Popular quotes about Criticism! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 11
In the spiritual domain, criticism is love turned sour... If criticism becomes a habit, it will destroy the moral energy of the life and paralyze the spiritual force... Whenever you are in a critical temper, it is impossible to enter into communion with God. Criticism makes you hard and vindictive and cruel, and leaves you with the flattering unction that you are a superior person. It is impossible to develop the characteristics of a saint and maintain a critical attitude.
Oswald ChambersThe way we respond to criticism pretty much depends on the way we respond to praise. If praise humbles us, then criticism will build us up. But if praise inflates us, then criticism will crush us; and both responses lead to our defeat.
Warren W. WiersbeFace your path with courage, don't be scared of people's criticism. And, above all, don't let yourself get paralyzed by your own criticism.
Paulo CoelhoExpressions of sharp and even violent criticism of religion and the church have been welcomed, for they usually imply sincerity of thought. If caustic criticism of religious institutions and practices is irreligious, then Amos, Isaiah, and Jesus were very irreligious men. In fact, that is exactly what many of their contemporaries took them to be.
Halford LuccockCriticism at the wrong time, even if it's legitimate criticism, can be seriously damaging and make the writer lose faith in what he's doing. It's the timing that's all-important.
Donna TarttFailing once doesn't make you a failure. One difference between a successful person and an average person is how much criticism they can take, the average person cannot take much criticism and that's why they fail to be leaders and they do remain average all their lives
Robert KiyosakiIn one sense, you put a lot of yourself into a small press - it's your personal tastes that are on the line - so when criticism is levelled it can feel personal. But, on the other hand, it can be very welcome and necessary. You're never entirely impervious, and one of the main benefits of being a small operation is that you can change the way you do things quickly in response to criticism. In all instances it pays to have a sense of humour and perspective.
Andrew LatimerEvery time you make the right choice in the face of potential criticism you build strength that makes choosing the right easier the next time. When you make it clear that you will not vary from your standards, you will be led to individuals like yourself and the criticism from others will become less intense.
Richard G. ScottTake criticism, smash it into dust. Add color and use it to paint breathtaking images of unicorns frolicking through endless fields of greatness.
Matthew Gray GublerThe concept of loyalty is distorted when it is understood to mean blind acceptance. It is correctly interpreted when it is assumed to cover honest criticism.
Dag HammarskjoldFor some reason if we hear 100 praises and one criticism, we focus on that one hurtful thing.
Carmen ElectraOnce the government can demand of a publisher the names of the purchasers of his publication, the free press as we know it disappears. Then the spectre of a government agent will look over the shoulder of everyone who reads. ... Fear of criticism goes with every person into the bookstall. The subtle, imponderable pressures of the orthodox lay hold. Some will fear to read what is unpopular, what the powers-that-be dislike. ... fear will take the place of freedom in the libraries, book stores, and homes in the land.
William O. DouglasI gave up music criticism because of the increasingly obvious conflict of interest. I couldn't say anything bad about the records when I might be meeting that person's manager backstage an hour later.
Stephin MerrittI regret that some on the extreme right have been so critical of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and have adamantly opposed the naming of a successor who shares her judicial philosophy and qualities. And their criticism actually reflects poorly upon them.
Patrick LeahyYou just never give up, no matter how hard the challenges are, and observe this world with a healthy dose of criticism and don't just follow the herd like somebody else might do.
Renny HarlinPersecution is the first law of society because it is always easier to suppress criticism than to meet it.
Howard Mumford JonesSo I was doing well academically, and I was a well-ranked tennis player and was the apple of my handsome father's eye-and then I would bring home a report card with a B-plus on it, and my parents would look at the report card as if I'd flunked. "Uh, honey?" one of them would ask, looking perplexed. "Now, this isn't a criticism but, if you could get a B-plus in philosophy, how much harder would it have been to get an A-minus?"
Anne LamottWhat if criticism is a science as well as an art? Not a pure or exact science, of course, but these phrases belong to a nineteenth-century cosmology which is no longer with us.
Northrop FryeWhy anyone, by dying, should thereby be declared beyond criticism, innocent of wrongdoing, suddenly filled with virtue and above reproach escapes me.
Dick CavettI noticed affixed to a laboratory door the following words: "Les thรฉories passent. Le Grenouille reste. [The theories pass. The frog remains.] &mdashJean Rostand, Carnets d'un biologiste." There is a risk that in the less severe discipline of criticism the result may turn out to be different; the theories will remain but the frog may disappear.
Frank KermodeWe as the band are passionate and energetic musicians. We have minimised the amount of self-criticism. Fear of death, total impatience and an unconcerned attitude to weary notions of good and bad is what's making us exceed speed limits. We're hijacking the holy inspiration from otherness, and we don't spoil it with personal aesthetic preferences. We are panthers and gazelles, not slugs and tortoises. Though it must be said that after turning forty I've started to resemble a sloth more and more.
Jussi LehtisaloAs more and more citizens express what they think, and defend it in writing, that will change the way people understand public issues. It is easy to be wrong and misguided in your head. It is harder when the product of your mind can be criticized by others. Of course, it is a rare human who admits that he has been persuaded that he is wrong. But it is even rarer for a human to ignore when he has been proven wrong. The writing of ideas, arguments, and criticism improves democracy.
Lawrence LessigIt is said that the fear of public speaking is a fear greater than death for most people. According to psychiatrists, the fear of public speaking is caused by the fear of ostracism, the fear of standing out, the fear of criticism, the fear of ridicule, the fear of being an outcast. THE FEAR OF BEING DIFFERENT PREVENTS MOST PEOPLE FROM SEEKING NEW WAYS TO SOLVE THEIR PROBLEMS.
Robert KiyosakiWhen we refuse to work with our disappointment, we break the Precepts: rather than experience the disappointment, we resort to anger, greed, gossip, criticism. Yet it's the moment of being that disappointment which is fruitful; and, if we are not willing to do that, at least we should notice that we are not willing. The moment of disappointment in life is an incomparable gift that we receive many times a day if we're alert. This gift is always present in anyone's life, that moment when 'It's not the way I want it!
Joko BeckI don't think of myself as a critic or teacher either, but simply - and at the obvious risk of disingenuousness - as someone who teaches, writes drama criticism (and other things) and feels that the American compulsion to take your identity from your profession, with its corollary of only one trade to a practitioner, may be a convenience to society but is burdensome and constricting to yourself.
Richard GilmanMerciless criticism and independent thinking are the two necessary traits of revolutionary thinking.
Bhagat SinghFaith can cut in so many ways. If you're penitent and not triumphal, it can move us to repentance and accountability and help us reach for something higher than ourselves. That can be a powerful thing, a thing that moves us beyond politics as usual, like Martin Luther King did. But when it's designed to certify our righteousness - that can be a dangerous thing. Then it pushes self criticism aside. There's no reflection.
Jim WallisIf you can't fully believe in your ideas, it very quickly communicates to a group of actors who need something to hold onto. They need to believe that whatever criticism, whatever comment is received, is meant.
Trevor NunnThe world will not know liberty until all that is religious and political is transformed into something simple and human and made susceptible to criticism and denial.
Alexander HerzenThe true Enlightenment thinker, the true rationalist, never wants to talk anyone into anything. No, he does not even want to convince; all the time he is aware that he may be wrong. Above all, he values the intellectual independence of others too highly to want to convince them in important matters. He would much rather invite contradiction, preferably in the form of rational and disciplined criticism. He seeks not to convince but to arouse - to challenge others to form free opinions.
Karl PopperConventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.
Bertrand RussellEven before 9/11 I was gripped by a sense of dread: our lack of criticism about what we were doing in the Middle East - the slagging off of a whole religious tradition.
Karen ArmstrongFor some reason, we are truly convinced that if we criticize ourselves, the criticism will lead to change. If we are harsh, we believe we will end up being kind. If we shame ourselves, we believe we end up loving ourselves. It has never been true, not for a moment, that shame leads to love. Only love leads to love.
Geneen RothAscetics and fakirs come to mitigate human suffering; to heal us and lead us on the path. They put up with criticism; they go through many worldly trials. Some of them have even become martyrs for our sake. But they have done all this with a smile and with gratitude to God. Hence sacrifice is a great virtue.
Dada VaswaniCriticism is, for me, like essay writing, a wonderful way of relaxation; it doesn't require a heightened and mediated voice, like prose fiction, but rather a calm, rational, even conversational voice.
Joyce Carol OatesI thought, if I write a book that is not a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, it's not going to mean that I will not get any criticism. I might as well write the book that I want to write.
Curtis SittenfeldAll good criticism should be judged the way art is. You shouldn't read it the way you read history or science.
Leslie FiedlerIn a moment when criticism shows a singular dearth of direction every man has to be a law unto himself in matters of theatre, writing, and painting. While the American Mercury and the new Ford continue to spread a thin varnish of Ritz over the whole United States there is a certain virtue in being unfashionable.
John Dos PassosThere are moments when you are, um, encouraged to dress a certain way. But I can't. It just erodes my soul. That's no criticism to girls who can wear a tiny dress and kill it - that's awesome. People always attribute being a feminist to hating girls being sexual, and that's not it at all. I'm just not into it.
Ellen PageFortunately, America remains a robust democracy, where most individuals are not afraid to speak out. What we have done in Iraq has, however, compromised out standing as an advocate of basic human rights - the prime minister of one country responding to criticism of America for its human rights put it, it was liking having Dracula guard the blood bank. The loss of America's moral standing has been one of the great losses of this war.
Joseph StiglitzThere is one criticism which cannot be leveled at interparliamentary conferences but which is applicable to a great extent to peace congresses: the meetings waste time.
Fredrik BajerA system such as classical mechanics may be 'scientific' to any degree you like; but those who uphold it dogmatically - believing, perhaps, that it is their business to defend such a successful system against criticism as long as it is not conclusively disproved - are adopting the very reverse of that critical attitude which in my view is the proper one for the scientist.
Karl Popper