Top 100 Quotes About Self Criticism
#1. Criticism is valuable ... and self-congratulatory experiences are not.
Harold Prince
#2. Painting what I experience, translating what I feel, is like a great liberation. But it is also work, self-examination, consciousness, criticism, struggle.
Balthus
#3. The stereotype of the supercrip, in the eyes of its critics, represents a sort of overachieving, overdetermined self-enfreakment that distracts from the lived daily reality of most disabled people.
Jose Alaniz
#4. We dedicate most of the time worrying about our deficiencies and self-criticism instead of concentrating on our goals and believing in our destination
Sunday Adelaja
#5. Until you stop blaming and become positively self-critical you are not going to move forward.
Bryant McGill
#6. Accounting for the most part, remains a legalistic and traditional practice, almost immune to self-criticism by scientific methods.
Kenneth E. Boulding
#7. Self-pitying, self-righteous, self-important, all the selfs except self-confident, the quality that she always needed the most.
David Nicholls
#8. To acquire true self power you have to feel beneath no one, be immune to criticism and be fearless.
Deepak Chopra
#9. When we carry the thoughts of negativity and self-criticism, we inspire just what we don't want: poor health and an unattractive physical body.
Dashama Konah Gordon
#10. To listen to critics, pro or con, and take their words to heart is to subcontract your self-esteem to strangers. (from Workbook)
Steven Heighton
#11. For the critic, criticism is a form of natural self-expression, as poetry is to the poet. So, for a critic, criticism is a true thing. Criticism isn't written for poets, it's written for other readers. One hopes it is true for other readers if it's true for oneself.
Helen Vendler
#12. The most dangerous negativity comes from ourselves in the form of doubts, fears and unreasonable self-criticisms.
Bryant McGill
#13. He found his voice in the silences, where he could sing as loud and as long as he wanted with no one to complain of it.
Geraldine Brooks
#14. The basis of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. In other words, religion is the self-consciousness and self-feeling of man who has either not yet found himself or has already lost himself again.
Christopher Hitchens
#15. For most of us even the imagined threat of criticism functions to control our behavior. We are haunted to some degree by questions about our self-worth. As a consequence, we continually attempt to prove to ourselves and others that we are okay people, credible, trustworthy, and competent.
Robert D. Hare
#16. The greater self-confidence an individual possesses, the less inclined he is to put down others. This says a lot about those who constantly belittle.
Richelle E. Goodrich
#18. We are all failures- at least the best of us are.
J.M. Barrie
#19. When you are free from self-doubt, you fail better. You accept criticism and listen.
Jennifer Lee
#20. I can have fairly crippling self-criticism. It doesn't really put me in a vulnerable state, I just get glum and intolerable, but it certainly is a vulnerability.
Damian Kulash
#21. Those who seek to listen to their own inner voice forget to listen to the judgment of others.
Vironika Tugaleva
#22. Mindfulness helps us see the addictive aspect of self-criticism - a repetitive cycle of flaying ourselves again and again, feeling the pain anew.
Sharon Salzberg
#23. Criticism is no threat to your self-esteem or identity, but rather informs you.
Bryant McGill
#24. Constructive criticism and self-criticism are extremely important for any revolutionary organization. Without them, people tend to drown in their mistakes, not learn from them.
Assata Shakur
#25. A remark of my brother's apropos of the troubles and pains our mother endured: "Old age is nature's self-criticism.
Emil M. Cioran
#26. Maybe the most important teaching is to lighten up and relax. It's such a huge help in working with our crazy mixed-up minds to remember that what we're doing is unlocking a softness that is in us and letting it spread. We're letting it blur the sharp corners of self-criticism and complaint.
Pema Chodron
#27. When anyone starts out to do something creative - especially if it seems a little unusual - they seek approval, often from those least inclined to give it. But a creative life cannot be sustained by approval, any more than it can be destroyed by criticism - you learn this as you go on.
Will Self
#28. Self-criticism is a way of life in North Korea. Everybody has to do it, even the highest party members. Our sessions were once a week on Monday mornings. All through the week, we were supposed to keep a diary, where we wrote about the times we failed to live up to Kim Il-sung's teachings.
Charles Robert Jenkins
#30. Criticism is a destroyer of self-worth and esteem. It is heartbreaking how criticism can wound children and diminish their self-esteem.
H. Burke Peterson
#31. When this low self-worth is hidden, one can understand why the person becomes hypersensitive to the opinions of others and has a great deal of difficulty accepting criticism no matter how warranted or gently said.
David W. Earle
#32. The Hebrew Bible is the supreme example of that rarest of phenomena, a national literature of self-criticism. Other ancient civilisations recorded their victories. The Israelites recorded their failures. It is what the Mosaic and prophetic books are about.
Jonathan Sacks
#33. A self-awareness moment. All of a sudden everything he has done comes flashing into his mind, a self-criticism that is unbearable.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#34. The great thing about making yourself the villain is nobody's likely to contradict you.
Peter Watts
#35. Tomorrow is another day, we rather hope it will be better but better it won't be unless self-foibles are examined.
Barbara Oakley
#37. Criticism of others is thus an oblique form of self-commendation. We think we make the picture hang straight on our wall by telling our neighbors that all his pictures are crooked.
Fulton J. Sheen
#38. When virtues are pointed out first, flaws seem less insurmountable.
Judith Martin
#39. There is no dictionary in the world that includes the words 'skinny' or 'fat' under the definitions of 'beautiful' and 'ugly'. So, focus on being healthy and stop the self-criticism.
Maddy Malhotra
#40. We all have our weak moments when we believe the worst things we think about ourselves.
Marty Rubin
#41. Introverts' wounds usually begin in childhood. Our families of origin convey to us messages about introversion, which set us on a path of either self-acceptance or self-criticism.
Adam S. McHugh
#42. Criticism is poisonous...to others and to self..Ever heard of the statue of a CRITIC being erected for others to get inspired by ?? ...not in the history of mankind !
Abha Maryada Banerjee
#44. I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent; curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas.
Albert Einstein
#45. Home is the place I can live with myself, without hating myself.
Peggy Lampman
#46. Complexes can be the feelings of guilt, a victim complex, and fear of failure, criticism, poverty, and loneliness, loss of love, success, insecurity, denial, and low self-esteem
Sunday Adelaja
#47. Most of our censure of others is only oblique praise of self, uttered to show the wisdom and superiority of the speaker. It has all the invidiousness of self-praise, and all the ill-desert of falsehood.
Tryon Edwards
#48. We are never so much disposed to quarrel with others as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves.
William Hazlitt
#49. Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn - and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.
Dale Carnegie
#50. I don't think theory adds to criticism. (Methodology does, for better or worse.) Theory's function is to make criticism self-conscious, maybe even a little sheepish, about its ex cathedra pronouncements.
Paul Fry
#51. It is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of high maturity, to rise to the level of self-criticism.
Martin Luther King Jr.
#52. Self-deception ultimately explains Japan's plight. The Japanese have never accepted that change is in their interest - and not merely a response to U.S. criticism.
Paul Samuelson
#53. Aesthetic criticism returns us to the autonomy of imaginative literature and the sovereignty of the solitary soul, the reader not as a person in society but as the deep self, our ultimate inwardness.
Harold Bloom
#54. Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn't worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.
Louise L. Hay
#57. Having inner peace means committing to letting go of self-criticism and self-doubt.
Sanaya Roman
#58. There's no wrong way to meditate. And meditation should never be a difficult practice that leads to self criticism.
Moby
#59. Surely the United States Senate is big enough to take self-criticism and self-appraisal. Surely we should be able to take the same kind of character attacks that we "dish out" to outsiders.
Margaret Chase Smith
#60. The most tragic consequence of our criticism of a man is to block his way to humiliation and grace, precisely to drive him into the mechanisms of self justification and into his faults instead of freeing him from them. For him, our voice drowns the voice of God.
Paul Tournier
#61. Before thinking about what you are going to say, think about what I am saying.
Alireza Salehi Nejad
#62. It seems to me that I cannot afford, as a self-respecting individual, to refuse to do a thing merely because it will make me disliked or bring down a storm of criticism on my head.
Eleanor Roosevelt
#63. I've been as critically rubbished as acclaimed and the worst thing about that is that it usually plays into your own self-criticism.
Rachel Ward
#64. If everybody likes you, you are doing it wrong.
Ben Michaelis
#65. Making judgments on films is in many ways so peculiarly vaporous an occupation that the only question is why, beyond the obvious opportunities for a few lectures fees and a little careerism at a dispiritingly self-limiting level, anyone does it in the first place.
Joan Didion
#66. I'll tell you, I think that the Internet has provided an enormous boost to film criticism by giving people an opportunity to self publish or to find sites that are friendly.
Roger Ebert
#67. Self-criticism and negative thoughts about yourself will attract people who reflect this back to you, showing critical behavior and can abuse you physically.
Hina Hashmi
#68. There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question.
Carl Sagan
#69. A creative life cannot be sustained by approval any more than it can be destroyed by criticism.
Will Self
#70. Criticism is just someone's opinion you don't agree with!
Mariela Dabbah
#71. Excessive self-criticism is a bad habit and extraordinarily self-destructive. Don't be your own worst enemy!
Bryant McGill
#72. Can we have a time-out on the self-criticism for the rest of the evening?"
"Not the rest of the evening. I can do about half an hour and then force of habit takes over.
Sarra Manning
#73. Inspiration may be a form of super-consciousness, or
perhaps of subconsciousness - I wouldn't know. But I am
sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.
Aaron Copland
#74. A final word on self-criticism: Do not beat up on yourself. Even if you think you know your flaws, there is no need to advertise them. Most people won't have noticed.
Philip Toshio Sudo
#75. We all have the tendency to believe self-doubt and self-criticism, but listening to this voice never gets us closer to our goals. Instead, try on the point of view of a mentor or good friend who believes in you, wants the best for your, and will encourage you when you feel discouraged.
Kelly McGonigal
#76. Especially where the implications of what we think we are seeing seem to be profound, we may not exercise adequate self-discipline and self-criticism.
Carl Sagan
#77. A modern philosopher who has never once suspected himself of being a charlatan must be such a shallow mind that his work is probably not worth reading.
Leszek Kolakowski
#78. It is doubtful that real personal change can occur without the conscious and painful process of self-criticism that is required to reject power and ego.
Janis Birkeland
#79. PARAPHRASE: Genius is not that you are smarter than everyone else. It is that you are ready to receive the inspiration.
Albert Einstein
#81. Because of its exceptional capacity for self-criticism, the West took the initiative in abolishing slavery; the calls for abolition did not resonate even in black Africa, where rival African tribes took black prisoners to be sold as slaves in the West.
Ibn Warraq
#82. As for me, I am unfortunate enough not to posses a happy temperament like Najdorf, who views every happening in a rosy light and avoids any possibility of self-criticism. I am one of those unlucky skeptics who never overlook the dark side of even the happiest experience.
Savielly Tartakower
#83. It does not matter whatsoever, what the people around you think you can or cannot do. What really matters is what you think about your capabilities.
Abhijit Naskar
#84. I think self-criticism is sort of a given when you're an actor. It's also about being curious and not being flippant. Anyone who accepts being in this noble profession is automatically self-critical.
James Earl Jones
#85. Don't take to heart, any negative criticism. Focus on positive thoughts
Lailah Gifty Akita
#86. I'm never a fan of the sociopathic kind of reviewing, people who are sort of self-immolating and have social problems or whatever, and let it out in literary-criticism form. I just feel like book reviewing should be respectful and calm and not filled with bile.
Dave Eggers
#87. One should never criticize his own work except in a fresh and hopeful mood. The self-criticism of a tired mind is suicide.
Charles Horton Cooley
#88. Lawrence's claims for the vital self and his inability to make it
convincing independently of Freudian psychology are serious flaws in the novel, explain the sense in which the author's vision exceeds his grasp, and bring the cleavage between intention and performance into clear perspective.
John E. Stoll
#89. I have learned to be kinder to myself, to imagine that I am my own best friend, whispering comforting words in my ear and drowning out the voices of Self-Doubt and Self-Criticism. I have learned to acknowledge and appreciate the 98% that I have achieved instead of the 2% that I didn't.
Roz Savage
#90. My capacity as a monk was to passionately believe utter nonsense, and when you're an actor you have to do the same thing. Also, Christianity used to have a lot to do with self-loathing and an acceptance of criticism and things like that which is terribly important for actors.
Tom Baker
#91. I don't think that we should waste our time criticizing other people. Self-criticism allows us to be the best version of ourselves.
Braden Pedersen
#92. Self-criticism, cruel, unsparing criticism that goes to the very root of the evil, is life and breath for the proletarian movement.
Rosa Luxemburg
#93. He who don't understand the real essence of critics and oppositions in the journey of life criticizes and opposes himself, knowingly or unknowingly, in his journey of life.
Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
#94. Perfectionism is simply putting a limit on your future. When you have an idea of perfect in your mind, you open the door to constantly comparing what you have now with what you want. That type of self criticism is significantly deterring.
John Eliot
#95. In every book she'd ever read, the heroine was subject to self-doubt and unjust criticism. And in every case, it only served to harden their resolve.
Kathleen Tessaro
#96. The South ought to be led, by candid and honest criticism, to assert her better self and do her full duty to the race she has cruelly wronged and is still wronging.
W.E.B. Du Bois
#97. I feel like oversized trousers on sale, not even made of good material, that no one wants to buy. They just hang in there hoping that someone someday will compromise for its low cost.
Pawan Mishra
#98. The hard part about one being tough yet meek is the illusion of being a punching bag.
Criss Jami
#99. In the inner courtroom of my mind, mine is the only judgment that counts.
Nathaniel Branden
#100. Kissinger would probably be outraged even if he reread his own memoirs, on the grounds that they are not favorable enough.
Walter Isaacson
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