88 Excuses Quotes About How They Can Hold You Back
Published September 20, 2022
These excuses quotes will inspire you to leave them behind as you begin something great.
When you’re up against a challenge, sometimes it feels easier to make excuses instead of confronting and overcoming the obstacle in front of you.
The excuses might be about how you don’t have enough time, or maybe about you have some other burden you are carrying.
Whatever your excuses may be, they let you put a pause on tackling the challenge you are avoiding.
But what are you really accomplishing when you make excuses?
When you make excuses, you put more and more time in between you and your success.
You disappoint others around you, and ultimately weaken yourself.
It’s not always easy, but this collection of excuses quotes should help you build up the motivation to confront your obstacles and reach success.
For more insights, don’t forget to also read our list of quotes about hypocrites.
Check out our most popular quote article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily inspiration.
If you enjoy this collection, check out our inspirational quotes category page.
Quotes About Excuses and How They Prevent Success
1.) “You can have excuses or you can have success; you can’t have both.” – Jen Sincero
2.) “I attribute my success to this:—I never gave or took an excuse.” – Florence Nightingale
You will also enjoy our article on bad habits quotes.
3.) “Maturity is when you stop complaining and making excuses in your life; you realize everything that happens in life is a result of the previous choice you’ve made and start making new choices to change your life.” – Roy T. Bennett
4.) “No one ever excused his way to success.” – Dave Del Dotto
5.) “Uncomplicate it. Don’t make excuses. Some of life’s biggest heartaches come from missed opportunities and lame excuses. Don’t miss out on what could be the best chapter in your life because you’re too busy rereading the last one.” – Kandi Steiner
6.) “Someone may have all the technical knowledge, scientific intellect and business know-how but when he/she decides to choose laziness, excuses, procrastination, complaining and other bad attitudes, his/her relevance is meaningless.” – Israelmore Ayivor
7.) “It is easier to move from failure to success than from excuses to success.” – John C. Maxwell
8.) “Success is not as easy as winners make it look nor as hard as losers make it sound.” – Orrin Woodward
9.) “When you are willing to replace mundane excuses with hard work and your laziness with determination, nothing can prevent you from succeeding.” – Prem Jagyasi
If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to check out our collection of laziness quotes that will motivate you to get started.
10.) “Essentially there are two actions in life: Performance and excuses. Make a decision as to which he will accept from yourself.” – Steven Brown
11.) “I’m happy because I’ve run out of excuses not to be.” – Marty Rubin
12.) “Successful people don’t use the obstacles of time, education, and money as excuses…they use them as leverage to get help.” – Richie Norton
13.) “Excuses destroy success every time.” – Jon Taffer
14.) “You will find that the more successful the individual, the less inclined he is to make excuses.” – David Joseph Schwartz
15.) “You can have the results you want, or you can have excuses. You can’t have both.” – Clyde Lee Dennis
Excuses Quotes About Dishonesty
16.) “There is a lie in between a promise and many excuses.” – Toba Beta
17.) “Several excuses are always less convincing than one.” – Aldous Huxley
18.) “The heart has its reasons but the mind makes the excuses.” – Amit Abraham
19.) “Excuses are things like sausages stuffed with reason, in the skin of a lie.” – Kianu Starr
20.) “If you tell me before, it’s a reason. If you tell me after, it’s an excuse.” – Carlos Wallace
21.) “He didn’t seem to realize that three excuses was as good as no excuse.” – Ann Brashares
22.) “I was only following orders,” the Mayor mocks. “The refuge of scoundrels since the dawn of time.” – Patrick Ness
23.) “You can blame outside factors or make excuses about why things didn’t work out, but that doesn’t change anything.” – Chris Gardner
24.) “The trouble with excuses, however, is that they become inevitably difficult to believe after they’ve been used a couple of times.” – Scott Spencer
25.) “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
26.) “I’d been raised on excuses. But the Marine Corps taught me that excuses don’t matter. That excuses–even when prettied up as reasons–are just a way to avoid doing what needs doing.” – Barbara Nickless
27.) “One of my most important realizations was to truly learn the difference between reasons and excuses.” – Nitya Prakash
28.) “Not managing your time and making excuses are two bad habits. Don’t put them both together by claiming you ‘don’t have the time.’” – Bo Bennett
29.) “Bad excuses are worse than none.” – Thomas Fuller
You might also like these quotes about lies and making excuses.
Quotes About Not Making Excuses
30.) “It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.” – George Washington
31.) “At the end of the day, let there be no excuses, no explanations, no regrets.” – Steve Maraboli
32.) “I don’t believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanations over the food you make.” – Julia Child
33.) “Never make excuses. Your friends don’t need them and your foes won’t believe them.” – John Wooden
34.) “Do not make excuses, whether it’s your fault or not.” – George Patton
35.) “If you really want to do it, you do it. There are no excuses.” – Bruce Nauman
36.) “Don’t use your past as an excuse, excuse your excuses and take action now!!!” – Bernard Kelvin Clive
37.) “No one will ever blame you for trying to get it right.” – Lorii Myers
38.) “No excuse is as good as not having one.” – Marty Rubin
39.) “Stop standing in your own way. Stop making excuses. Stop talking about why you can’t. Stop sabotaging yourself. Decide which direction you are going in and take action. One decision at a time, one moment at a time.” – Akiroq Brost
40.) “We ought to relentlessly ignore excuses, especially those we are told by ourselves.” – Mokokoma Mokhonoana
41.) “Never ever let ‘life’ get in the way of your dreams. ‘Life’ is just another excuse.” – Monroe Mann
42.) “The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never excuses himself.” – Henry Ward Beecher
43.) “I think as you make mistakes, the No. 1 thing you’ve got to do is learn from them and not just make excuses for them. I’ve made more than anybody, probably.” – Lane Kiffin
Excuse Quotes About Weakness and Strength
44.) “He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.” – Benjamin Franklin
45.) “To rush into explanations is always a sign of weakness.” – Agatha Christie
46.) “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
47.) “How pitiful is an intelligence used only to make excuses to quieten the conscience.” – Ignazio Silone
48.) “It takes guts to realize you screwed up and to then come clean without any excuses.” – Brandon Webb
49.) “The best job goes to the person who can get it done without passing the buck or coming back with excuses.” – G. M. Trevelyan
50.) “No excuses. Play like a champion.” – Kelley O’Hara
51.) “Don’t bother explaining—I’ve heard all the excuses and the trouble is most of them are true.” – John Brunner
52.) “Excuses and complaints are signs of a dreamless life.” – Bangambiki Habyarimana
53.) “If you have passion, there is no need for excuses because your enthusiasm will trump any negative reasoning you might come up with. Enthusiasm makes excuses a nonissue.” – Wayne Dyer
54.) “I. Hate. Excuses. Excuses are a disease.” – Cam Newton
55.) “I do not believe in excuses. I believe in hard work as the prime solvent of life’s problems.” – James Cash Penney
56.) “Whenever there is a big difficulty, I don’t make excuses. Instead, I say I will solve it even if everybody leaves.” – Masayoshi Son
57.) “Most people don’t have that willingness to break bad habits. They have a lot of excuses and they talk like victims.” – Carlos Santana
58.) “I don’t like to give in to injuries. I don’t like to use them as excuses. Everybody has them.” – John Stockton
Other excuses quotes and sayings
59. “For every excuse there is a solution.” – Matt Kepnes
60. “After a while excuses lose their worth and their meaning.” – DragoMania
61. “Excuses are made by the power of weakness. Their purpose is merely a wish you have; you wish they would demolish your guilt and regret.” – Noha Alaa El-Din
62. “Once an excuse has been deployed, brutal honesty is no longer an option.” – Linda Berdoll
63. “The only thing standing between us and our goals are the excuses we fall back on that keep us in chains, little do we know that we hold the key in our grasp.” – Mark W Boyer
64. “You could always make an excuse not to make a change.” – Siobhan Curham
65. “If you look for an excuse, you’ll always find one.” – Anthony Liccione
66. “One excuse, could destroy a multitude of chances.” – Anthony Liccione
67. “Let’s not use obstacles as excuses for not achieving our dreams, use them as signs that the dream is worth it.” – Steven Aitchison
68. “Excuses are used to justify leaving the scene of truth without changing.” – Orrin Woodward
Excuses quotes that are full of wisdom
69. “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
70. “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
71. “Excuses are merely nails used to build a house of failure.” ― Habeeb Akande
72. “The worse enemy you can fight is the one that you are hiding behind your excuses” ― Manuel Corazzari
73. “Labeling something as impossible is frequently my way of excusing myself from doing something simply because it’s more difficult than I would like it to be.” ― Craig D. Lounsbrough
74. “Small, minded people rarely have ideas, just a litany of excuses and complaints.” ― RJ Intindola
75. “Two things that have been around before us and will be after us, and while we are here you will always choose one… EXCUSES or HUSTLE” ― Sotero M Lopez II
76. “For every excuse there is a solution.” ― Matt Kepnes
77. “Excuses and comfort are tools for fools.” ― Santosh Kumar
78. “Winning becomes addicted to you when you destroy all the excuses of giving up.” ― Hiral Nagda
Excuses Quotes That Will Make You Miss Out on The Future
79. “However, don’t let perfectionism become an excuse for never getting started.” — Marilu Henner
80. “Pessimism is an excuse for not trying and a guarantee to a personal failure.” — William J. Clinton
81. “If it’s important you’ll find a way. If it’s not, you’ll find an excuse.” — Ryan Blair
82. “A lie is an excuse guarded.” — Jonathan Swift
83. “An excuse is a skin of a reason stuffed with a lie.” — Billy Sunday
84. “A real failure does not need an excuse. It is an end in itself.” — Gertrude Stein
85. And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.” — William Shakespeare
86. “Once you begin to explain or excuse all events on racial grounds, you begin to indulge in the perilous mythology of race.” — James Earl Jones
87. Don’t use the past as an excuse to miss out on your future.” — Alan Cohen
88. “The person who really wants to do something finds a way; the other finds an excuse.” — John Templeton
What can you achieve when you don’t make excuses?
Maybe you’ll find time to volunteer or spend more time with family, accomplish something impressive at work or school, or learn a new skill.
Or maybe those excuses were just getting in the way of you becoming happier, healthier, or more organized.
No one other than you really knows what your goals are, but you can take the first step toward success by refusing to make excuses.
After all, you probably don’t actually believe those excuses.
The truth is, nobody else believes your excuses either.
It’s time to leave them behind as you begin something great.
Which of these eye-opening excuses quotes resonated with you best?
Do you have any other inspirational quotes to add?
Let us know it the comment section below.
