Criticism- christiansquoting.org.uk

If you feel Dog tired at night, it may be because you growled all day!

For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.

Does my quiet self-pity get to you or should I move up to incessant nagging?

Today I will gladly share my experience and advice, for there are no sweeter words than "I told you so."

I am learning that criticism is not nearly as effective as sabotage.

Pick your friends but not to pieces.

All the honey a bee gathers during its lifetime doesn't sweeten its sting

Sharp acids corrode their own containers.... Albanian proverb

Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend's forehead.-Chinese Proverb

If you scatter thorns, don't go barefoot.-- Italian Proverb

A thick skin is a gift from God. Konrad Adenauer (1876-1976)

Critics are like eunuchs in a harem. They're there every night, they see it done every night, they see how it should be done every night, but they can't do it themselves. Brendan Behan--Quoted by Gyles Brandreth in *Theatrical Disasters*

It is well, when one is judging a friend, to remember that he is judging you with the same godlike and superior impartiality.--Arnold Bennett

Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses. Prov. 27:6

In all of history, we have found just one cure for error -- a partial antidote against making and repeating grand, foolish mistakes, a remedy against self-deception. That antidote is criticism." -David Brins

A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent." - John Calvin (1509 &endash; 1564)

Unjust criticism is often a disguised compliment. It often means that you have aroused jealousy and envy. Remember that no one ever kicks a dead dog. --Dale Carnegie (1888-1955)

There's not the least thing can be said or done, but people will talk and find fault. --Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) _Don Quixote de la Mancha_ [1605-1615]

Censure is often useful, praise is often deceitful ~ Winston Churchill 1874-1965

If anyone strives after humility and patience, he is a hypocrite. If he allow himself in the pleasures of this world, he is a glutton. If he seeks justice, he is impatient. If he seeks it not, he is a fool. If he would be prudent, he is stingy; if he would make others happy, he is dissolute. If he gives himself up to prayer, he is vainglorious. And this is the great loss of the Church that by means like these many are held back from goodness! Chrysostom, out of J.M. Neale, out of Spurgeon's Psalms, 31:11

It is better to correct your own faults than those of another.-- Democritus

Criticism is easy, art is difficult.- - Philippe Destouches

It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

You know who the critics are? The men who have failed in literature and art. - Benjamin Disraeli

To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. -- Will Durant

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. ... Albert Einstein, (1875-1955)

The very Chateau Lafite of whine. Michael Elliot

If you hear that someone is speaking ill of you, instead of trying to defend yourself you should say: 'He obviously does not know me very well, since there are so many other faults he could have mentioned. --Epictectus

In reality, the world have payed too great a compliment to critics, and have imagined them men of much greater profundity than they really are.
Henry Fielding (1707-1754) "Tom Jones," bk. 5, ch. 1, 1749.

Any fool can criticise, condemn and complain and most fools do. --Benjamin Franklin

If a friend tell thee a fault, imagine always that he telleth thee not the whole. --Thomas Fuller (I), _Introductio ad Prudentium_, 1731

I'm too rich to care what the critics say.~Mel Gibson

Censure and criticism never hurt anybody. If false, they can't hurt you unless you are wanting in manly character; and if true, they show a man his weak points, and forewarn him against failure and trouble. ~ William Gladstone.

If a donkey bray at you, don't bray at him. George Herbert

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.... Elbert Hubbard

Personalize your sympathies; depersonalize you antipathies. --W. R. Inge, _More Lay Thoughts of a Dean_, 1931

A man who tells me my play is very bad, is less my enemy than he who lets it die in silence. A man, whose business it is to be talked of, is much helped by being attacked. - Samuel Johnson, Quoted in Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

It is advantageous to an authour, that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck only at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.. - Samuel Johnson, Quoted in Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

Nothing ... will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome. --Samuel Johnson Rasselas

You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables. -- Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson)

When the people criticised and answered his pamphlets, papers, &c. Why now, these fellows are only advertising my book (he would say); it is surely better a man should be abused than forgotten. --Piozzi: Anecdotes of Johnson

To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship. - Samuel Johnson: Rambler #59

To hear complaints is wearisome to the wretched and the happy alike.... Samuel Johnson

Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.-- Franklin P. Jones

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. Carl Gustav Jung

I saw the show under unfortunate circumstances: the curtain was up. -- George S. Kaufman

He has great tranquillity of heart who cares neither for the praises nor the fault-finding of men. He will easily be content and pacified, whose conscience is pure. You are not holier if you are praised, nor the more worthless if you are found fault with. What you are, that you are; neither by word can you be made greater than what you are in the sight of God. ... Thomas ý Kempis (1380-1471), Of the Imitation of Christ [1418]

I saw this show under adverse circumstances - my seat was facing the stage. (On Three Guys Naked from the Waist Down.) John David Klein

The highest point to which a weak but experienced mind can rise is detecting the weakness of better men. -- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, _Aphorisms_, late 18thC

I have never found in a long experience of politics that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance. - Harold Macmillan (1894 &endash; 1986)

s that the aroma of sour grapes I smell wafting from your whine cellar? - Keith Martin

We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend a man for his own good is to have a healthy love for him.
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592) Essays, bk. III, ch. 11 [1595]

He who dares not offend cannot be honest. -- Thomas Paine

Who can refute a sneer? --William Paley (1743-1805): Moral Philosophy. Vol. ii. Book v.Chap. 9.

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force. Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) Book review; in "The Algonquin Wits," ed. by Robert E. Drennan, 1968.

I don't mind anything that's written about me, as long as it's not true.- Dorothy Parker

The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.
Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993)"Pearls of Wisdom," ed. J. Agel and W. Glanze, 1987.

To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult. --Plutarch

I don't pay much attention to critics. The world is divided into two kinds of people: those who can, andthose who criticize.--Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)_New Yorker_ [October 6, 1997], "Prompting the President"

I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me.
Max Reger (1873-1916) German composer Responding to a savage review of his music (1906) In Nicolas Slonimsky, Lexicon of Musical Invective (1953)

If you are not being criticized, you may not be doing much,- Donald Rumsfeld

Answer them [critics] with silence and indifference. It works better, Iassure you, than anger and argument...-Gioacchino Rossini (1792 - 1868) Italian opera composer

I must be cruel only to be kind.--William Shakespeare (1564-1616)_Hamlet_ [1600-1601], act iii, sc.iv, ln. 178

Although I cannot lay an egg, I am a very good judge of omelettes. -- G. B. Shaw

Remember, a statue has never been set up in honour of a critic. - Jean Sibelius (1865 &endash; 1957)

No matter how disastrously some policy has turned out, anyone who criticizes it can expect to hear: "But what would you replace it with?" When you put out a fire, what do you replace it with. -- Thomas Sowell

If any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him, for you are worse than he thinks you to be. If he charges you falsely on some point, yet be satisfied, for if he knew you better he might change the accusation, and you would be no gainer by the correction. If you have your moral portrait painted and it is ugly, be satisfied, for it only needs a few blacker touches, and it would be still nearer the truth.--Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)_Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit_ Vol. 34 [1888]

Our souls may lose their peace and even disturb other people's, if we are always criticizing trivial actions -- which often are not real defects at all, but we construe them wrongly through our ignorance of their motives.... . Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

Sacred cows make the best hamburger. --Mark Twain

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have. -- Leonardo da Vinci

Don't be distracted by criticism. Remember - the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you. --- Zig Ziglar