Excusing Quotes

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

Related topics: Wisdom Criticism Critical Blame

If I seem to boast more than is becoming,
my excuse is that I brag
for humanity rather than for myself.
- Henry David Thoreau

Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.
- Edward R. Murrow

Well excuse me - we've got something
a little unusual going on here -
time travel, parallel universes,
or just a little common ordinary insanity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Personally, I have fond memories of playing
on slippery rocks on the banks of a rushing river
as a child and hitchhiking in college.
To those who say, "But times are different now,"
I reply that statistically life is much safer now
than in the 1950s, with regard to both crime and accidents.
What has changed is our attitudes.
In those years, a broken leg from falling off a swing
or the back of a tractor was just part of childhood -
an excuse for gathering autographs.
Today that broken leg would be a source
of outrage and probably lawsuits.
I long for a simpler time when life was taken less seriously.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

What has happened at Guantanamo Bay...
does not represent the will of the American people.
I'm embarrassed about it, I think its wrong.
I think it does give terrorists an unwarranted excuse
to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people.
- Jimmy Carter

Ninety-nine percent of the failures
come from people who have the habit of making excuses.
- George Washington Carver

What are you committed to?
Have you started, or are you still thinking about it -
and making excuses?
Do you work toward your goal each day?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay
and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A.
I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism,
but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists
to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts.
- Jimmy Carter

I am the owner of my choices.
I am the source for the perspectives I choose to hold...
regardless of how aware I am of why or how I come to possess
that particular perspective.
It takes courage to look into the mirror of our souls, absent excuses.
I will look into that mirror little bits at a time.
SEE and ACT. SEE what I can bear to see and ACT upon what I am able.
This is the heart of a gentle invitation to personal responsibility.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Genius is one percent inspiration
and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
- Thomas Edison

Life is ten percent what happens to you
and ninety percent how you respond to it.
- Lou Holtz

Ninety-nine percent of who you are
is invisible and untouchable.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

I think and think for months and years.
Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false.
The hundredth time I am right.
- Albert Einstein

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, Begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it, Begin it now.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex...
It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage
to move in the opposite direction.
- Albert Einstein

Men of lofty genius,
when they are doing the least work,
are most active.
- Leonardo da Vinci

Genius is the power to labor better and more availably.
Deserve thy genius: exalt it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everyone is born a genius,
but the process of living de-geniuses them.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

If you wish to succeed in life,
make perseverance your bosom friend,
experience your wise counselor,
caution your elder brother,
and hope your guardian genius.
- Joseph Addison

To see things in the seed, that is genius.
- Lao Tzu

The man of genius inspires us with
a boundless confidence in our own powers.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not;
nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not;
unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not;
the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
- Calvin Coolidge

Not all Heroes wear capes.
- On an Apple Inc. "Genius Bar" T-shirt

I'm not a genius.
I'm just a tremendous bundle of experience.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

What is called genius is the
abundance of life and health.
- Henry David Thoreau

Genius always finds itself a century too early.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius
and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous
than absolutely boring.
- Marilyn Monroe

The difference between stupidity and genius
is that genius has its limits.
- Albert Einstein

Everyone is a genius at least once a year;
a real genius has his original ideas closer together.
- Georg Lichtenberg

Everybody is a genius.
But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree,
it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
- Albert Einstein

When you have shut your doors, and darkened your room,
remember, never to say that you are alone,
for you are not alone, but God is within,
and your genius is within.
- Epictetus

Towering genius disdains a beaten path.
It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.
- Abraham Lincoln

When nature has work to be done,
she creates a genius to do it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy
between the genius and his human qualities
that one has to ask oneself whether
a little less talent might not have been better.
- Carl Jung

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity;
so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.
- Henry David Thoreau

There's a fine line between genius and insanity.
I have erased this line.
- Oscar Levant

Important ideas can come from unexpected places.
We tend to label people - Genius, Idiot,
Socialist, Regressive, Wingnut, Revolutionary, Terrorist.
But it is helpful to remind ourselves to be open
to good ideas - whatever their source.
It is equally important to avoid accepting any idea
merely because we respect that person's
other ideas or accomplishments.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation
of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.
- Winston Churchill

I was more independent than any farmer in Concord,
for I was not anchored to a house or farm,
but could follow the bent of my genius,
which is a very crooked one, every moment.
- Henry David Thoreau

Genius may have its limitations,
but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
- Elbert Hubbard

The Four Stages of Public Opinion
I (Just after publication): The novelty is absurd
and subversive of Religion and Morality.
The propounder both fool and knave.
II (Twenty years later): The Novelty is absolute Truth
and will yield a full and satisfactory
explanation of things in general -
The propounder a man of sublime genius and perfect virtue.
III (Forty years later): The Novelty won't explain
things in general after all, and therefore is a wretched failure.
The propounder a very ordinary person advertised by a clique.
IV (A century later): The Novelty a mixture of truth and error.
Explains as much as could reasonably be expected.
The propounder worthy of all honor
in spite of his share of human frailties,
as one who has added to the permanent possessions of science.
- Thomas Henry [T. H.] Huxley

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law
from observation of the works of Genius,
whether of man or Nature.
The Artisan is he who merely applies
the rules which others have detected.
- Henry David Thoreau

A common denominator of all religions is that
they have the power to bring out the best and the worst in people.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it,
or who said it, no matter if I have said it,
unless it agrees with your own reason
and your own common sense.
- The Buddha

If one advances confidently
in the direction of his dreams,
and endeavors to live
the life which he has imagined,
he will meet with success
unexpected in common hours.
- Henry David Thoreau

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The future has nothing in common with the past -
except natural laws and human nature.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The most common way people give up their power
is by thinking they don't have any.
- Alice Walker

Learn to do common things uncommonly well;
we must always keep in mind that anything
that helps fill the dinner pail is valuable.
- George Washington Carver

When you can do the common things of life in an uncommon way,
you will command the attention of the world.
- George Washington Carver

Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are,
and doing things as they ought to be done.
- Josh Billings

The common denominator for success is work.
- John D. Rockefeller

I have learned, that if one advances confidently
in the direction of his dreams,
and endeavors to live the life he has imagined,
he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
- Henry David Thoreau

A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
- William James

Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision.
The ability to direct individual accomplishments
toward organizational objectives.
It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.
- Andrew Carnegie

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet.
We all breathe the same air.
We all cherish our children's future.
And we are all mortal.
- John F. Kennedy

The invariable mark of wisdom is to
see the miraculous in the common.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are old heads in the world
who cannot help me by their example or advice
to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself;
but I believe that it is in my power
to elevate myself this very hour
above the common level of my life.
- Henry David Thoreau

Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common.
Celebrate it every day.
- Anonymous

If you fear making anyone mad,
then you ultimately probe for
the lowest common denominator of human achievement.
- Jimmy Carter

If you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams
and endeavor to leave the life which you have imagined,
you will you will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
- Henry David Thoreau

The common denominator of our heroes
is that each set their own course.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Society is always taken by surprise
at any new example of common sense.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Common Sense is that which judges
the things given to it by other senses.
- Leonardo da Vinci

There is nothing more uncommon than common sense.
- Frank Lloyd Wright

It is curious - curious that physical courage
should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare
- Mark Twain

Like music and art, love of nature is a common language
that can transcend political or social boundaries.
- Jimmy Carter

Common looking people are the best in the world:
that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.
- Abraham Lincoln

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie