QOTD: G.K. Chesterton — Apologies

A stiff apol­o­gy is a sec­ond insult. The injured par­ty does not want to be com­pen­sat­ed because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt.
–G.K. Chester­ton, author (1874–1936)

I’ve annoyed quite a few peo­ple because I will not accept or acknowl­edge apolo­gies giv­en under duress.

If some­one over about 6 years old has been told to apol­o­gize for some­thing, I do not believe the apol­o­gy is sin­cere. Any­one over that age who does­n’t have some sort of dis­abil­i­ty should be able to tell that he has done or said some­thing hurt­ful or out of line. 

I won’t ask for an apol­o­gy for the same rea­son. If some­one is apolo­getic, she will apol­o­gize on her own.

I sup­pose I’m also odd in that I do not con­sid­er a tossed-off “sor­ry” an apol­o­gy. An apol­o­gy includes acknowl­edg­ment of the wrong done and an expres­sion of regret. If you’ve done some­thing more than acci­den­tal­ly bump into a per­son in pub­lic with­out any harm done, “sor­ry” isn’t sufficient.

EDIT: There’s no hid­den mean­ing in this post. It was pro­voked sole­ly by the quote, which was in a mail­ing list mes­sage. I don’t think I’m wait­ing for an apol­o­gy about any­thing from any­one. Really.