Excuse Quotes - Page 25

• The U.S. has represented throughout its history a commitment to human rights and the law - shining a light on what happened at Abu Ghraib exposes our departure from this long-term commitment. It does not, however, excuse the atrocities carried about by Saddam Hussein and others.

  Rory Kennedy

  Commitment, Shining, Human Rights

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• Every once in a while, someone comes up to me and says, "Excuse me, are you Tim Daly?" And I say yes and they say "I have to tell you, I am such a huge fan of yours, and my favorite work of yours is the voice of Superman." I'm always sort of surprised when that happens - I used to think that it was all about the kids watching those animated shows, and who did the voices didn't really enter their consciousness. But there are people that it means a lot to and I'm always a little bit taken aback by that. And I'm thrilled when that happens.

  Tim Daly

  Taken, Mean, Kids

  Source: www.movieweb.com

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• We have opted for petty determinisms - childhood trauma, genetic inheritance, social conditioning, etc. - that have made us comparatively passive. We seem to prefer to find excuses - which are really nothing more than the embrace of determinism, a sort of Stockholm syndrome relative to whatever we can claim as limitation. I am fascinated by the more enabling self-understanding. It has helped me to find my way out of the cloying comforts that are offered by prevalent psychological models.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Childhood, Comfort, Psychological

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

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• Jerry Seinfeld, he was doing Letterman show all the time, so he kind of had an excuse, that people know the jokes already. He didn't have time to do stand-up. A guy like me, I have no excuses.

  Dave Chappelle

  People, Guy, Kind

  Source: film.avclub.com

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• The truest form of any form of revolutionary left, whatever you want to call it, was Jack Kerouac, E.E. Cummings, and Allan Ginsberg's period. Excuse me but that was where it was at. The hippies, I'm afraid, don't know what's happening.

  David Bowie

  Hippie, Revolutionary, Truest

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Once Steve Fuller said that there is this idea that your responsibility as an intellectual is just to speak the truth as you see it. But actually, you should be more appreciative of what needs to be said. I don't think that's ever an excuse to say something you don't believe is true - but sometimes the emphasis has to be different. Well, if I'm talking to an audience of hardline atheists, I'll be trying to unsettle them a bit more, whereas, if I'm speaking to an audience of believers, I'll be giving them more of the pros of atheism. It's about having a sensitivity to context.

  Julian Baggini

  Atheist, Believe, Responsibility

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• My path to poetry was slow and meandering. When I eventually found my way to graduate school at 29, making a life as a poet seemed like a bohemian fantasy. But maybe my zigzagging trajectory is just an excuse for tardiness, when fear is really the root of any reason I might give. My perfectionism and pace are certainly driven by fear that a poem is imperfect or incomplete. More significantly, my struggle to fully dedicate myself to poetry was a fear of failure.

  Robin Beth Schaer

  Struggle, School, Giving

  Source: therumpus.net

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• The climate crowd did a lousy job communicating. Several reports have itemized the fact that over a billion dollars was spent on climate by the environmental side over the past decade. There is simply no excuse for the failure to communicate.

  Randy Olson

  Past, Environmental, No Excuses

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• Most people tell themselves these excuses - I've always been this way, how can I possibly change, this is my nature, I can't help it - that are just memes

  Wayne Dyer

  People, Helping

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• I think it's just recognizing that who you are is not any of the stuff that you have. It's not any of the things of the ego. Coming to that awareness is a very hard thing for most people to do - but that's an excuse. If you tell yourself it's too hard, then you won't take it on. But right now, for most people, it's almost an impossibility to do so, because they're so attached to "I am what I have"; "I am what I do"; "I am what my reputation is"; or "I am all of this material stuff."

  Wayne Dyer

  Thinking, People, Ego

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• All excuses are nothing more than misalignments with God. Just imagine the great creative Source needing an excuse. It doesn't have any concept of, "I'm too busy. I'm too old. I'm too afraid. Things are going to take too long." Source doesn't work like that. The Tao does nothing, Lao-tzu writes, but it leaves nothing undone.

  Wayne Dyer

  Writing, Long, Creative

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• In the past, foreign intervention was obviously a major problem. Foreign domination, or if not domination, interference. But that has ended. There is no foreign domination; there is minimal foreign interference. The Cold War has ended. The Soviet Union no longer exists. The United States is showing minimal and diminishing interest in the Muslim world. They now have to confront their own problems. The old excuses are gone. The old justifications are gone and therefore the anger of people is turning increasingly against their own rulers.

  Bernard Lewis

  War, Past, People

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• Where all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing.

  Hannah Arendt

  Discovery, Guilt, Doing Nothing

  Hannah Arendt (1970). “On Violence”, p.71, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The politics of partisanship and the resulting inaction and excuses have paralyzed decision-making, primarily at the federal level, and the big issues of the day are not being addressed, leaving our future in jeopardy.

  Michael Bloomberg

  Issues, Decision, Leaving

  "Opening Address At "Ceasefire! Bridging The Political Divide" Conference". www.realclearpolitics.com. June 20, 2007.

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• I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living.

  Alain de Botton

  Jobs, Perfect, Perfect Relationship

  "Office affairs". Interview with Lynn Barber, www.theguardian.com. March 21, 2009.

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• When you use God as an excuse to hate people and you use God as an excuse to cut people down, first of all, I think it's insulting to God.

  Sophia Bush

  Hate, Cutting, Thinking

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• And I have this little litany of things they can do. And the first one, of course, is to write - every day, no excuses. It's so easy to make excuses. Even professional writers have days when they'd rather clean the toilet than do the writing.

  Octavia Butler

  Writing, Toilets, Littles

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• People sometimes hold themselves back because they want to use racism as an excuse for them not being able to achieve what they want to achieve.

  Herman Cain

  People, Racism, Use

  "Herman Cain Schools Yet Another White Journalist Trying to Tell Him What Black People Think". "State of the Union" with Candy Crowley, www.breitbart.com. October 9, 2011.

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• The American people, Neil, are sick and tired of excuses. They are sick and tired of the blame game. And they're sick and tired of the deception coming from this president and this administration. This is why I believe that I am doing so well in the polls.

  Herman Cain

  Believe, Tired, Games

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• The role of the intellectual cannot be to excuse the violence of one side and condemn that of the other.

  Albert Camus

  Intellectual, Roles, Violence

  Albert Camus (2013). “Algerian Chronicles”, p.28, Harvard University Press

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• I have to be very careful, however, because I have no intention of providing an excuse for this behavior. It's an attempt to explain how so many women come from backgrounds where the pressure to be a good mother is so severe that if they can't do it, something really snaps.

  Caleb Carr

  Mother, Pressure, Behavior

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• So after a while, if people won't accept your excuses, you stop looking for them.

  Benjamin Carson

  Excuse You, People, Accepting

  "Conversation with Dr. Ben Carson: The Big Picture". "PBS NewsHour", September 7, 1999.

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• The liberals in the House strongly resemble liberals I have known through the last two decades in the civil rights conflict. When it comes time to show on which side they will be counted, they excuse themselves.

  Shirley Chisholm

  Rights, Two, House

  Shirley Chisholm (1970). “Unbought and Unbossed”

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• I not only loved studying theater, I loved being a theater major. It gave me an excuse to brood, to grow a beard, to wear black 'at' people. I didn't just want to play Hamlet, I wanted to be Hamlet.

  Stephen Colbert

  Play, People, Black

  "Colbert's Commencement Address". Northwestern University, www.northwestern.edu. June 17, 2011.

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• Now my poor hometown is being castigated as the center of an IRS scandal. Humble workers at the Cincinnati office targeted Tea Party groups and other conservative organizations for special scrutiny when those groups applied for tax-exempt status. There's no conceivable excuse for that. It was deeply, deeply wrong.

  Gail Collins

  Party, Humble, Organization

  "The Taxman Cometh". Interview with David Brooks and Gail Collins, opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com. May 15, 2013.

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