If you don't want to do something, one excuse is as good as another.

This saying circulates as a Yiddish folk proverb rather than a line traceable to a single author or fixed text. Like many Yiddish proverbs shaped by Eastern European Jewish communal life, it reflects a practical, skeptical view of human motivation and the social rituals around obligation—work, family duties, communal expectations, and promises. In such settings, people often offered reasons for noncompliance that were outwardly polite but inwardly beside the point. The proverb crystallizes the observation that when someone has already decided against an action, the particular rationale offered is interchangeable; the “excuse” functions mainly as a social cover for a prior choice.

The proverb argues that reluctance precedes reasoning: if a person does not want to do something, they can always find (or invent) a justification, and the specific excuse matters less than the underlying unwillingness. It critiques rationalization and the tendency to dress up preference as necessity. Implicitly, it also advises listeners to look past stated reasons and attend to intent—both in others and in oneself. The line can be read as a call for honesty (“just say you don’t want to”) or as a warning about persuasion: arguments may fail not because they are weak, but because the other party is not motivated to agree or act.