Quintilian Quotes

I. Hate. Excuses. Excuses are a disease.

There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.

The easiest thing to do in the world is pull the covers up over your head and go back to sleep.

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

Of all our faults, the one that we excuse most easily is idleness.

Excuses change nothing, but make everyone feel better.

He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.

I'm a bit of a coward, and lazy, oddly enough.

I am lazy.

Lazy people are always anxious to be doing something.

Laziness is a secret ingredient that goes into failure. But it's only kept a secret from the person who fails.

I'll probably make loads of plans, and then just sit around on my bottom all day long and do nothing.

Human nature is above all things lazy.

There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it.

I'm a lazy sod.

I can make going to the dry-cleaners last an entire day, and the dry cleaners might be 150 yards from my front door. You might find it hard to believe, but I am bone-idle lazy.

Sloth, not ill-will, makes me unjust.

Yeah, I am lazy. There's no doubt about that.

An excuse is sometimes more ugly than guilt.

Of all the cankers of human happiness, none corrodes with so silent, yet so baneful a tooth as indolence.

Men are only too clever at shifting blame from their own shoulders to those of others.

OK, I'm as lazy as the next guy. Full disclosure. And I often feel guilty about it.

When I don't feel like working, I don't.

An excuse is the handy explanation we offer when we disappoint other people.

I don't like sitting around and not doing anything because that's the easiest way to get complacent and get lazy.