Extenuate Quotes & Sayings

But it is one thing to complain about one's parents deeds and quite another to take the facts of the matter fully and completely seriously. The latter course arouses the infant's fear of punishment. Accordingly, many prefer to leave their earliest perceptions in a state of repression, to avoid looking the truth in the face, to extenuate their parents' deeds, and to reconcile themselves with the idea of forgiveness. But this attitude merely serves to perpetuate the futile expectations we have entertained since our childhood. I — Alice Miller

Music doth extenuate fears furies appeaseth cruelty abateth heaviness and to such as are wakeful it causeth quiet rest; it cures all irksomeness and heaviness of soul. — Cassiodorus

Soft you; a word or two before you go. I have done the state some service, and they know't. - No more of that. - I pray you, in your letters, When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak Of one that loved not wisely, but too well; Of one not easily jealous, but, — William Shakespeare

I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme ... — William Shakespeare

It was part of his nature to extenuate nothing and live on as one of his own worst accusers. — Thomas Hardy

But he is so exceedingly accurate, that, if he only fancies he has said a word too precipitate, or too general, or only half true, he never ceases to qualify, to modify, and extenuate, till at last he appears to have said nothing at all. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought — William Shakespeare

I infer that God's decrees, and the necessity of event flowing thence, neither destroy the true free-agency of men, nor render the commission of sin a jot less heinous. They neither force the human will, nor extenuate the evil of human actions. Predestination, foreknowledge, and providence, only secure the event, and render it certainly future, in a way and manner (incomprehensibly indeed by us; but) perfectly consistent with the nature of second causes. — Augustus Toplady

I think a good deal may be said to extenuate the fault of bad Poets. What we call a Genius, is hard to be distinguish'd by a man himself, from a strong inclination: and if his genius be ever so great, he can not at first discover it any other way, than by giving way to that prevalent propensity which renders him the more liable to be mistaken. — Alexander Pope

Everything has two handles; the one soft and manageable, the other such as will not endure to be touched. If then your brother do you an injury, do not take it by the hot hard handle, by representing to yourself all the aggravating circumstances of the fact; but look rather on the soft side, and extenuate it as much as is possible, by considering the nearness of the relation, and the long friendship and familiarity between you
obligations to kindness which a single provocation ought not to dissolve. And thus you will take the accident by its manageable handle. — Epictetus

As for the brandy, "nothing extenuate"; and the water, put nought in in malice. — Douglas William Jerrold

There is but one means to extenuate the effects of enemy fire: it is to develop a more violent fire oneself. — Ferdinand Foch

Selfishness is one of the principal fruits of the corruption of human nature; and it is obvious that selfishness disposes us to over-rate our good qualities, and to overlook or extenuate our defects. — William Wilberforce