APOLOGIZE, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offense.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Apologize,” The Cynic’s Word Book (1906)
(Source)
Included in The Devil's Dictionary (1911).
Quotations about:
apologize
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Aravis also had many quarrels (and, I’m afraid even fights) with Cor, but they always made it up again: so that years later, when they were grown up they were so used to quarreling and making it up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
The Horse and His Boy (1954)
If you aren’t having to apologize every now and then you aren’t being interesting enough.
Robert Scoble (b. 1965) American blogger, technical journalist, author
“My Apology to Tim Cook,” Google+ (6 Oct 2011)
It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.
P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) Anglo-American humorist, playwright and lyricist [Pelham Grenville Wodehouse]
The Man Upstairs (1914)
The greatest achievement in my life in terms of morality is that I can apologize to someone I have wronged. I can bow my head and ask for forgiveness. I think everyone should learn to do this, everyone should realize that, far from humiliating, it elevates the soul.
Mstislav Rostropovich (1927-2007) Russian cellist and conductor
(Attributed)
Apologizing. — A very desperate habit, — one that is rarely cured. Apology is only egotism wrong side out. Nine times out of ten, the first thing a man’s companion knows of his shortcoming is from his apology. It is mighty presumptuous on your part to suppose your small failures of so much consequence that you must make a talk about them.
There is no calamity that right words will not begin to redress.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Eloquence,” Representative Men, Lecture 3 (1850)
A long apology is a hideous thing.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Letter to Dr. Charles Burney (18 Mar 1782)
