.

.

An excuse is an explanation that frees one from fault 

• Excuse: seek to lessen the blame attaching to (a fault or offence); try to justify. Oxford Dictionary
• Excuse: An explanation that frees one from fault or blame. Merriam Webster
• Do not make excuses, whether it’s your fault or not. George S. Patton Jr.
• I’ve always wondered where explanations end and excuses begin. Errol Morris
• Blaming,  Victim mentality, Responsibility

.

An excuse is your irresponsible attempt to shift blame or accountability from yourself to someone or something else 

• An excuse is your irresponsible attempt to shift blame or accountability from yourself to someone or something else for something that otherwise would be considered your personal responsibility for happening or not happening depending upon the circumstances. Jerry Bruckner
• Accountability

.

To find an excuse is to find a list of reasons for failure 

• We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse. Rudyard Kipling
• There is no such thing as a list of reasons. There is either one sufficient reason or a list of excuses. Robert Brault
• Failure

.

.

Excuses are obstacles to success 

• I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse. Florence Nightingale
• No one ever excused his way to success. Dave Del Dotto
• Success is a tale of obstacles overcome, and for every obstacle overcome, an excuse not used. Robert Braul
• The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it. Jordan Belfort
• An excuse becomes an obstacle in your journey to success when it is made in place of your best effort or when it is used as the object of the blame. Bo Bennett
• Your complaints, your drama, your victim mentality, your whining, your blaming, and all of your excuses have NEVER gotten you even a single step closer to your goals or dreams. Let go of your nonsense. Let go of the delusion that you DESERVE better and go EARN it! Steve Maraboli
• Excuses, criticisms, and superstitions are vitamins for haters, but poison for the successful. Rise above! Steve Maraboli
• You can’t excuse your way to accomplish anything. Only doing something produces results. Jerry Bruckner
• For many people, an excuse is better than an achievement because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove yourself again in the future; but an excuse can last for life. Eric Hoffer
• Success

.

In fact, excuses guarantee failure 

• A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else. John Burroughs
• Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure. Don Wilder and Bill Rechin
• Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses. George Washington Carver
• Pessimism is an excuse for not trying and a guarantee to a personal failure. Bill Clinton
• Excuses are merely nails used to build a house of failure. American Proverb
• You can give in to the failure messages and be a bitter deadbeat of excuses. Or you can choose to be happy and positive and excited about life. A.L. Williams
• Failure

.

Finding excuses wastes time and energy 

• People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives. Michael Straczynski
• Waste,  Energy management, Time

.

Excuses are justifications not to reach your potential 

• I have been thinking about the idea of excuses for some time now. They are like menacing demons that creep into our lives without us knowing. They are roadblocks, white lies to ourselves, a reason to set the bar lower, and self-justification for achieving less than our full potential. Lorii Myers
• Potential

.

Making excuses reduces your self-esteem and personal power 

• When you make an excuse, you reduce your self-esteem and confidence. By admitting to your mistakes, you increase your power to take responsibility for your life and make it a success. Jerry Bruckner
• Self-esteem,  Power

.

To be good at making excuses is to be good for nothing else 

• Excuses are the tools with which persons with no purpose in view build for themselves great monuments of nothing. Steven Grayhm
• He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. Benjamin Franklin
• When you’re good at making excuses, it’s hard to excel at anything else. John L. Mason

.

Excusing a fault or vice doubles it 

• And oftentimes excusing of a fault Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse. William Shakespeare
• Bad men excuse their faults; good men abandon them. John Ruskin
• Every vice has its excuse ready. Publilius Syrus
• Justifying a fault doubles it. French Proverb
• A bad excuse confirms a fault. Al-Isfaraini

.

Excuses tend to be guarded lies 

• An excuse is a skin of a reason stuffed with a lie. Billy Sunday
• A lie is an excuse guarded. Jonathan Swift
• There is a lie in between a promise and many excuses. Toba Beta
• An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded. Pope John Paul II
• The longer the excuse the less likely it’s the truth. Robert Half
• There is hardly any man so strict as not to vary a little from truth when he is to make an excuse. George Savile
• An excuse is a lie that we tell ourselves to sell ourselves and try to sell to others. And until we stand up and say no more excuses our greatest success will evade us. We need to take personal responsibility when things go wrong. Sam Silverstein
• Lying

.

Excuses tend to be lame 

• There aren’t nearly enough crutches in the world for all the lame excuses. Marcus Stroup
• Kick the crutch out from under your excuses. Lorii Myers

.

Ready excuses are a sign of weakness and a lack of competence 

• The girl who can’t dance says the band can’t play. Yiddish Proverb
• The archer that shoots ill has a lie ready. Spanish Proverb
• To rush into explanations is always a sign of weakness. Agatha Christie
• Excuses are tools of the incompetent, and those who specialize in them seldom go far.
• Weakness

.

When you don’t want to do anything, any excuse will do 

• The person who really wants to do something finds a way; the other person finds an excuse.
• If you don’t want to do something, one excuse is as good as another. Yiddish Proverb
• Any excuse will serve when one has not a mind to do a thing. Guicciardini

.

.

Don’t make excuses 

• Never make excuses. Your friends don’t need them and your foes won’t believe them. John Wooden
• At the end of the day, let there be no excuses, no explanations, no regrets. Steve Maraboli
• The best excuse is to have none. Ivan Panin
• Don’t make excuses, whine, complain, or blame anyone. Jerry Bruckner
• Don’t look for excuses to lose. Look for excuses to win. Chi Chi Rodriguez

.

Don’t use difficulty as an excuse 

• Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts. Edward R. Murrow
• We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty. Marcus Fabius Quintilian
• Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts. Edward R. Murrow

.

Don’t find excuses to abandon your dreams 

• We may place blame, give reasons, and even have excuses; but in the end, it is an act of cowardice to not follow your dreams. Steve Maraboli
• Dreams

.

Don’t use the past as an excuse 

• Don’t use your past as an excuse, excuse your excuses and take action now!!! Bernard Kelvin Clive
• The past

.

Don’t use your ancestry or genes as an excuse 

• Don’t you dare take the lazy way. It’s too easy to excuse yourself because of your ancestry. Don’t let me catch you doing it! Now — look close at me so you will remember. Whatever you do, it will be you who do. John Steinbeck, East of Eden

.

Don’t use impossibility as an excuse 

• Nothing is impossible; there are ways that lead to everything, and if we had sufficient will we should always have sufficient means. It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible. Francois de La Rochefoucauld
• Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of trouble, attempts what is above its strength, pleads no excuse of impossibility; for it thinks all things lawful for itself, and all things possible. Thomas a Kempis

.

Don’t use bad luck as an excuse 

• Lots of folks go through life explaining their mediocrity with ‘hard luck,’ ‘tough luck,’ ‘bad luck.’ These people are still like children, immature, searching for sympathy. Without realizing it, they fail to see opportunities to grow bigger, stronger, more self-reliant. David J. Schwartz
• Stop blaming luck. Blaming luck never got anyone where they wanted to go. David J. Schwartz
• Luck

.

Don’t use circumstances as an excuse 

• People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them. George Bernard Shaw
• For many have but one resource to sustain them in their misery, and that is to think, “Circumstances have been against me, I was worthy to be something much better than I have been. I admit I have never had a great love or a great friendship; but that is because I never met a man or a woman who were worthy of it; if I have not written any very good books, it is because I had not the leisure to do so; or, if I have had no children to whom I could devote myself it is because I did not find the man I could have lived with. So there remains within me a wide range of abilities, inclinations and potentialities, unused but perfectly viable, which endow me with a worthiness that could never be inferred from the mere history of my actions.” But in reality and for the existentialist, there is no love apart from the deeds of love; no potentiality of love other than that which is manifested in loving; there is no genius other than that which is expressed in works of art. Jean-Paul Sartre

.

Don’t find excuses to wallow in pain and not to live 

• The trick is not how much pain you feel but how much joy you feel. Any idiot can feel pain. Life is full of excuses to feel pain, excuses not to live; excuses, excuses, excuses. Erica Jong
• Pain

.

Don’t use fear as an excuse 

• Fear is never a reason for quitting; it is only an excuse. Norman Vincent Peale
• Fear isn’t an excuse to come to a standstill. It’s the impetus to step up and strike. Arthur Ashe
• Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes save one, every plea for his safety save one; and that one is his cowardice. George Bernard Shaw
• Fear

.

Don’t use age as an excuse 

• Sometimes, people use age as a convenient excuse. ‘I’m to old too start something new’, or, ‘I couldn’t learn that at my age.’ Other people, though, go on to achieve their greatest accomplishments in life in later years. Catherine Pulsifer
• It is no use. I am too old (or too Young). This excuse has closed the door of real opportunity to thousands of individuals. They think their age is wrong, so they don’t even bother to try. When you beat down your fears of age limitations, you add years to your life as well as success.  Look at your present age positively. Think I am still young and not I am already old. Compute how much productive time you have left. Invest future time in doing what you really want to do. I am going to start now. David J. Schwartz
• Getting older

.

Don’t use time as an excuse 

• Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use. Earl Nightingale
• Time

.

Never excuse who you are 

• If God had intended me to make excuses for who I am, He would have given me better excuses. Robert Brault
• Be who you are

.

To blame someone is to open up a world of excuses 

• When you blame, you open up a world of excuses, because as long as you’re looking outside, you miss the opportunity to look inside, and you continue to suffer. Donna Quesada

.

Turn down invitations without an excuse … 

• The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse. Jules Renard

.

… but if you must make an excuse, make it short and simple 

• The longer the excuse the less likely it’s the truth. Robert Half
• Several excuses are always less convincing than one. Aldous Huxley

.

Remember that no excuse is better than a bad excuse 

• Bad excuses are worse than none. Thomas Fuller
• It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one. George Washington

.

Never ruin an apology with an excuse 

• Never ruin an apology with an excuse. Kimberly Johnson

.

Sincere repentance is better than petty excuses 

• Petty and shuffling excuses, which satisfy vain and little minds, do but irritate generous ones still more than the fault which they would explain away; there is no valid repentance but that which is full and sincere. Princess De Salm Dyck

.

The only valid excuses are things out of our control 

• When you are supposed to do something, and you don’t accomplish it because something ‘out of your control’ prevented it that’s a logical ‘reason’ why you couldn’t get it done. But if you didn’t do it because you decided to do something else instead that you preferred to do, or didn’t try hard enough, or you attempt to shift the blame to someone who is not actually at fault, and you are asking to be relieved of your ‘personal responsibility’ for not having done what you were supposed to do — that’s an ‘excuse!’  Jerry Bruckner

.

.

Instead of excuses, make good 

• You can make excuses, or you can get the job done, but you can’t do both. Hap Holmstead
• Don’t make excuses — make good. Elbert Hubbard
• Once your excuses are gone, you will simply have to settle for being awesome! Lorii Myers
• You can make things happen, or you can make excuses; but you cannot do both at the same time.
• Don’t make excuses, make something incredible happen in your life right now. Greg Hickman

.

Instead of excuses, take responsibility … 

• An excuse is a lie that we tell ourselves to sell ourselves and try to sell to others. And until we stand up and say no more excuses our greatest success will evade us. We need to take personal responsibility when things go wrong. Sam Silverstein
• Responsibility

.

… especially for your own life 

• Accepting complete responsibility for your life means that you refuse to make excuses or blame others for anything in your life that you’re not happy about. You refuse, from this moment forward, to criticize others for any reason. You refuse to complain about your situation or about what has happened in the past. You eliminate all your if-onlys and what- ifs and focus instead on what you really want and where you are going. Brian Tracy
• The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses, and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins. Bob Moawad
• Taking on too much of other people’s drama is just a poor excuse for not taking ownership and control over your own life. José N. Harris

.

Instead of excuses, admit your mistakes and learn from them 

• When you make an excuse, you reduce your self-esteem and confidence. By admitting to your mistakes, you increase your power to take responsibility for your life and make it a success. Jerry Bruckner
• Mistakes,  Learning

.

Instead of excuses, find valid reasons 

• It is easier to find an excuse than to find a reason. Doug Brown
• There is no such thing as a list of reasons. There is either one sufficient reason or a list of excuses. Robert Brault

.

Instead of excuses, do what you promise 

• People with integrity do what they say they are going to do. Others have excuses. Laura Schlessinger
• There is a lie in between a promise and many excuses. Toba Beta
• If you don’t like to make excuses or apologies, stop making promises. Evan Esar
• Integrity

.

Instead of making excuses, commit yourself totally 

• There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstance permit. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results. Art Turock
• Commitment

.

Instead of making excuses, make choices and decisions 

• When you abandon making choices, you enter the vast world of excuses. Wayne Dyer
• Using the power of decision gives you the capacity to get past any excuse to change any and every part of your life in an instant. Tony Robbins
• Choice,  Decision making

.

Instead of excuses, find answers and solutions 

• It is wise to direct your anger towards problems — not people, to focus your energies on answers — not excuses. William Arthur Ward
• Losers find excuses, winners find solutions.
• Problem solving

.

.

There is no excuse for boredom 

• There’s no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there’s no excuse for boredom, ever. Viggo Mortensen
• I can excuse everything but boredom. Boring people don’t have to stay that way. Hedy Lamarr
• Boredom

.

There is no excuse not to be nice 

• Maybe you don’t like your job, maybe you didn’t get enough sleep, well nobody likes their job, nobody got enough sleep. Maybe you just had the worst day of your life, but you know, there’s no escape, there’s no excuse, so just suck up and be nice. Ani Difranco

.

There is no excuse for doing terrible things 

• 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

.

There is no excuse to kill 

• Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform: he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder. Percy Bysshe Shelley
• The truth is that killing innocent people is always wrong – and no argument or excuse, no matter how deeply believed, can ever make it right. No religion on earth condones the killing of innocent people; no faith tradition tolerates the random killing of our brothers and sisters on this earth. Feisal Abdul Rauf

.

.

We tend to use the same excuses over and over 

• Good excuses rarely collect dust. We use them, and use them, and use them. Andy Stanley

.

More thoughts

• One of the most important tasks of a manager is to eliminate his people’s excuses for failure. Robert Townsend
• Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death. Eric Hoffer
• Love will find a way. Indifference will find an excuse.
• If you always make excuses to not follow through you deserve the weight of anxiety on your chest. Daniel
• He who excuses himself accuses himself. Gabriel Meurier
• Don’t do what you’ll have to find an excuse for. Proverb
• The best job goes to the person who can get it done without passing the buck or coming back with excuses. G. M. Trevelyan
• 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
• The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never excuses himself. Henry Ward Beecher
• The sincere intention of doing a good action, and a good excuse for not doing it, are equivalent to its performance. Yahya Khalid
• There are a great many excuses that are worse than the offense. W. Shaw
• There is no greater symphony of self-destruction than the beautifully poisonous melody found in our excuses. Steve Maraboli
• Uncalled for excuses are practical confessions. Charles Simmons
• Whoever wants to be a judge of human nature should study people’s excuses. Hebbel

.

• Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. Milan Kundera
• At first a golfer excuses a dismal performance by claiming bad lies; with experience he covers up with better ones. Brown
• Cravings: An excuse to gluttonize your way through pregnancy.
• Destiny: A tyrant’s authority for crime and a fool’s excuse for failure.
• Good taste is the excuse I’ve always given for leading such a bad life. Oscar Wilde
• Never mess up an apology with an excuse. Proverb
• Temptation is a woman’s weapon and man’s excuse. L. Mencken
• The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse. Benjamin Franklin
• The dog ate my notebook with all my good excuses. Mindee Arnett
• The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse. Jules Renard
• There may be no excuse for laziness, but I’m still looking.
• Two wrongs don’t make a right, but they make a good excuse. Thomas Stephen Szasz
• You are only young once. After that you have to think up another excuse. Billy Athur
• Sometimes I wish I had a terrible childhood, so that at least I’d have an excuse. Jimmy Fallon
• A true friend sees past your excuses to the real reason it’s not your fault. Robert Brault

.