The chronic kicker, even the most violent critic, will frequently soften and be subdued in the presence of a patient, sympathetic listenerโ a listener who will be silent while the irate fault-finder dilates like a king cobra and spews the poison out of his system.
Dale CarnegieLet's find and remedy all our weaknesses before our enemies get a chance to say a word. That is what Charles Darwin did. ...When Darwin completed the manuscript of his immortal book "The Origin Of Species" he realized that the publication of his revolutionary concept of creation would rock the intellectual and religious worlds. So he became his own critic and spent another 15 years checking his data, challenging his reasoning, and criticizing his conclusions.
Dale Carnegie