"Better a bad excuse, than none at all"
About this Quote
A bad excuse isn’t the enemy of truth here; silence is. Camden’s line comes from a world where reputation was a form of currency and “having a story” could be the difference between keeping your place and losing it. As a historian of Elizabethan and early Stuart England, he understood how public life ran on performance: courts, churches, guilds, and universities all rewarded the appearance of order. An excuse, even a flimsy one, is a bid to stay inside that order.
The intent is practical, not uplifting. Camden isn’t praising dishonesty so much as naming a social fact: people prefer an explanation that preserves the rules to the uncomfortable admission that there is no explanation, or worse, that you simply didn’t care. A bad excuse signals you recognize an obligation and feel the pressure to answer for yourself. “None at all” reads as contempt, defiance, or guilt. In hierarchical societies, that can be catastrophic.
The subtext carries a cool, almost cynical anthropology. Excuses are less about persuading the listener than about proving you speak the language of accountability. Even an unconvincing defense gives others something to work with: a face-saving off-ramp, a way to downgrade conflict from moral outrage to minor inconvenience.
It also hints at how history itself is made. Camden spent his life sifting motives and justifications, knowing that power routinely launders its actions through narrative. The line lands because it’s not naive about human nature; it’s alert to how societies run on explanations, whether or not they’re good ones.
The intent is practical, not uplifting. Camden isn’t praising dishonesty so much as naming a social fact: people prefer an explanation that preserves the rules to the uncomfortable admission that there is no explanation, or worse, that you simply didn’t care. A bad excuse signals you recognize an obligation and feel the pressure to answer for yourself. “None at all” reads as contempt, defiance, or guilt. In hierarchical societies, that can be catastrophic.
The subtext carries a cool, almost cynical anthropology. Excuses are less about persuading the listener than about proving you speak the language of accountability. Even an unconvincing defense gives others something to work with: a face-saving off-ramp, a way to downgrade conflict from moral outrage to minor inconvenience.
It also hints at how history itself is made. Camden spent his life sifting motives and justifications, knowing that power routinely launders its actions through narrative. The line lands because it’s not naive about human nature; it’s alert to how societies run on explanations, whether or not they’re good ones.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|
More Quotes by William
Add to List
