“He sighed. "I don't think an apology will do, Mercy. Because an apology implies that you wouldn't do it again. And, under the circumstances, you wouldn't do anything differently, would you?
"No.”
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Patricia Briggs 195
American writer 1965Related quotes
“Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for truth.”
“Don't do anything that you wouldn't feel comfortable reading about in the newspaper the next day.”
Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential
Part 1, Chapter 13; sometimes paraphrased: "Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth."
Books, Coningsby (1844), Contarini Fleming (1832)
“If you can think of nothing that wouldn't do harm, then do nothing.”
Panel with Edward Said at Columbia University, New York, April 1999 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/042214
Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999
Context: Let me just put the whole thing in a kind of mundane level. Like, suppose you walk out in the street, this evening, and you see a crime being committed, you know, somebody is robbing someone else. Well, you have three choices. One choice is to try to stop it, maybe you call 911 or something. Another choice is to do nothing. A third choice is to pick up an assault rifle and kill 'em both, and kill a bystander at the same time. Well, suppose you do that, and somebody says, "Well, you know, why did you do that?" And you say, "Look, I couldn't stand by and do nothing." I mean, is that a response? If you can think of nothing that wouldn't do harm, then do nothing. And the same is true, magnified, in international affairs. Apart from the fact that there were things that could have been done.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast #36 [@2:32:37]
Podcast
Confessions of an Advertising Man, p. 87 (Ballantine Books)