proverbs
A lazy messenger is not short of excuses. ~ Yiddish Proverb
It is worse to excuse than to offend. ~ Indian Proverbs
Justifying a fault doubles it. ~ French Proverbs
The evildoer never lacks excuses. ~ Italian Proverbs
Since excuses were invented, no one is ever in the wrong. ~ Mexican Proverbs
He is a bad shot who cannot find an excuse. ~ German Proverbs
If you don’t want to do something, one excuse is as good as another. ~ Yiddish Proverb
Don’t do what you’ll have to find an excuse for. ~ Traditional Proverb
A bad worker blames his tools. Those who lose dreaming are lost. ~ Australian Proverbs
Every error has its excuse. ~ Polish Proverbs
The cat with cream on her whiskers should have a good excuse ready. ~ Russian Proverbs
Excuses are always mixed with lies. ~ Arabian Proverbs
The poor are excused from washing with soap. ~ Sudanese Proverbs
Where the heart is willing it will find a thousand ways, but where it is unwilling it will find a thousand excuses. ~ Romanian Proverbs
Accusing the times is but excusing ourselves. ~ English Proverbs
He who excuses himself accuses himself. ~ French Proverb
Where there is a will there is a way. Where there is no will there is an excuse. ~ Arabian Proverb
Quotations about Excuses
Bad people excuse their faults; wise people leave them. ~ Ben Johnston
We are all manufacturers — some make good, others make trouble, and still others make excuses. ~ Author Unknown
Any excuse will serve a tyrant. ~ Aesop
Several excuses are always less convincing than one. ~ Aldous Huxley
There is no greater symphony of self-destruction than the beautifully poisonous melody found in our excuses. ~ Steve Maraboli
Destiny. A tyrant’s authority for crime and a fool’s excuse for failure. ~ Ambrose Bierce
Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts. ~ Edward R. Murrow
Ignorance is no excuse, it’s the real thing. ~ Irene Peter
I’ve always wondered where explanations end and excuses begin. ~ Errol Morris
Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death. ~ Eric Hoffer
The best excuse is to have none. ~ Ivan Panin
Don’t make excuses — make good. ~ Elbert Hubbard
No doubt Jack the Ripper excused himself on the grounds that it was human nature. ~ A. A. Milne
I attribute my success to this–I never gave or took any excuse. ~ Florence Nightingale
I respect my limitations, but I don’t use them as an excuse. ~ Stephen R. Donaldson
Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure. ~ Don Wilder and Bill Rechin
Before we blame we should first see whether we cannot excuse. ~ Georg C. Lichtenberg
There is hardly any man so strict as not to vary a little from truth when he is to make an excuse. ~ George Savile
Pessimism is an excuse for not trying and a guarantee to a personal failure. ~ Bill Clinton
Never make excuses. Your friends don’t need them and your foes won’t believe them. ~ John Wooden
Love will find a way. Indifference will find an excuse. ~ Author Unknown
It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one. ~ George Washington
There is one excuse for every mistake a man can make, but only one. When a fellow makes the same mistake twice he’s got to throw up both hands and own up to carelessness or cussedness. ~ George Horace Lorimer
An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie; for an excuse is a lie guarded. ~ Alexander Pope
Ninety-nine percent of failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses. ~ George Washington Carver
Good excuses rarely collect dust. We use them, and use them, and use them. ~ Andy Stanley
Excuses are the tools with which persons with no purpose in view build for themselves great monuments of nothing. ~ Steven Grayhm
One of the most important tasks of a manager is to eliminate his people’s excuses for failure. ~ Robert Townsend
The longer the excuse the less likely it’s the truth. ~ Robert Half
The manly man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never for himself. ~ Henry Ward Beecher
Temptation is a woman’s weapon and man’s excuse. ~ H. L. Mencken
How strange to use “You only live once” as an excuse to throw it away. ~ Bill Copeland
No one ever excused his way to success. ~ Dave Del Dotto
Every vice has its excuse ready. ~ Publilius Syrus
He, who excuses himself, accuses himself. ~ Gabriel Meurier
We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty. ~ Marcus Fabius Quintilian
Sometimes I wish I had a terrible childhood, so that at least I’d have an excuse. ~ Jimmy Fallon
There are a great many excuses that are worse than the offense. ~ H. W. Shaw
Don’t bother explaining–I’ve heard all the excuses and the trouble is most of them are true. ~ John Brunner
The excuses we make to ourselves when we want to do something are excellent material for soliloquies, for they are rarely made except when we are alone, and are very often made aloud. ~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but they make a good excuse. ~ Thomas Szasz
An excuse has been defined as the skin of reason stuffed with a lie. ~ Michael Green
Once the “what” is decided, the “how” always follows. We must not make the “how” an excuse for not facing and accepting the “what.” ~ Pearl S. Buck
We weave our excuses around events. ~ Phillip Pulfrey
He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. ~ Benjamin Franklin
Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. ~ Charlie McCarthy
Any excuse will serve when one has not a mind to do a thing. ~ Guicciardini
You can make excuses or you can get the job done, but you can’t do both. ~ Hap Holmstead
Excuses are your lack of faith in your own power. ~ Robert Anthony
We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse. ~ Rudyard Kipling
Every life is its own excuse for being. ~ Elbert Hubbard
The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse. ~ Benjamin Franklin
Whoever wants to be a judge of human nature should study people’s excuses. ~ Hebbel
The sincere intention of doing a good action, and a good excuse for not doing it, are equivalent to its performance. ~ Yahya Khalid
Once your excuses are gone, you will simply have to settle for being awesome! ~ Lorii Myers
It is wise to direct your anger towards problems — not people, to focus your energies on answers — not excuses. ~ William Arthur Ward
When you’re good at making excuses, it’s hard to excel at anything else. ~ John L. Mason
Excuses, criticisms, and superstitions are vitamins for haters, but poison for the successful. Rise above! ~ Steve Maraboli
Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anyone else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. ~ Henry Ward Beecher
The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse. ~ Jules Renard
What is the good of being a genius if you cannot use it as an excuse for being unemployed? ~ Gerald Barzan
The person who really wants to do something finds a way; the other person finds an excuse. ~ Author Unknown
An excuse is a skin of a reason stuffed with a lie. ~ Billy Sunday
A private excuse will not atone for a public insult. ~ Hamid
If you don’t like to make excuses or apologies, stop making promises. ~ Evan Esar
A bad excuse confirms a fault. ~ Al-Isfaraini
Never ruin an apology with an excuse. ~ Kimberly Johnson
And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse. ~ William Shakespeare
A real failure does not need an excuse. It is an end in itself. ~ Gertrude Stein
Good taste is the excuse I’ve always given for leading such a bad life. ~ Oscar Wilde
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
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
Bad excuses are worse than none. ~ Thomas Fuller
Suggested readings : Excuses Begone! How to Change Lifelong, Self-Defeating Thinking
