Every criticism, judgment, diagnosis, and expression of anger is the tragic expression of an unmet need.

- Marshall Rosenberg

I made no resolutions for the new year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning, and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.

- Anais Nin

"What will they think of me?" must be put aside for bliss.

- Joseph Campbell

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.

- Dale Carnegie

Analyses of others are actually expressions of our own needs and values.

- Marshall Rosenberg

If it's very painful for you to criticize your friends - you're safe in doing it. But if you take the slightest pleasure in it, that's the time to hold your tongue.

- Alice Miller

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.

- Winston Churchill

Critics search for ages for the wrong word, which, to give them credit, they eventually find.

- Peter Ustinov

Persecution is the first law of society because it is always easier to suppress criticism than to meet it.

- Howard Mumford Jones

He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.

- Abraham Lincoln

Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism: The right to criticize. The right to hold unpopular beliefs. The right to protest. The right of independent thought.

- Margaret Chase Smith

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse.

- Samuel Johnson

Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you. Love me and I may be forced to love you.

- William Arthur Ward

Nothing is complete and thus nothing is exempt from criticism.

- James Luther Adams

Pity the leader caught between unloving critics and uncritical lovers.

- John Gardner

The man who is anybody and who does anything is surely going to be criticized, vilified, and misunderstood. This is part of the penalty for greatness, and every man understands, too, that it is no proof of greatness.

- Elbert Hubbard



A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her.

- David Brinkley



We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented with ourselves.

- Henri-Frederic Amiel



If your heart acquires strength, you will be able to remove blemishes from others without thinking evil of them.

- Mohandas K. Gandhi



It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

From a speech given in Paris at the Sorbonne in 1910

- Theodore Roosevelt



You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one.

- John Wooden



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

- Franklin P. Jones



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

- Elbert Hubbard



Criticism is prejudice made plausible.

- H. L. Mencken



Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.

- Henry Steele Commager



Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.

may be erroneously attributed

- Ralph Waldo Emerson



People love as self-recognition what they hate as an accusation.

- Elias Canetti