Excusing Quotes & Sayings

The conscience within man is always either excusing or accusing. — Tedd Tripp

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

...I've never understood the logic that says a work doesn't need to be judged on the quality of its writing or characters simply because its genre. On the other hand, I've also never understood the logic of excusing a work from the need to tell a story worth telling about people worth knowing simply because the author writes pretty language or has some insights to offer. — Glen Hirshberg

We're so preoccupied with protecting children from disappointment and discomfort that we're inadvertently excusing them from growing up. — LZ Granderson

You are not an option, a choice or a soft place to land after a long battle. You were meant to be the one. If you can wrap yourself around the idea that you are something incredible, then you will stop excusing behavior that rapes your very soul. You were never meant to teach someone to love you. You were meant to be loved. — Shannon L. Alder

Every religion in the world has had a subset of devotees who seek a direct, transcendent experience with God, excusing themselves from fundamentalist scriptural or dogmatic study in order to personally encounter the divine. — Elizabeth Gilbert

HATE SIN! Instead of loving it, cleaving to it, excusing it, playing with it, we ought to hate it with a deadly hatred. — J.C. Ryle

Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria. — Rick Riordan

Well, I'm not excusing the fact that planning and preparedness was not where it should be. We've known for 20 years about this hurricane, this possibility of this kind of hurricane. — Michael Chertoff

Maybe that's all anyone who writes or paints or sculpts is doing anyway
excusing themselves for refusing to live like other people or be like them. — Kathleen Winsor

Like one of those fake-smart, middlebrow TV shows, the speciousness of The Social Network is disguised by topicality. It's really a movie excusing Hollywood ruthlessness. — Armond White

That would never do, I'm sure,' said Alice: 'the governess would never think of excusing me lessons for that. If she couldn't remember my name, she'd call me "Miss!" as the servants do.'

Well. if she said "Miss," and didn't say anything more,' the Gnat remarked, 'of course you'd miss your lessons. That's a joke. I wish YOU had made it.'

Why do you wish I had made it?' Alice asked. 'It's a very bad one.'

But the Gnat only sighed deeply, while two large tears came rolling down its cheeks.

You shouldn't make jokes,' Alice said, 'if it makes you so unhappy. — Lewis Carroll

before excusing himself. "Sorry." She turned — Lexi Ostrow

The more we love someone, the less we flatter them; it is by excusing nothing that true love shows itself. — Moliere

Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe because in the long run stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty ... The global wave of democracy has barely reached the Arab states. For too long, many people in that region have been victims and subjects. They deserve to be active citizens. — George W. Bush

Abruptly excusing himself, — Karen Miller

When I repent, here is where it starts. I try to name my sin as honestly and as specifically as possible. Here is what repenting is not. It is not excusing my sin, minimizing my sin, it's not rationalizing my sin ... Repentance is getting painfully honest with God. — John Ortberg

In the past, I've been a bit diffident about my own albums, almost excusing them for some reason, even though deep down I felt strongly about them. — Jesse Harris

I think I'm going to skip all of my classes today because I need a "me" day. The problem with "me" days is that I need them four times a week. The problem with me is that I'm very smart and very capable (or so I've been told) but my laziness hinders me. Laziness. They forgot to add procrastination, self-destruction, and the inability to leave my bed to the list. The problem with me is that I've dealt with this before but have no idea what to do next. I should email my past teachers and ask them what I did after I sent them messages excusing my week-long absences from class due to "personal reasons." I should stop scratching my hand in case my mom asks me if I'm okay again. I am okay. I am doing fine. But I have an itch that I cannot place, an itch that changes locations when my fingers find it. The problem with me is that I will focus on it completely until it goes away. The problem with this feeling is that it never goes away. It has always been one large itch that I cannot place. — Lora Mathis

Forgiving is tough. Excusing is easy. What a mistake it is to confuse forgiving with being mushy, soft, gutless, and oh, so understanding. Before we forgive, we stiffen our spine and we hold a person accountable. And only then, in tough-minded judgment, can we do the outrageously impossible thing: we can forgive. — Lewis B. Smedes

I do not want to unite with the multitude of those who flatter the proletariat, excusing them, praising them, adorning them with wreathes. No, oh distinguished windbags, your verve disguises nothing. The "people" is always there, idiotic, cowardly, resigned. And I, who consider myself superior, desire to be so, and both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat will pay for my superiority. — Bruno Filippi

His route to them met with one obstacle after another as he negotiated his way across the room, excusing himself at every turn and twist. — Steven Erikson

Long ago, He'd warned her that He could become aroused in only one of two ways - by inflicting pain or inflicting humiliation. Some nights pain might not be enough for Him. Some nights He would humiliate her for His own pleasure. He then promised to refrain from that particular side of His sadism as much as possible. But now and again it appeared, unbidden. During a beating she'd realized she'd had a painfully full bladder and instead of excusing her to the bathroom He'd kicked a bucket into the center of the room and uttered the order, "Go." When her period had started a few days early and she'd woken up to blood on His white sheets, He'd stood over her at the bathtub while she'd had to scrub the stains out, crying with mortification the entire time. — Tiffany Reisz

Until YOU get enough of what you're going through, no matter what advice a person gives you, you'll continue to go through the same thing. When you get the courage to stop making excuses for them, and stop excusing their behavior, then you'll be able to break free from that unhealthy situation. You've got to be willing to face YOUR truth in order to move on and be at peace. You matter! — Stephanie Lahart

The fruit of our labors is sweet when the work is consecrated to God. But we have to be able to weather the conditions - the winds, the rain or the drought, the brilliant sun and sometimes the bitter cold. Sometimes our work needs to be directed at improving our ground rather than excusing our own harvests because the place we have been given is a little hard; there are too many rocks, too many hills, too little top soil. If we focus on where we are instead of what we can do with our plot, we will find our efforts significantly diminished. — Elaine L. Jack

What could ever be a sufficient reason for excusing in any way the direct murder of the innocent? This is precisely what we are dealing with here. Whether inflicted upon the mother or upon the child, it is against the precept of God and the law of nature: 'Thou shalt not kill.' — Pope Pius XI

The truth is that there are no heroes. We're all villains excusing our actions by hiding behind a greater good. — Rachel Bach

It is remarkable that among all the preachers there are so few moral teachers. The prophets are employed in excusing the ways of men. — Henry David Thoreau

Managing excuses means not excusing yourself from the responsibility you need to take with your thought, words, and actions. — Lorii Myers

Self-righteousness means you don't see yourself or the other person with accuracy. It means you see his or her speck as a log and your log as a speck. So you are condemning of him or her and excusing of yourself. You treat the other person with judgment while you respond to yourself with patience. — Paul David Tripp

We need to stop excusing mediocre and downright pernicious art, stop 'taking it for what it's worth' as we take our fast foods, our overpriced cars that are no good, the overpriced houses we spend all our lives fixing, our television programs, our schools thrown up like barricades in the way of young minds, our brainless fat religions, our poisonous air, our incredible cult of sports, and our ritual of fornicating with all pretty or even horse-faced strangers. We would not put up with a debauched king, but in a democracy all of us are kings, and we praise debauchery as pluralism. This book is of course no condemnation of pluralism; but it is true that art is in one sense fascistic: it claims, on good authority, that some things are healthy for individuals and society and some things are not. — John Gardner

In an era where the White House is abusing power, is excusing and authorizing torture and is spying on American citizens, I find Judge [Samuel] Alito's support for an all-powerful executive branch to be genuinely troubling. — Samuel Alito

When I talk about forgiveness, I mean letting go, not excusing the other person or reconciling with them or condoning the behavior. Just letting go of your own suffering. — Dean Ornish

We have the ability to rise up and take control of our lives, if only we stop to pay attention to the warning signs that we so often find ourselves excusing and ignoring. — Tori Kinsey

Three aspects of the self betrayer's conduct always go together: accusing others, excusing oneself, and displaying oneself as a victim. — C. Terry Warner

I think ethical ambivalence is a kind of innoculation, a way of excusing yourself in advance for something you actually want to do. No offense. — Jennifer Egan

When David Susskind and Germaine Greer were guests on the same historic television talk show, for instance, Susskind used general, pseudoscientific statements about women's monthly emotional changes as a way of excusing the injustices cited by this very intelligent woman. Finally, Greer turned politely to Susskind and said, "Tell me, David. Can you tell if I'm menstruating right now - or not?" She not only eliminated any doubts raised by Susskind's statements, but subdued his pugnacious style for the rest of the show. — Gloria Steinem

Provide a safe place for people to be their 100% self, this world is already guarded and fearful, trained to keep walls up and throw away the keys. A harden heart is no pure reality and for too long, we have all stood to allow it; so instead of excusing mimisfortune, let's bathe eachother in compassion and grow beyond what we've been taught — Nikki Rowe

If you keep on excusing, you eventually give your blessing to the slave camp, to cowardly force, to organized executioners, to the cynicism of great political monsters; you finally hand over your brothers. — Albert Camus

Part of the problem about authenticity is that virtues aren't the only things that are habit forming: the more someone behaves in a way that is damaging to self or to others, the more "natural" it will both seem and actually be. Spontaneity, left to itself, can begin by excusing bad behavior and end by congratulating vice. — N. T. Wright

It would be both foolish and cumbersome to continue our everyday existences in bliss without first denying to ourselves, for the sake of excusing our own repugnance, the inherent cruelty from which modern civilization was conceived ... And there can be no other path by which a fiercely competitive, yet social species, as humanity, can afford its members the level of safety, prosperity and stability - such that we enjoy now - without its initial pangs of cannibalism, brutality, dominance and cruelty to forge the foundations, very much like the lava which formed the ground upon which we now stand. Lava still erupts from the core. Brutality, Dominance, and Cruelty similarly erupt from ours; and they are no less prevalent now than in early human history. — Ashim Shanker

And the things which conduce in any way to the commodity of life, and of which fortune gives an abundant supply, he [my father] used without arrogance and without excusing himself; so that when he had them, he enjoyed them without affectation, and when he had them not, he did not want them. — Marcus Aurelius

If one is talking about a vile thing it is better to talk of it in coarse language; one is less likely to be seduced into excusing it. — G.K. Chesterton

Blaming others is excusing yourself. — Robin S. Sharma

When Job lifted his face to the Storm, when he asked and was answered, he learned that he was very small. He learned that his life was a story. He spoke with the Author, and learned that the genre had not been an accident. God tells stories that make Sunday school teachers sweat and mothers write their children permission slips excusing them from encountering reality. — N.D. Wilson

I'm not excusing crime or those who bring poison into the community, but I do want brothers and sisters in prison to know someone cares. — Hill Harper

The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it. — Margaret Atwood

The starting point of enlightenment, a goal that every person should strive for, is inner leadership. Leadership is far more than something businesspeople do at work. Leadership is all about personal responsibility, self-discovery, and creating value in the world by the people we become. Too many people spend their time blaming others for all that isn't working in their lives. We blame our spouses for our unhappy home lives; we blame our bosses for our distress at work; we blame strangers on the freeway for making us angry; we blame our parents for keeping us small. Blame, blame, blame, blame. But blaming others is nothing more than excusing yourself. Blaming others for the current quality of your life is a sad way to live. In doing so, all you're doing is playing the victim. — Robin S. Sharma

Here also forgiving does not mean excusing. Many people seem to think it does. They think that if you ask them to forgive someone who has cheated or bullied them you are trying to make out that there was really no cheating or bullying. But if that were so, there would be nothing to forgive. (This doesn't mean that you must necessarily believe his next promise. It does mean that you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in your own heart - every wish to humiliate or hurt him or to pay him out.) — C.S. Lewis

If you don't live in the world of choosing, you live in the world of excusing. — James Altucher

Humour is ... the all-consoling and ... the all-excusing, grace of life. — C.S. Lewis

Yes, he fights well," said Bulba, pausing; "well, by heavens!" he continued, rather as if excusing himself, "although he has never tried his hand at it before, he will make a good Cossack! Now, welcome, son! embrace me," and father and son began to kiss each other. "Good lad! see that you hit every one as you pommelled me; don't let any one escape. Nevertheless your clothes are ridiculous all the same. What rope is this hanging there?
And you, you lout, why are you standing there with your hands hanging beside you?" he added, turning to the youngest. "Why don't you fight me? you son of a dog! — Nikolai Gogol

He trailed through hallways, ducking under arms no longer there, excusing himself as he pressed through conversations long since ended. — Maggie Stiefvater

We're not excusing the ones who are mean, but I want girls to understand the psychology. It's not in everyone. But the bully needs to put this pain somewhere. — Elizabeth Berkley

Eliminate the word "impossible" from your conversation, drop it from your thoughts, erase it from your attitudes. Stop rationalizing it. Cease excusing it. Substitute for it that bright and shining word ... POSSIBLE." — Norman Vincent Peale

When we excuse homophobia as a matter of opinion instead of treating it as a destructive social illness, we invite fear to explode into violence ... If we are ever to scrape the black rot of prejudice from the heart of our nation, we must stop excusing those who give it expression and even excuse. The next time someone dares to say, "Just because I don't approve of homosexuality doesn't make me a bigot," we must all answer back, "Yes, it does. Not only does it make you a bigot, it makes you a criminal, a danger to me, my family, my community, my city, and my country. — Harvey Fierstein

The practice of forgiving is a sequential practice that begins with excusing someone. — Stephen Richards

Forgiveness does not mean excusing. — C.S. Lewis

Blaming others is nothing more than excusing yourself.. — Robin Sharma

French are what they are without excusing themselves to be. — Simon Baker

Many people excuse their own faults but judge other persons harshly. We should reverse this attitude by excusing others' shortcomings and by harshly examining our own. — Paramahansa Yogananda

The more we love our friends, the less we flatter them; it is by excusing nothing that pure love shows itself. — Moliere

Be yourself' is good advice, unless you notice that people are always excusing themselves and moving away from you. In that case, try being someone else! — Susan RoAne

We live in a world of transgressions and selfishness, and no pictures that represent us otherwise can be true; though happily for human nature, gleamings of that pure spirit in whose likeness man has been fashioned, are to be seen, relieving its deformities, and mitigating, if not excusing its crimes. — James Fenimore Cooper

If God is present with you everywhere you go (and he is), and if he is sovereign over every situation, relationship, and location of your life (and he is), then when you blame other people for your circumstances or for the wrongs that you do, you are, in fact, blaming God. You are saying that God didn't give you what you needed to be what he has called you to be and to do what he has called you to do. You are essentially saying: "My problem isn't a heart problem; my problem is a poverty of grace problem. If only God had given me _, I wouldn't have had to do what I did." This is the final argument of a self-excusing lifestyle. This argument was first made in the garden of Eden after the rebellion of Adam and Eve. Adam: "The woman you gave me made me do it." Eve: "The Devil made me do it." It is the age-old self-defensive lie of a person who doesn't want to face the ugliness of the sin that still resides in his or her heart. — Paul David Tripp

Feels almost like real agent work, doesn't it?" Barron says as we walk down the street, heads bowed against the wind. "You know, if we caught your girlfriend committing a crime, I bet Yulikova would give us a bonus or something for being prize pupils."
"Except that we're not going to do that," I say.
"I thought you wanted us to be good guys." He grins a too-wide grin. He's enjoying needling me, and my reacting only makes it worse, but I can't stop.
"Not if it means hurting her," I say, my voice as deadly as I can make it. "Never her."
"Got it. Hurting, bad. But how do you excuse stalking her and her friends, little brother?"
"I'm not excusing it," I say. "I'm just doing it. — Holly Black

Excusing himself for this taint of industry on the ground that the one advantage of having coal was that it enabled a gentleman to afford the decency of burning wood on his own hearth. — Oscar Wilde