Famous Quotes & Sayings

William James

Failure, then, failure! so the world stamps us at every turn. We strew it with our blunders, our misdeeds, our lost opportunities, with all the memorials of our inadequacy to our vocation. And with what a damning emphasis does it then blot us out! No easy fine, no mere apology or formal expiation, will satisfy the world's demands, but every pound of flesh exacted is soaked with all its blood. The subtlest forms of suffering known to man are connected with the poisonous humiliations incidental to these results.

William James

The first thing the intellect does with an object is to class it along with something else. But any object that is infinitely important to us and awakens our devotion feels to us also as if it must be sui generis and unique. Probably a crab would be filled with a sense of personal outrage if it could hear us class it without ado or apology as a crustacean, and thus dispose of it. 'I am no such thing,' it would say; 'I am MYSELF, MYSELF alone.

William Gaddis

What's any artist, but the dregs of his work? the human shambles that follows it around. What's left of the man when the work's done but a shambles of apology.

Richard Paul Evans

Nothing heals the soul like chocolate ... It's God's apology for broccoli.

Richard Paul Evans

Chocolate is God's apology for brocolli

Robin Quivers

People think that if [their abusive] parent apologizes, he'll turn into the person they needed him to be. He won't. An apology might help, but you can change your life without one.

Sarah Kay

You are not made of metaphors, Not apologies, not excuses.

Vivian Stanshall

Five years ago I was a four-stone apology — today I am two separate gorillas.

William Kristol

The trouble with politics and political coverage today is that there's too much liberal bias.... There's too much tilt toward the left-wing agenda. Too much apology for liberal policy failures. Too much pandering to liberal candidates and causes.

Kevin J. Anderson

A moment of consideration often prevents a thousand apologies

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The sentence must also contain its own apology for being spoken.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

My life is not an apology, but a life. It is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady.

Terry Wogan

I suppose I should make a little apology to Cyndi - although I'm not taking the blame for this - because I was the one who did say Cyndi had won.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

My life is not an apology, but a life.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

No sensible person ever made an apology.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is not an apology, but a life.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only true gift is a portion of thyself.

Lee Kuan Yew

I make no apologies that the PAP is the Government and the Government is the PAP.

Samuel Johnson

Apologies are seldom of any use.

Samuel Johnson

There are occasions on which all apologies are rudeness.

Ronald Reagan

America's foreign policy supports freedom, democracy, and human dignity for all mankind, and we make no apologies for it. The opportunity society that we want for ourselves we also want for others, not because we're imposing our system on others but because those opportunities belong to all people as God-given birthrights and because by promoting democracy and economic opportunity we make peace more secure.

Tom Paulin

I am not very moved by historical apologies.

Tina Fey

I hope for his sake that Tracy's apology will be accepted as sincere by his gay and lesbian coworkers at 30 Rock, without whom Tracy would not have lines to say, clothes to wear, sets to stand on, scene partners to act with, or a printed-out paycheck from accounting to put in his pocket.

Robert Altman

I make no apologies for Popeye. Behind M*A*S*H, it's my biggest hit. It got maligned by the critics because it wasn't Superman. It wasn't about special effects and it wasn't made for 14-year-old boys. The majority of films are made for 14-year-old boys; I don't know where they get the eight bucks to get in. It's hush money from the parents.

Thomas Paine

The continual whine of lamenting the burden of taxes, however successfully it may be practiced in mixed governments, is inconsistent with the sense and spirit of a republic. If taxes are necessary, they are of course advantageous, but if they require an apology, the apology itself implies an impeachment. Why, then, is man imposed upon, or why does he impose upon himself?

Richard Shelby

I never apologize for my efforts to support worthy projects that Alabama.

Trent Lott

A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embrace the discarded policies of the past. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement.

Richard Widmark

Cheyenne Autumn was received not too successfully. I still think it was a very good movie. It was kinda Ford's apology for the way he had treated Indians in his past pictures.

Upton Sinclair

It was all so very businesslike that one watched it fascinated. It was pork-making by machinery, pork-making by applied mathematics. And yet somehow the most matter-of-fact person could not help thinking of the hogs; they were so innocent, they came so very trustingly; and they were so very human in their protests - and so perfectly within their rights! They had done nothing to deserve it; and it was adding insult to injury, as the thing was done here, swinging them up in this cold-blooded, impersonal way, without pretence at apology, without the homage of a tear.