#pretext

I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn't explain away afterwards. ↗

— Rudyard Kipling

#justification #mistakes #pretexts #humor

There are house demolitions and destruction all over the West Bank and Gaza. Just yesterday in Gaza they demolished three towers under the pretext that they were built close to a settlement. ↗

— Ahmed Yassin

#built #close #demolished #destruction #gaza

If there is no sufficient reason for war, the war party will make war on one pretext, then invent another... after the war is on. ↗

— Robert M. La Follette

#another #invent #make #party #pretext

All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture, is reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin of my own make, as good money! ↗

— Charles Dickens

#pretext #self-delusion #money

Tyrants seldom want pretexts. ↗

— Edmund Burke

#seldom #tyrants #want

Youth does not require reasons for living, it only needs pretexts. ↗

— Jose Ortega y Gasset

#living #needs #only #pretexts #reasons